Sourdough Baking – Day 1 – Ben's Math Musings

The very second that you decide that you want to eat freshly baked sourdough made by your own hands, you’re about 36 hours away from that being a reality (if you’re following the recipe from this Bon Appetit video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oidnwPIeqsI&t=181s). Don’t let that deter you, though! If you’re in NYC, I can give you some starter!

The first day of the sourdough making process isn’t too involved. You first take 2 tablespoons of starter and put it into a bowl, and then add 250 g of purified water to that. Give this a mix to break up the starter. It’s not a huge deal if you don’t put exactly 250 g of water in. Next, add the same amount of flour as you added water (as long as there is the same amount of flour and water by mass, it should be fine).

Then mix this all together until a shaggy dough forms, and cover it with a towel and let it sit overnight.

This is what mine looks like right now, except it has a towel covering it. The point of this step is to give the yeast and bacteria in the starter more food (like you do every time you feed it so that they are strong enough to produce enough CO $_2$ and lactic acid throughout the rest of the bread making process). We just gave those organisms a very delicious meal.