Sourdough on Cruising Boats

 **This is an update to a previous post**

 As we travel, one of the things we have done is offer sourdough starter to fellow cruisers as we encounter them. It has been curious to note how many times people are afraid of sourdough or unsure what to do with it if they have it. The most prevailing belief is that sourdough has to be used everyday, or a portion has to be thrown out, which is simply untrue. In our opinion, sourdough is an amazing addition to your cruising boat and should be included in every boat's galley.  It is cheap, nutritious, and fun. In fact, our kids refer to it as the pet they can eat!

Our experience with keeping sourdough started with Joe's grandparents.  They would make a lovely batch of fresh sourdough pancakes every time we visited, and both us and the kids loved them.  Shortly after moving aboard on Kyrie we took home a little batch of starter from them and have been enjoying it now for nearly 7 years of living aboard and cruising.  It has meshed perfectly well with our cruising lifestyle, and has been extremely easy to maintain and keep.

**Understanding Sourdough**

Sourdough is simply a mix of flour (both wheat or standard all purpose work well), water, and wild yeast.  The wild yeast eats some of the sugars in the flour, creating lactic acid and carbon dioxide in the process, in turn giving sourdough its sour tang, and creating bubbles to raise your bread or baked goods.

Sourdough will change depending on where you are in the world.  It is a wild colony of yeast, after all.  Sourdough in San Francisco will inherently taste different from sourdough in Seattle, for instance.  As you move your home around, it is fascinating to note how your sourdough will change.

Freshly recharged sourdough after
making pancakes this morning.
We only added water and flour.

Every time you use some of your starter, you add fresh water and some flour to the previous mix until roughly the consistency of pancake batter, and let it sit on your counter for a couple days until good and bubbly.  In cool climates, you can just leave it on the counter if you're going to use it at least twice a week, or if you're not going to use it for a while, put it into the fridge.  Ours has traveled from Alaska, down the Pacific coast, through Mexico, Central America, and now we are in the Caribbean and has had very few issues, like a bit of mold after we forgot about it for 3 weeks.  See below for the fix for that issue.

In addition, you can use wheat flour, white flour, or even potato flakes for your sourdough.  Experiment!  We found half white flour and half potato flakes made a particularly interesting sourdough!

It is best to start with an existing sourdough starter from a friend or family member, but starter cultures can also be bought on ebay or amazon.  You can even start your own by mixing water, flour, a pinch of sugar and a bit of bread yeast and letting it sit on the counter in a non-sealed container for a couple weeks to let the natural yeasts in your environment take over.  Note for the first few months, this new sourdough can be a little unstable and will require watching and careful tending to get your healthy, stable crew of wild yeast to take over.  The longer you let the starter sit between uses, the more sour it will get, so if you like it nice and strong, let it sit a little longer!

**A Home for Your Sourdough**

Normally, in a home environment a crock with a lid is used for sourdough, but this is just too fragile on a boat.  For our sourdough, we use a plastic container with a "steam vent" lid similar to this one.

Note the steam vent lid is important as the starter needs to breathe, but the small hole helps to prevent flies from getting to your sourdough.  If you overfill your container, it also keeps the lid from blowing off as the sourdough kicks!

**Sourdough Health Benefits**

First things first, sourdough is a fermented food, so much like raw sauerkraut, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt, it is fermented with lactobacillus cultures. Those cultures are probiotics, those much-touted good gut bacteria. The cultures don't survive the baking process, but they do create lactic acid. What good is lactic acid? Plenty! Lactic acid helps decrease the amount of phytic acid in bread, which interferes with absorption of certain nutrients. Break down that phytic acid and voila! More nutrients are suddenly available to be digested and absorbed by our bodies. That wild natural yeast also helps the bread last longer without the addition of any sort of preservatives. Not to mention, in my opinion, few breads taste better than a good sourdough. Try it out for yourself if you haven't done so already.

**Sourdough Recipes**

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Basic Sourdough Pancakes

2 cups sourdough starter
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Mix all ingredients except baking soda in a bowl - do not overmix.  Add a little water or flour to get the consistency desired for lighter, thicker pancakes or thinner pancakes as desired.  Just before cooking add the baking soda and cook on lightly buttered non-stick skillet, flipping once.  Serve with butter, maple syrup or honey, and peanut butter.

Optional mix-ins are berries (blueberries and raspberries are both amazing), thinly sliced bananas, chocolate chips, and anything else your heart desires. 

