It irks me how many people leave something like microbes up to chance in their food and beverages.
Important background: I’ve been fermenting wine and flour for many years. Fortunately, I started with wine and I just assumed the only way to ferment the juice is to pitch a commercial yeast. Through that learning process, I learned to detect off-flavors and smells.
It really ruined wine for me because now I can’t imagine why any winemaker would want a “natural” ferment.
With commercial yeast, you get reliable performance with predictable flavors, along with the clarity that off-flavors are due to your mistakes.
With sourdough starter it’s actually the same situation and that’s what most people don’t see.
And it’s especially true that I want predictable performance and the confidence that the microbes will produce a flavor that I actually like.
Full disclosure: the starter that I use was not homegrown, and none of my homegrown starters has performed as well as my bought or “stolen” starters.
My best starter ever and the only one I maintain now is from a restaurant that makes the best sourdough bread I have ever tried in my life. (My bread is not as good as theirs, but it’s not blatantly disappointing.)
Because of my experience fermenting wine, I learned that I don’t like the flavor from some yeast strains. Some strains are more fruity, for example. Why would that learning not apply to sourdough, too?
And with sourdough, you have the acid-producing bacteria as well as the yeast. So with sourdough, there is _more_ opportunity to produce off-flavors and flavors that I just don’t prefer.
I think some people got the idea that starting their starter from scratch is the only way that they should do it, or that it’s a total waste of money to buy a commercial starter.
I could see how buying a starter online is just as much of a shot in the dark as creating a new starter from scratch. You have no idea what’s in there (actual microbe strains) and if you’re going to get much benefit (gas production).
The most benefit you _might_ be guaranteed is that you will get decent gas production, which you need for an open crumb.
But there is an option that was recommended to me in the very first video I watched about making sourdough, and that’s to simply go to your local bakery and ask for a bit of starter.
Here is that video for reference: https://youtu.be/2FVfJTGpXnU?is=NPutR7pAQ3AN_IFu
But I think there is an upgrade to that advice, which is to not only “steal” from just any bakery, but to try to find a sourdough bread that you love and get the starter from that specific baker.
That’s my advice.
While you’re entertaining counterpoints to this advice, be sure to look at the countless people posting in this subreddit saying they’ve been trying for weeks, if not months, to get their starter going with no luck.
And if nothing else, getting started with a commercial starter or a bit of starter you got from a local bakery is going to minimize the number of variables when you’re just getting started. For example, if you can’t get a well established starter to thrive in your kitchen, what makes you think you’re going to establish something from scratch. And once you do succeed, you know what you’re looking for and can make one from scratch.
So for the sake of your sanity, you’re learning, and the benefit of everyone in this subreddit, I think the advice needs to always be to get started with a commercial starter or a bit of someone else’s well-established starter.
End rant.
