http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/dining/sourdough-starter-bread-baking.html 2016-09-06 01:03:37 Sourdough Starter, America’s Rising Pet Adopt it, feed it, even name it. You’ll be paid back in lofty doughs and pungent breads. === Twenty years ago, after leaving his job as the manager of an The juice fermented. Wild yeast made an appearance. The starter bloomed. Mr. Hazen has been baking with it ever since. “We won’t eat anything else,” said his wife, Lorri. Jocelyn Knepler of Bowling Green, Ky., was given her sourdough starter by a friend in Midland, Tex., in 1973. “She got it from a woman in Kermit, Tex., who got it from a woman in Golden, Colo., who started it in 1948,” she said. Ms. Knepler and her starter have since moved together from Texas to Alaska, to Britain, to China and to Kentucky, where she is retired. Her daughter uses the same starter to feed her boys. “It’s a family tradition,” she said. A sourdough starter comes into your life the way a turtle might: as a pet you maybe didn’t know you wanted until someone hands it to you or you find yourself holding the terrarium after an impulse purchase you couldn’t explain if you tried. You get it or you make it or you buy it, and now you have a sourdough starter. It needs to be fed. It asks to be used. There are holes in our lives. They are filled for us by circumstance, or we fill them ourselves. “You do this simple thing,” said the comedian Sourdough starter is simply flour and water left to ferment, a medium that supports the wild yeast and lactobacilli that surround us all. Fed with more flour, and more water, a sourdough eventually achieves a kind of symbiosis that helps dough rise, without the use of cultivated yeast. That it delivers a pungent, slightly sour and deeply alluring taste to all that you cook with it is a happy side effect. Taste is not, strictly speaking, the point of sourdough. “A lot of us think that sourdough is a style of bread,” the writer Michael Pollan said in one episode of “ Mr. Pollan can sometimes sound bossy. “Sourdough is the proper way to make bread,” he said in one segment. It is certainly a simple way to make bread, at least once you have a starter up and going, though the process takes time, because the wild yeast in a sourdough starter is less vigorous than its commercial counterparts. Make bread with a sourdough starter, and the dough rises slowly as the starter ferments and changes, and as it reacts to all manner of factors, like flour type, air temperature, humidity and altitude. A baker can react to those factors with science or conviction. Erika Szymanski, an American doctoral student at the University of Otago, in New Zealand, has a master’s degree in microbiology and uses her sourdough regularly, for pancakes, skillet breads and rye loaves alike. But she is hardly doctrinaire about its care. “Sourdough is alive, and so are we,” she said. “The whole deal, I think, has to be about figuring out a relationship that works for both parties. And if it’s unconventional, whose business is it to replace love with fear and claim that you’re doing it wrong?” Start at the top, then. See if you can’t get some starter from someone. Anyone who has one will be glad to part with a cup or so, because to maintain its balance and size, you need to use or discard part of the starter each time you feed it. Or buy some — sourdough starters have started to show up at farmers’ markets and on So you might try making a starter yourself, combining a cup of water and a cup of flour in a covered bowl and allowing it to sit at room temperature until it begins to bubble and bloom. You can speed the process with grapes, as the baker Nancy Silverton advised years ago Peter Reinhart, the author of “ Once you have an active starter, which is to say one that is light and bubbly, with a pleasant yeasty-boozy aroma, a fork appears in the road. Obsessives and frequent bakers keep their starters out on their countertops, using the stuff daily, feeding it daily. Some people name their starters: William Butler Yeast, Herman, Sarah, Sky Pilot, Ms. Tippity, Eleanor, Roxanne. The rest of us keep sourdough starters in the refrigerator, which slows their metabolism, allowing us to use them, and feed them, less frequently. (We do not name our livestock.) Still, a starter must be fed. The bakers at King Arthur Samuel Fromartz, a home baker whose “ “Ultimately,” Mr. Fromartz said, a sourdough starter “adapts to your kitchen, feeding regime and feedstock, which will favor certain yeast and bacteria over time.” Each sourdough is what it is. You can use the starter you pull from your crock before feeding to make a fine overnight sponge, or base, for Eventually, you will want to make bread. Recipes for sourdough loaves abound, each seemingly more complicated than the last. Chad Robertson, the baker at An easier way to start is with Benjamin Seigle, a home baker in Chicago, certainly is. “I take a glob of it,” he said of his starter, “and throw it in the dough,” then he allows it to ferment for a day before baking. He doesn’t have the patience for more, he said, “and my palate isn’t sophisticated enough to notice the difference.” He’s happy with his two loaves a week, he said. Mr. Papa, the comedian, said he bakes three or four times a week. He talked about that one day recently with Joe Rogan, the broadcast host and Ultimate Fighting Champion color commentator, on Mr. Rogan’s podcast, “ “More people are interested in this than my comedy,” Mr. Papa said. He sounded surprised. His whole life up to now has been comedy and hanging out with his family. “Now I think maybe I have a hobby,” he said. Recipes: Sam Sifton is on hand to answer any sourdough starter questions in the comments field. Post your questions and comments, and if you make one of the recipes, tell us how it turned out.