After a year of bread with cooking sourdoughs, I learned that it is not so serious

• I have been doing sourdough bread for about a year now.
• I don’t make perfect breads, but I learned that you don’t need to follow all the rules you read online.
• Instead, my relaxed cooking method works for me.

I released my sourdough starter after months hiding on the back of my refrigerator. Sitting on top was a black liquid.

Surely, I thought it was unusable.

I had not made a single miche of bread before pushing the starter behind the pots of pasta sauce, marinated red onions and various sauces. I was overwhelmed by the process.

How often do I feed the starter? How much should I feed him? What flour should I use? What temperature should water be? Do I have to use tap or filtered? What is a stretch and a fold?

The questions were endless, but about a year ago, I decided to give another chance to cooking sourdough bread.

Surprisingly, the starter intact was good. The liquid, I learned, was Hooch, a sub-product of alcohol indicating that my starter was hungry. As there was no mold, I poured the Hooch and treated it as normal.

If I still had a starter after months in the refrigerator, perhaps the whole process was not as complicated as some claim it.

A year later, I would like the idea that the leaven is not so serious.

I jump a lot from the steps and rules you read online

I will never forget the frenzy of the pandemic leaven.

Through my group of friends, everyone dived the first one in the leaven and treated him like her child.

Their entries had names and personalities with regular food schedules. When weekends appeared, my friends brought their entries to other friends for Baby-sitting. If the meal of a starter was forgotten, it seemed to be a situation to do or to die.

Now that I have been doing sourdough for a year, I am convinced that my friends (and internet) are far too dramatic.

If you keep your starter at room temperature, it is generally recommended to feed it daily. Most people who do it also cook daily, and I don’t know many people who eat whole bread per day.

Regular meticulous feedings – which made a hobby to the leaven is inaccessible – is no longer something that I am. Instead, I only feed my sourdough starter when I plan to use it. It sometimes means that I will go a few days between feedings – or a few weeks.

So far, my breads have gone very well. If I have not used the starter for a long time, I will feed it twice before cooking to make sure it doubles the size, sparkling and active.

My relaxed cooking approach does not stop there. As a rule, a Miche leaven requires time management skills. You should mix the dough, let it sit for an hour, stretch it, let it stand for 30 minutes, stretch it again, let it stand for an additional 30 minutes, etc.

These stretching and rest periods help the dough to ferment, form gluten and develop a flavor.

I have learned that even if these periods are important, timing them perfectly is not. If I delay stretching and folding, a method to strengthen the dough or wait too long to shape it, it is rarely unusable.

Of course, I may not have an impeccable crumb, which refers inside the bread, but I have always had tasty and edible bread.

If in doubt, make a focaccia at the leaven

My best advice as a baker who is not put into service is that if something is wrong, simply do a focaccia.

If you leave your dough on the counter for too long, throw it in a saucepan and make a focacccia.

If the texture feels extinguished, focacccia.

One of the most common errors I have heard from friends is too long, it’s too long (which generally means that you have left the dough for too long). When this happens, the dough will not hold its shape and will probably have an excessive number of large bubbles.

My advice is to move forward and try to shape it in bread. If it falls flat and does not hold the round shape, transform your bad miche from sourdough to a good Miche of Focaccia.

Throw the dough in a saucepan, spread it, cover it in olive oil and seasonings, dab it and cook.

It is difficult for something covered in olive oil to have a bad taste.

Bakers will tell me that I am wrong, but this relaxed way worked for me

There is still a lot to learn about the process. Since I adopted an unwavered approach to make my bread, I have not explored hydration, food food, autolysis or types of flour.

I am not saying that my cooking method gives perfect sourdough bread; This is not the case.

I just say that if you want to save money on the grocery store, know the ingredients you put in your body and want a new hobby, do not exclude the leaven.

Yes, it’s a long process, but I learned in the past year that it doesn’t need to be stressful.