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Sour Dough Sponge or "Starter"
I QUART FLOUR I TEASPOON SALT 2 TABLESPOONS SUGAR WARM WATER Mix dry ingredients and stir in sufficient warm water to make rather thick batter. Cover loosely-a board makes a good cover and a thick bowl a good container. Let stand in a warm place until it rises to nearly double the original bulk. If it is slow, wrap a sweater around the bowl. Or set the open bowl in the sun until its contents become bubbly and swell to nearly double. A grated Irish potato stirred in at the beginning will hurry the fermentation. Use as much of this sponge as needed, but always save out some and add flour and warm water to it, to keep fermentation going until next time. You will want to store it outside your tent, cabin, or galley, for like salt rising "emptyings" it has an unpleasant smell that happily disappears when turned into bread.
This is a wild-yeast starter built from nothing but flour, water and time — no packaged yeast, no established culture to borrow from. It works, but on a longer clock than the text implies.
- The quantitiesA quart of flour is roughly 4 to 4½ cups, or about 500–560 g depending on how it is scooped. Add warm water gradually to a thick batter, near the consistency of pancake batter; expect somewhere between 2 and 2½ cups.
- Give it days, not hoursA culture started from scratch does not double in an afternoon. Reliable activity usually takes three to seven days of daily feeding. The early bubbling you may see in the first 24–48 hours is often bacterial rather than yeast, and it typically dies back before the real culture establishes.
- Warm means warm, not hotThe sweater and the sunny windowsill are aiming at roughly 75–80°F. Above about 100°F the yeast suffers. Direct summer sun on a glass or ceramic bowl can overshoot that easily; use shade and ambient warmth instead.
- Salt and sugarBoth are optional. Salt slows fermentation, and the sugar feeds the culture only briefly before the flour's own starches take over. A starter of flour and water alone works as well or better.
- The grated potatoA genuine old trick: potato contributes extra starch and does speed early activity. It also makes the batter looser and more prone to going sour and alcoholic fast. Not necessary with modern unbleached flour, which carries wild yeast of its own.
- Flour choiceUnbleached all-purpose or bread flour, or better, a spoonful of whole rye or whole wheat in the first mixes. Bleached flour is a poor starting medium.
- Feeding and keepingThe instruction to save some back and refresh it with flour and warm water is the whole method. Feed daily at room temperature, or refrigerate a covered jar and feed once a week, letting it come to room temperature and bubble up before you bake with it.
- Smell, and when to stopSour, yeasty, beery, sharply acidic — all normal, and the trail cook's habit of storing it outside was about the smell, not spoilage. Pink, orange or fuzzy growth on the surface is not normal; discard the whole batch and begin again rather than scraping it off.
- YieldThis quantity makes a generous crock — more than most home bakers need. Half or a quarter of the flour and water is plenty to establish and maintain a culture for a loaf or two a week.