After mastering this no-knead bread recipe that used a packet of active yeast, I got a little too big for my britches, thinking I could create and conquer a sourdough starter from scratch, using whatever yeast was floating in the air. Like some naive mad-scientist, I eagerly read up on various methods of making one’s own sourdough starter, settling for a seven-day endeavor that seemed easy enough. It began with some whole wheat flour and filtered water, set up in a dim, warm place and a mason jar, and on that first day things started happening according to plan.
I followed each step, at the proper intervals, powering through the funky-wet-sock odor of days two and three and four, watching and tracking its rise and fall, feeding it with bread flour and lukewarm filtered water every day, and then on the nights when it was hungry again. Everything seemed to be coming together and advancing as expected. The smelliness slowly subsided into a more beer-like yeasty scent, and the rises and falls were more dramatic, until after a week it seemed that it was time. So well had it gone, that I named my starter ‘Nellie’ for its smelly beginning, and my own adoration of Nellie Oleson from ‘Little House on the Prairie’. (What? You think I’d adore someone as basic as Laura Ingalls? Please. Nellie are I are deep calling to deep.) It is said that the naming process is an important part of creating a proper sourdough starter. It builds trust, and a bit of a bond that makes it all taste better. Unfortunately, Nellie was about to turn on me like a pet monkey.
Following a simple sourdough starter bread recipe, I crafted the dough you see here using the starter, and let it “rise” for 24 hours. It bubbled and expanded a bit, but nothing like the product a simple packet of active yeast had produced for me in the near past. In fact, when I poured it out of its bowl, it became a literal pour that no amount of flour could solidify or correct. Nellie, hating her name or hating her environs or simply hating for the sake of hating, refused to contribute to this batch of bread. In fact, she had seemingly worked to deconstruct my dough, inhibiting any natural rise that the bread flour would have made, turning it into liquid mush. Maybe she just didn’t like her name.
This dismal cooking catastrophe, one of the worst when you consider the time invested, has soured me completely on sourdough. I will stick to my simple no-knead bread from a packet of yeast and do things the old-fashioned, simpler way. Perhaps one day when I’m retired, and have more time to monitor things such as the intricate rise and fall of a starter mix, I’ll try the sourdough thing again. And I won’t name her Nellie.
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