Part of prudent prepping – that’s a lot of P’s! – is being frugal. Waste not, want not, even in times of relative prosperity – and if there’s ever a serious disaster that strikes this country, we’ll realize how much prosperity even the poorest of us in America had, and how much we took for granted. It’s good to get used to not being wasteful now, and that’s why, rather than throw away my sourdough discard, I make biscuits from my sourdough starter discard recipe.
Sourdough bread is a wonderful thing to make in a grid-down situation, because you can still make bread rise even after you’ve run out of yeast. However, creating and maintaining a sourdough starter can end up being very wasteful of flour. If grocery stores are no longer an option, flour will become very precious.
Here is why it gets wasteful.
Sourdough needs to be fed. And when you feed your starter, it gets bigger and bigger.
To make sourdough starter from scratch, you begin by taking 100 grams of flour, and 100 grams of warm non-chlorinated water, mix them together in glass jar, and covering them with a cloth or paper towel. (There are numerous variations on this, but they’re all pretty close. I’ve seen recommendations to start with 75 grams of flour and 100 grams of water, 100 grams of flour and 115 grams of water, etc.)
After 48 hours, you start feeding the starter. After that, you feed it daily.
Well, specifically you feed the wild yeast and bacteria that’s growing in the starter.
The ratio of flour and water that you are adding has to equal each other by weight, not by volume, and the water and the flour each have to be the same weight as the starter you’re adding it to.
So, you’ve waited 48 hours…it is now the first day of feeding your sourdough starter. (I call mine Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors.)
On the first day of your feeding, you are adding to your existing 200 grams of starter. Then, keeping that 1-1-1 ratio (1 unit of starter, 1 unit of flour, 1 unit of water), you add 200 grams of water and 200 grams of flour. Now you have 600 grams. (I can do math without taking off my shoes! True story.)
On day 2 of feeding, you now have 600 grams of sourdough starter, and unless you discard some of it, to keep that 1-1-1 ratio, you would need to add 600 grams of water and 600 grams of flour. Now you have 1800 grams of sourdough starter and you need a really really big container. And this is only day 2 of feeding.
You see where this is going?
Within a few weeks, if you kept adding and not discarding, thanks to the terrifying power of exponential math…your sourdough starter would have filled your entire house, oozed down the street, eaten your neighbors, mutated, and started the sourdough apocalypse. Terrified families, running, screaming, tripping, consumed by the fast-moving gooey mass…
All because you didn’t get rid of that extra starter!
Well, I’m here to show you a better way, and also to save the world. There won’t be a sourdough apocalypse on my watch.
(A grateful world breaks into applause…)
For full details, go to my sourdough starter recipe page, but the short version is – starting with the first day of feeding, and every day of feeding after that, you remove some starter until you only have 50 grams left, and then you add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water.
You will put the discarded starter in a clean jar with a lid, and store it in the fridge until you are ready to bake with it, or you can use it right away.
In a post-apoc scenario where you don’t have a fridge, of course, you’re going to want to use it right away.
And when you’re ready to bake, here is my…
Easy Sourdough Starter Discard Recipe
Equipment:
- Bowl
- Rolling Pin
- Measuring Cup
- Spoon
- Cheese grater (optional)
- Cutting Board
- Round 2 inch biscuit cutter
- 1 metal pan
Ingredients:
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1 stick of cold butter – frozen works great!
- 1/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup sourdough starter
Pre-heat oven to 425.
1.) Mix together the dry ingredients – all-purpose flour, baking powder, and baking soda – in the bowl.
2.) Cut up the cold butter into little pieces, or grate it. The reason we use cold butter is that as it melts in the oven, it creates little bursts of steam which puff up the biscuits and make them lighter and flakier. If you use warm butter, your biscuits will be flatter.
3.) Make a well in the dry ingredients, and dump in your buttermilk and sourdough starter. Mix, but don’t over-mix.
4.) Mix in your cold butter.
5.) Sprinkle some flour on the cutting board so the dough doesn’t stick to it, sprinkle some on your hands, and knead the dough a little. Shape it into a square or rectangle. Sprinkle some flour on your rolling pin, and roll the dough until it’s about 3/4 of an inch thick.
6.) Cut the biscuits with the biscuit cutter and put on the baking sheet.
7.) Cook for 12 minutes.
8.) Enjoy, knowing that you have prevented a sourdough apocalypse with your baking skills!