Sourdough Bread.

I regularly make ordinary bread and we enjoy it.
I've thought about trying sourdough and have looked into making a starter. what puts me off is that it's so timeconsuming and all you get is one loaf whereas my old way it's 3-4 loaves.
I have a friend whose husband tried it during Covid but thought it was more of an experiment. Just a fad.

ps my friend has a big hungry family.

I make my own bread too but basic granary loaves. I love sourdough and I've tried it several times. It is quite time consuming, I would forget to feed my starter or it would grow at such a rate in the fridge that it really stressed me out.??. In the end I gave up and I buy it now and then; do you have any tips???

I honestly don't feel it takes up very much time, just a minute a couple of times a day. Apparently, once you have a mature starter you can keep it for years and have it there every time you want to bake. My only tip buffyfly, is to watch the tutorials on youtube over and over if need be. Thats what I did and now I seem to be getting it. Go on, have a go.

My starter is over two years old now and doing well, I feed early morning and allow to sit at room temperature then start my bread.
I make the dough around 12 noon then leave to rise until about 10pm do the second knead then in the banneton baskets and overnight in the fridge ready to bake ready for lunch.
I always do 1 for now and 1 to freeze.
To feed I use a mug of tepid water and a mug of flour, no weighing or measuring.
Once established it’s super easy, you need to establish the starter then find the recipe and timing that works for you.

Photographed is a recent batch of 2 sourdough and 2 ordinary whole meal.

My sourdough starter sits in the fridge until the day before I want to use it. Then I let it come up to room temperature and feed it. It's ready to use the next day and it's working well so far...
In my old house I couldn't keep a starter going properly through the Summer for a reason I never fathomed. So I made yeasted bread then, starting a new starter each September to make sourdough for the rest of the year. In this house it seems to have been happy through the hot days we've had so crossing my fingers!

I have found that just folding and stretching doesn't work for me and so I do knead the dough when I first make it, then rest it overnight before baking in the morning. Ten minutes work overall for a loaf or two.
I like being able to add nuts, fruit and seeds to make a variation on a muesli loaf. We have bread and cheese most days for lunch so I make a couple of loaves a week.

I really like making bread this way, thinking about the countless generations who have done exactly this process.
Trial and error to start with, but part of life now!

Thank you everyone for your tips, you have inspired me so will have another go tomorrow!

Lixy and Sago you really do know what you're doing don't you? So inspiring. I'm worried now that the actual bake won't be easy, BUT I will persevere. If at first etc etc. Haha.

Hi, I used my Kefir grains to make my Starter, after trying the usual process a couple of times without much success. It worked wonderfully. You can find instructions for this online.

I listened to a gory book at bedtime I think, this week on r4 called Mother which was based in a bakery and Mother was the starter..........

For those, like me, who are too lazy to bake bread Lidl bakery do a nice sourdough bread.

beautybumble I know what I’m doing now but it took a while, the hipsters have tried to turn sourdough making into a dark art!

Lidl will not confirm if their SD loaves are authentic.
Most supermarket SD contains yeast, soda and or raising agents.
True SD is flour water and salt.

beautybumble If only that were true! Mostly the bread turns out looking reasonable now but we have eaten many variations on the 'cowpat' theme of presentation. That's why I knead now - making that gluten work seems to help the loaf keep it's shape.

My long-suffering OH always declares that it tastes good, whatever it looks like! GC's call it 'popping bread' because i went through a phase of the crust making popping noises when it first came out of the oven. Have fun with it.

Ponies in the New Forest

Well it's coming up to a week in a couple of days and so far the starter is looking ok. In fact, I've got 2 on the go so that I can give one to someone that would like to try it. Save them having to wait a week. Love those beautiful ponies Litterpicker.

Adding to my earlier posts when I said timeconsuming, I didn't mean waiting for the starter to mature. I meant the actual breadmaking.
My normal bread takes 5-6 hours with 2 lots of rising., 30 mins baking. Sourdough seems to take days. Or weeks if you count the starter.
So the poor family goes hungry while waiting for the 'staff of life'.