I am constantly questing for the ultimate use for sourdough discard.
Sourdough discard is the necessarily removed and discarded portion of a sourdough starter that ends up thrown away, usually on a daily basis. The portion of discarded flour and water is not much, it could be 100-200 grams, but on a daily basis this adds up. It’s also hard to deal with getting rid of something you are nurturing on a daily basis. It’s in the same mental vein as killing ideas that just aren’t working.
So I spend a lot of time and energy looking for uses for sourdough discard. I am not alone. The internet is flooded with discard recipes. (The King Arthur Flour Website is my favorite spot to begin stealing ideas.) I feed my starter mostly for bread making. I overwhelm my mental and physical space with recipes and dishes utilizing the discard. I need a separate space to keep all of my sourdough adjacent creations. It’s like overflow parking at a concert. (Not that I’d know as I’m a homebody, but it’s what I imagine it would be like.)
And of course I have issues with my many sourdough adjacent explorations and creations. My biggest concern is that I use very little sourdough discard, and the end result doesn’t end up with much sourdough character. But in cooking with sourdough in the established sense, I actually don’t need much starter to grow into the final result. I think that in using the discard and unfed sourdough starter leftovers I don’t pay enough attention to how I can incorporate it to allow for greater flavor and textural improvements. (Ok, this is really a me problem. I have not been patient in my secondary sourdough starter uses. Yes, I have used the starter. Yes, the finished product is tasty. But, to me, it does not resonate naturally leavened or sourdough enhanced.)
My discard distractions divide me. I don’t want to waste either the sourdough or the resulting discard developments. I can cut my losses short and just dump the discard daily. I can continue to create and search for more delicious avenues to disperse my discard. I just need to find an audience that is equally enamored with sourdough to indulge in my B-Side creations.
About the Author
I recently just gave up maintaining a sourdough culture since, being just a home cook/baker, I just found it to be too much work and I wasn’t using it that much. I did find a good read in “The sweet side of sourdough” by Caroline Schiff formerly of Tollner and Gage, who details about 50 recipes using sourdough. I can only eat so much bread. LOL!!!!