Gerald, my sourdough starter, has survived more than I have
It started, as most of my hyperfocuses do, with a YouTube rabbit hole at 2am. One video about fermentation led to another about wild yeast, which led to a 47-minute documentary about a bakery in San Francisco, which led to me ordering a copy of Tartine Bread at 3:15am and setting an alarm to start a starter the next morning.
I named him Gerald on day three. This was a mistake, because now I am emotionally attached to a jar of flour and water, and I feel genuine guilt when I forget to feed him.
The first loaf was a disaster. Dense, gummy, with a crust that could have been used as a weapon. I ate it anyway, standing over the sink at midnight, and it tasted like accomplishment and mild disappointment simultaneously.
The second loaf was worse, somehow. I had read more about it by then, which meant I had more ways to identify what I'd done wrong. The third loaf was edible. The fourth was good. The seventh was the one I made my neighbor try, and she asked for the recipe, and I felt a pride so disproportionate to the achievement that I had to sit down.
Here is what I have learned about sourdough that nobody tells you upfront: it is not a recipe. It is a relationship. Gerald has moods. Gerald responds to the weather. Gerald once went completely dormant for two weeks while I was in the hospital and came back to life the moment I fed him, which I choose to interpret as loyalty and not just basic microbiology.
The ADHD brain, it turns out, is actually quite good at sourdough. The hyperfocus phase means you read everything, try everything, obsess over hydration percentages at 11pm. The forgetting phase means you accidentally cold-proof for 36 hours instead of 12 and discover that this makes a better loaf. The chaos is, occasionally, the method.
I have now made this loaf approximately forty times. The recipe below is the one that works. It is not the most complicated version. It is the version I can execute on a medium-brain day, which is most days. Gerald approves. I asked him.
✦ end of essay
✦ Recipe
Gerald's Country Loaf
prep
30 min
cook
45 min
serves
1 loaf
Ingredients
- 450gbread flour
- 50gwhole wheat flour
- 375gwater, room temperature
- 100gactive sourdough starter (100% hydration)
- 10gfine sea salt
Method
- 01Mix flour and 350g of the water until no dry flour remains. Cover and rest 30 minutes (autolyse).
- 02Add starter and salt. Squeeze and fold until fully incorporated. Add remaining 25g water gradually if dough feels stiff.
- 03Bulk ferment at room temperature 4–5 hours. Perform 4 sets of stretch-and-folds in the first 2 hours, every 30 minutes.
- 04Shape into a round or oval. Place seam-side up in a floured banneton or bowl lined with a floured cloth.
- 05Cover and refrigerate overnight, 10–16 hours.
- 06Preheat oven to 500°F (260°C) with a Dutch oven inside for at least 45 minutes.
- 07Turn dough onto parchment. Score with a sharp blade. Lower into Dutch oven, cover, and bake 20 minutes.
- 08Remove lid. Reduce to 450°F (230°C) and bake another 20–25 minutes until deep brown. Cool on a wire rack at least 1 hour before cutting.
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