Sourdough Starter Primer
In this page, and its associated pages, I'll try to give a complete overview of starting, maintaining, using, storing and reviving sourdough starters. These pages are largely based on the most frequent questions I receive through these web pages.
A good bit of the material here is recycled from other pages on this site, but re-arranged, re-edited, and re-purposed with the goal of making it more accessible. So, if you think you've read this before, you probably have.
Sourdough starter is, of course, at the heart of sourdough baking. Because of that, there is more folklore, misinformation, and anxiety surrounding sourdough starter than almost any other topic I can think of. Some people get so carried away with their starter you'd think the starter was the point of sourdough instead of just being a tool you need to make sourdough bread. Remember, the bread is the goal, the starter is just the way there.
With these pages, I hope that many of the questions I receive often will be laid to rest.
Long ago and far away my son, David, was taking martial arts classes. His teacher, Sensei John, was a very wise person, and as David was about to spar, Sensei John warned David, "Remember to breathe." It was good advice. When we obsess, we forget other things. Like, well, breathing. Not breathing produces its own stress. The point I'm trying to make is that sourdough shouldn't be an anxiety producing experience. It IS easy. Pre-literate people made sourdough. People have been using sourdough for between six and ten thousand years without having any understanding of what sourdough is or how it works. You have so much going for you that they didn't that there is no doubt in my mind that you can use sourdough also. So, calm down, remember to breathe and have a good time.
I'll suggest you go through the different sub pages in order. Each covers a separate phase in the life cycle of sourdough starter - starting a starter, maintaining a starter, storing a starter, reviving a starter and - most important of all - using a starter.
In each of the pages, my goal is to offer a very focused look at one phase in the life cycle of sourdough starters. A few correspondents have complained that these pages are too long. While a few pages are a little longer than some might like, they as focused as I can make them. They have been molded by the problems I've had, and the problems that people who visited the site have had. They answer the questions that I am most often asked. While they might be a bit long, I think reading them will save people far more time than they use in the reading of them. The intended audience is the practical baker rather than a graduate student in microbiology. Please let me know how you like these new pages!