Okay, for this post to make any sense, we need to define the word factoid. A factoid is really a statement that is not true but seems like it is, would be, could be, or should be true. CNN, in a striking blow during the 80s and 90s that I’ll never forgive them for, reframed this word into the more common meaning people like to use it for, which is a tidbit of true trivia or other information.

I realize this is pedantic, but it’s important that y’all understand that I never use this word the CNN way. I use it the original way, in keeping with the -oid suffix that basically means it resembles the base word but is not the same as the base word. In this case, fact is the base word. So know that if I say “factoid,” I mean “this thing is not true.”

Factoid #1: You must be very precise at all times, whether feeding the starter or baking with it.

Y’all. This one isn’t even kind of true. There are methods that more-or-less consistently produce the given desired result, but there really aren’t any hard or fast rules here. Remember that sourdough has been made long before people were measuring while baking.

What is true is that when we’re learning, we want firm rules to follow so that we can learn properly and start understanding the process. With baking in particular (SD or not), there is a tendency to ignore the fluidity that occurs while baking. Everyone knows that old granny who made her cakes with a “bit of that,” “handful of this,” or a “pinch” of whatever. Her pinches probably came in various sizes, too, determined by which finger she pinched with.

I said cakes because although people really do tend to believe that bread must be precise, they often feel a lot more strongly about precision in baking. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but it’s what I’ve observed.

As far as I’m concerned, the rule about what you do with your SD is “whatever you want.” Sometimes your loaves might come out poorly. Sometimes you’ll kick yourself for not taking notes while baking because #omgsoamazing, and sometimes it’ll be serviceable bread that’s nothing special but still enjoyable. All of these things are okay.

Factoid #2: I must do everything perfectly with my starter or it will die.

You guys cannot imagine how much work I put into trying to kill SD starts in various different ways. It’s actual work. I left my unfed Boudin Bakery (yes, I had a backup) starter in a mason jar with a plastic lid in the fridge for 14 months before it finally got moldy. I really expected it to take 6-8, but nope! Almost double my higher estimate!

For the better part of a year, I’ve been torturing my teff starter. This lives in a Weck, so it can take it better since it’s properly air tight. But basically what happens is that I stick the jar somewhere, find it months later, pour some into some pizza dough, give it maybe a tablespoon of flour even though it’s got at least a cup of starter left in there, seal it back up. Still alive, still rising my pizza dough. At some point I’ll reduce the volume enough, using this method, to finally get to make my injera. I love injera.

On 10 April, I told Sabrina that I hadn’t fed my Alaskan starter in “a while.” This generally means 6 weeks to 3 months for me, so I decided to go conservative and guesstimate that I’d last fed it on 1 March. I already know that’s not true because that’s Child Tester’s birthday and I was probably too busy that day for feeding starters, but we’ll just go with it. Even though the FB group voted that I should start taking proper care of it, I’ve waited for this to go live to be sure it’s still alive when that happens. Yes, it’s still alive. Even if it weren’t in a Weck, it’d probably still be alive since we’re really only in the 4-7 month range of how long it’s more realistically been neglected. Now that this is live, I shall bake with it and probably also feed it. Or maybe not!

This is how you get your SD to go bad, and is the only consistent way I’ve found to kill them: leave them unsealed (even better, no lid), without feeding for at least 1 week, in a hot and humid space. Bonus points if you make sure some of the starter is smeared along the sides of the jar: not too thin or it’ll just dry out, but not too thick either. Even with this, it should take at least a month before it gets moldy, but the smeared on sides bit sometimes can help you get it done within a week.

Factoid #3: You have to use a recipe to bake bread that is good to excellent.

Nah. People wouldn’t still be eating bread if that were true. What you have to do is know how to use up the loaves that didn’t work out so you aren’t wasting them.

Factoid #4: Sabrina and I follow the rules we tell y’all to follow.

