tomato on sourdough

Both tomato and peach are at the peak of their season and they are both beautiful things to take in. 

It fills my heart with prayer.

I nearly left without buying sourdough. So I went back into the store and bought what they had.

I must say, this commercial sourdough is discouragingly banal. I paid $6.00 for a small loaf of pre-cut bread. Who even does that to sourdough? That right there informed me this whole outfit is second rate. Unprofessional. Not real bakers at heart. And at that cost it must be first rate. Rip off. Total rip off. 

It angered me.

One slice and I'm pissed right off.

And I go, oh, FFS, if I want proper sourdough then I must make it myself!

And it's true. 

I must.

So after one slice, this one, I opened a saved jar of dried frozen Denver sourdough starter that I collected myself a few years ago.

Such a pain in the beau tox.

Making sourdough is a mess.

One teaspoon of crumbly dry frozen Denver sourdough into one cup of water in a pint size Mason jar with enough flour for a thick slurry such as pancake batter.

Now, here's a comparison for you. Sourdough International sells freeze dried starters for $10.00 or so per sample. The mixture is combined with flour, put into a proofing box for 24 hours to reactivate.

My Denver sourdough reactivated in four hours. 

The mixture separated with water on the top and it smelled terrible. 

I mixed it back and put it back under the 100W lightbulb. 

Within a few hours it separated again. 

I mixed it again, spilled out 1/4 cup and mixed more flour into it to thicken the mixture and stop this continuous separation. 

Went to sleep. 

Woke up. Overnight the mixture expanded to nearly the top of jar but I wasn't ready to deal with it. I shut off the light. So now it's just room temperature. When I returned a few hours later it broke through its loose seal and spilled all over the countertop. It more than doubled beyond the confines of the jar. 

That's how strong this starter is. 

Especially so compared with Sourdough International starters. (I bought some five or so of theirs. They're all very good. But mine is stronger.)

So I have one cup of activated starter within eight or ten hours and that was added to two cups of water and however much flour to stiffen to a loose dough. That's proofing now, speeded up with the help of the 100W lamp. Once it expands in a few hours the whole bowl goes into the refrigerator to retard its activity and to ferment for three days to develop its sourdough flavor. 

Time is the chief ingredient with sourdough. The dough's behavior and its ultimate flavor manipulated with temperature both warm and cool. The main ingredient that the $6.00 loaf obviously does not incorporate. They rush their production to the tremendous detriment of their product. Like beer, the dough must be fermented. 

We mock them for their haste and their lack of baker professionalism. 

We're not interested in the suggestion of sourdough flavor. We want the whole thing. We want our tastebuds to be amazed not teased. And for that we must do it ourselves. Because face it, the whole shebang is too powerful too strong in taste. And it takes too much precious expensive time.

But how is it that beer can be fermented commercially but not bread? That doesn't even make sense. I posit a proper sourdough baker could make a fortune, at least a loyal following, by simply doing it right with time. 

I resent this loaf of commercial sourdough bread. 

The bakery teased my sourdough desire and promised but failed to deliver. 

And now I must do it myself.

Just for a sandwich.

An awesome simple sandwich on real sourdough bread.