Alternately, mash 3 very ripe bananas and omit the sugar in a double batch recipe for amazing banana-sourdough pancakes.

Sourdough Bread 

(adapted from the "basic white bread" recipe from The Boat Galley Cookbook)

1 cup warm water (100-115 degrees F)
1 teaspoon regular yeast
1/4 cup of sourdough starter
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cups white flour, or more as needed.

Mix the water, yeast, starter, and sugar together and let sit at least 10 min. in a warm spot to proof (look for bubbles on top).  Add salt, oil and 2 cups of flour to that mix and mix thoroughly.  Add more flour as needed to form a stiff dough.  Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Put a small amount of oil in a bowl and toss the dough to ensure it is lightly covered in oil.  Cover the bowl with a tea towel.  Let the dough rise in a warm spot until doubled in volume (1-3 hours).  Punch down, let rise until doubled again.  Then place in your favorite greased pan.  Place in cold oven, turn oven on to 350 degrees F and set timer for roughly 55 minutes (may vary by how quickly your oven comes to temperature)  Start checking bread for doneness at around 45 minutes.  When fully baked, remove from pan to cool on counter and serve.

**The longer the bread is allowed to rise the more sourdough flavor will develop.  It is especially good if you allow it to rise overnight in the fridge, then finish rising in a warm spot.

We love our Lekue pan for bread. It makes the above recipe in one batch, with only one dirty dish.  It can be found on Amazon or sites.  Lekue Breadmaker on Amazon

 

 Cranberry Sourdough Scones

**This recipe was given to us by a friend, and has quickly become a breakfast favorite**

2 cups AP Flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup dry cranberries

4 Tbsp. butter - cold and cut into small cubes 

1/2 cup sourdough starter

1/3-1/2 cup cold water (or milk for a softer, cakier scone)

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar (added to the water or milk)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a bowl.  Stir in cranberries.  Cut butter pieces into the flour with a pastry cutter or fork until mix is crumbly.  Add Sourdough starter, mix, and then drizzle in water or milk (with vinegar added) until the dough just comes together in a ball.  Try not to handle the dough to keep the butter from melting, and try to not overmoisten it.  You just need enough liquid so the dough comes together with no visible dry flour.  Roll the dough into a disc about 1/2" thick.  Cut dough into 8 or 10 wedges, and place on a parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheet.  Bake in preheated oven for 15-17 minutes until lightly golden top and golden-brown on bottom.  

Serve warm with jam, cream cheese, honey, or butter.  This recipe makes enough for our family of 5 for breakfast. 

The dough can be refrigerated overnight if desired to bake in the morning.

**Common Sourdough Problems & Fixes**

1.  Sourdough overflows your container
Don't overfill your container!  Leave an inch or two after mixing up your starter for expansion as the sourdough "kicks".  It isn't a bad idea to put your container on top of a plate the first few times you mix it up to contain it if it overflows a bit.
2.  Mold grows on your sourdough
This one is extremely easy.  With a clean spoon, carefully scrape off the mold on top of the batch.  Take one or two clean spoonfuls from the center of the batch and place in a clean bowl.  Dump out the remainder of your old sourdough and wash the container thoroughly.  Add the sourdough you retained to inoculate the new batch with the wild yeast, and let sit on the counter for a couple days - you're good to go!
3. Flies or maggots on your sourdough
This is the most disgusting one that can happen if you don't keep a good lid on your sourdough.  If it happens and the maggots are only on the surface, you can dig down to the bottom as in #2, and restart your batch.  If it's too far gone, you might need to dump the batch and start over.  To help if you fear this, read the last paragraph in this section.
4. "Dead" sourdough
Most likely this won't happen to you, but even if it does appear to die, just simply pour off half the batch of starter, add fresh flour and clean water and let it sit on the counter for a week.  If you see bubbles, you are good!  Also note if you chlorinate your water tanks be sure to filter the water you are using through a carbon filter for the sourdough as too much chlorine can easily kill your starter!

If you aren't going to be using your sourdough for a while, you can take a piece of plastic wrap, spread a bit of your starter on it and let it dry.  Keep this powder in a ziplock bag in your freezer for up to a year to inoculate a new batch!

From all of us on the Kyrie crew, we hope this has been a little educational. Sourdough is not something to be feared--it's to be used and enjoyed! If you have a favorite recipe using sourdough, could you please include it in the comments section? We'd love to hear about your experience with these wild little creatures. For a little bit of history on yeast and some fun, watch Alton Brown's "Dr. Strangeloaf" video with his yeast puppets.