Yeah, no. We really don’t. We tell y’all to do the idealized methods, because we know most of you are just getting started out and we want you to have the very best chance of success. I like to say that people should know and understand the rules of a given thing before they wander off breaking them, and I do believe that. When you start out by doing things in accordance with best practices, it gives you confidence. That matters a lot in the early days. But, I also believe that once you’ve learned best practices for the given skill (in this case, SD) and have experienced the results of having done so, it’s good to at least sometimes not follow them.

We already know that those of you who come to us not as novices aren’t following the instructions either, because y’all already know what to do. We can tell when y’all are novices and didn’t follow the instructions, because y’all are the ones who run into troubles. Follow the instructions until you’ve learnt how not to.

No one learns as much from success as they do from failure. So my philosophy is to learn the best practices, gain some confidence, and then learn about your subject deeply by examining it by doing things the wrong way. Y’all will be surprised by how often “the wrong way” comes out perfectly, and you’ll learn how to fix problems by making the mistakes that force you to broaden your knowledge base as well as fostering deeper understanding.

This is how I learned to garden. I do not have a green thumb, but people think I do. It’s because for every plant still living, probably a thousand died so it could. I really learned how to garden by learning what not to do. There’s a bit of magic in that process for me, because I delight in using mistakes to develop mastery over the given content area. You cannot develop mastery without messing up a lot of stuff first. With sourdough and basically life in general.

I don’t think Sabrina follows the activation instructions, either. Or any other instructions, though I believe she does measure while baking. I only measure if I’m baking for y’all, because publishing granny recipes isn’t helpful for most of you.

A lot of the time, I bake with a starter on day 3 of activation. You’re not meant to do that. The loaves don’t rise as well. I don’t care because there’s yummy bread in my belly.

Factoid #5: You must discard.

Hogwash. You may discard, but you do not have to. I personally have a high level of hatred for food waste, so I personally do not believe in discard. All discard is to me is a really hungry starter. You feed starters by adding flour, and that’s also how you make sourdough is by adding four to your starter. So I bake with discard. If the starter is hungry enough, the loaf won’t rise as well. No matter, so long as it tastes good and has the mouth feel you’re looking for!

Factoid #6: You can’t overfeed a starter.

Well, this just isn’t true. Not even kind of. You can overfeed a starter, and it really can kill your starter if you do it too much. What winds up happening is that with too much food, the microbes will gorge themselves quickly and will not be able either to eat all their food or to reproduce quickly enough that other microbes can finish their plate (as it were). Over time, if you do this a lot, it will weaken your culture to the point of death.

Thick pancake batter is the ideal. Everyone has a different texture they like for the way they bake, but if you’re adding insane amounts of flour to your starter, you should expect it to die at some point. This works similarly with overly hydrated starters.

Factoid #7: You must feed to a specific texture or with a specific ratio.

Also not true. I have had starters I kept cement thick. These are a real pain to feed, but they can go an insanely long time without being fed. The more hydrated a starter is, the faster the microbes nom out until the buffet is empty. Thicker texture = slower feed, thinner = faster.

Factoid #8: You either have to stir your start #omgsomuch or you just barely stir until everything is combined.

I’ve seen both of these, and a lot of times for each. Neither is true. What is true is that some kinds of flour (looking at you, all-purpose!) really like a lot of aeration, and others don’t really care all that much. With a lot of my all-purpose starters, I will whisk them for a good 10-15 minutes during a feed. Other times, though, I mix some flour in, get bored of stirring or whisking before all the lumps are gone, and move on with my day. This also works just fine, even with the AP ones. AP really does like a higher level of aeration, but it’s just fine without it. You do what works for you, your inclinations, and your situation.

Factoid #9: SD starters need to live in a room temperature environment.

Hogwash. They can live in the fridge just fine. You don’t need to feed them as often if they’re in the fridge, but also you should not wait for over a year to do so (see Factoid #2). We get a lot of questions about whether it’s okay to put them in the fridge, and the answer is always yes. Ideally, you will feed them before you do that, but again you don’t have to.

What they cannot do is get too hot. High temps = dead.

Factoid #10: You must not use tap water.

