A few notes on relocating with sourdough
The first loaf of sourdough I ever made at Little Farm
The world doesn’t need another post on how to make sourdough bread. Yes, I’m a cliché. Yes, I began my sourdough starter last spring, at the start of the pandemic. Yes, I tried various recipes and methods to make bread until I found the one that worked right for me. Blah, blah, blah.
What I thought might be even a little bit useful is to share a few notes on sourdough relocation — moving my sourdough starter from NYC to Cape Cod, and adjusting my recipe and method to a new environment.
The humble beginnings of my sourdough
By way of background, I followed King Arthur Baking Company’s method for sourdough starter. It was during hardcore lockdown in Manhattan, when things like flour were scarce. I didn’t have access to anything fancy. I was able to find 30 pounds of all-purpose flour on Amazon for some outrageous price. I used NYC tap water. I threw them together in a mason jar and got to work. It probably took me two weeks to cultivate a decent starter that passed the float test. It wasn’t pretty, but it got there.
As mentioned, I went through some travails to find the right recipe and method for making bread. The one that stuck for me was Little Spoon Farm’s Beginner's Sourdough Bread. It offered a more reasonable schedule than others I tried, the recipe is simple, and it makes a great loaf of bread.
I made at least one loaf loaf nearly every week of the past year, even while traveling back and forth to Cape Cod to monitor the construction of Little Farm.
A few adaptations I’ve made
I maintain a small-ish starter:
Each week, I make two jars, each with 20g of starter, 50g of water, and 50g of all purpose flour.
One jar becomes the main starter. The other becomes a loaf of bread.
This generates what I find to be a reasonable amount of discard each week, which I use to make pizza dough, biscuits, crackers, or whatever. (There are so many great sourdough discard recipes!)
You can adjust the size of your starter based on how much you use each week, and how much discard you want to generate. Just keep the amounts of starter, water, and flour in proportion.
Recipe tweaks:
I have found that all purpose flour works fine, but I typically use 100% bread flour to make the dough.
The recipe suggests 350g of water (70% hydration). That produced a bit of a shapeless blob for me. I needed to adjust the amount of water down to give the dough the right texture.
My total ratio in NYC was 50g of starter, 500g of bread flour, 327g of NYC tap water, and 10g salt (65.4% hydration).
Here is my rough schedule:
Day 1
9:00 am: feed the starter.
6:30 pm or so: make the dough.
Day 2
7:00 am-ish: shape the loaf.
7:30 am: set oven to 450 degrees.
8:00 am: bake.
Relocating with sourdough
When it came time to officially relocate, I was a little worried about my sourdough starter. There were a few weeks when tending to my starter wasn’t possible. I neglected her and hoped for the best. I’ve read that once you’ve established a strong starter, it’s really hard to kill it. You can leave it unattended for weeks, and it will come back to life. I definitely put that theory to the test, and I’m happy to report that starter is super resilient!
About a week after moving, I returned my attention to bread making. I fed the starter on a Thursday, and it doubled in size just fine. I fed it again on Friday just for good measure, and it was happy as ever. On Friday evening I made the dough, and Saturday morning brought the first loaf I ever baked on the Little Farm, pictured above.
It looked beautiful on the outside. I was thrilled with my new oven, which produced really even browning of the crust. The crumb, however, was a little less chewy than expected. And perhaps it was a little more dry and crumbly.
On my second attempt the next week, I decided to adjust the hydration up just a bit. I switched from 327g of water to 337g (67.4% hydration), and the resulting change was remarkable. It looked about the same outside (see below). But the texture of the crumb changed quite a bit.
My second attempt at Little Farm, at 67.4% hydration
I actually served the loaf at brunch to a friend who’s a professional baker. (Check out Sin if your ever in Providence, RI — amazing cakes and desserts!) The next morning I got a text from her…
“I’ve been thinking about that bread ever since we left. I love how it’s so chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Would you be willing to share the recipe?”
That was awful nice to hear. And it gave me confidence in my sense of what needed adjustment in my recipe. Until further notice, I’m sticking with my new ratio of 50g of starter, 500g of bread flour, 337g of Cape Cod tap water, and 10g salt.