OMG NO. Not using tap water is better, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. I live in Houston, which has pretty gross tap water, and it’s yet to kill one of my starters. Y’all know I try hard to kill mine, so I am sure that tap water isn’t gonna do it.

Factoid #11: You must use a lid or you must use a breathable cover.

Again, some people say one is true and others say the other is true. Neither is true. You can do what you want. SD is anaerobic, but from a practical, functional standpoint it does fine under aerobic or anaerobic. SD doesn’t care about how it’s covered, or even if it’s covered. It cares that it gets fed and used.

Actually, it doesn’t care about anything because microbes aren’t complex enough to experience emotions even though we all know when our starters are “happy” or “sad.” I really like to anthropomorphize my cultures, but it’s important to recognize that that’s what we’re doing.

Factoid #12: You cannot make your own SD.

… so… making your own is how SD got started, however accidentally. You can make your own. You might not be good at doing so for a while, but you can in fact do it. You also can do it without fruits and fruit juices. You just need flour, water, patience, and a lot of aeration. Aeration matters most when you’re ground upping a starter.

Factoid #13: The older the starter, the better its flavor.

No. I love this myth and I pretend to believe in it, but also hogwash. Most of the microbes that happen in your starter come from the flour, not the environment. It was a sad day for me when I learned this, so I understand if that’s true of you. They do not become [insert whatever belief] over time, and hundreds upon hundreds of years of existence doesn’t change that. What changes them is changing the type of flour. Not age. Your choices can also change them, for better or for worse, but age alone isn’t doing anything. They’re getting a constant supply of newly added microbes from your flour every time you feed them. Not experiencing changes in a starter requires complete consistency across all the variables. If you’re not consistent, there will be flavor profile changes.

Factoid #14: You have to feed your starter along [whatever] schedule always and forever.

This seems like a sad and rigid life to me, but if that is how you like to do it, take joy from it! You can train your starter to handle just about any feeding schedule that works best for you. Starter might get mad during the training, but you will prevail!

Factoid #15: you must knead/stretch-and-fold/slap-and-fold/do nothing/whatever you were told.

No. Each of these methods produces a different end result, is all. Do what you prefer.

Factoid #16: you must do the float test.

Not only do you not have to do it, I recommend you don’t do it. Not all starters will pass the float test, even when they are rarin’ to go. Lot of people are wasting a lot of time and flour believing this one, so just say no to float tests.

Factoid #17: you must stir in hooch or you must pour it off.

You must do what you want. If you want it more sour, stir the hooch back in. That’s what I do. If you like a milder bread, pour it off.

Factoid #18: my homemade starter trapped microbes from the air in my environment.

Nope, it probably really didn’t get started that way. It got its microbes from the flour, and it got a tiny percentage from the environment. This is actually demonstrated, because it turns out that if you irradiate your flour (killing all the microbes living on/in it), in nearly every instance, your attempts to make a starter will result in mold. The environment has much, much lower concentrations of microbes than your flour does.

There’s a caveat here, though: if you do a lot of fermenting, you are more likely to see stuff ferment due to the environment. This is why you have to watch out for cross-contamination if you have a bunch of cultures. It’s also the reason milk that Child Tester leaves out without me noticing overnight always ferments. It really did get its root cultures from my environment, but only because of how much fermenting I do. That would not happen otherwise.

Factoid #19: I cannot use metal utensils on my starter, nor can my starter touch metal.

Balderdash! You should not use reactive metals, that’s true. But non-reactive metals are fine. What are y’all stirring with, if not metal spoons?

Factoid #20: Sourdough breads are living breads.

No, no they’re not. By the time you can eat your loaf, everything in there is dead. Every. Single. Microbe.

That doesn’t mean it’s bad for you. Sourdough does tend to be more digestible and there are lots of other health benefits, but we cannot pretend the probiotics are surviving their journey into the oven.

Sourdough Factoids

Factoid #1: You must be very precise at all times, whether feeding the starter or baking with it.

Factoid #2: I must do everything perfectly with my starter or it will die.

Factoid #3: You have to use a recipe to bake bread that is good to excellent.