I’ve recently come across a light bulb moment in my sourdough journey, thanks to Mr. Fantastic.

Since I woke up my dehydrated starter, I’ve been feeling bad with the waste of “discarding” that comes with maintaining it. My sourdough guru, the friend who gave me the dehydrated starter for me to get going, had earlier told me about the process of making a levain to avoid such waste. I read and read and read about it until I could read no more and got nowhere near understanding it. One of the helpful pages was this, but during that time it wasn’t “clicking” for me yet. I lacked experience.

I tried making the levain once, but it sank and I thought I could not use it anymore. A few sourdough loaves later, I read some more and asked my guru, who is this street-smart, don’t -think-too-much-just-make, trial-and-error lady. She and everyone – the internet included – confirmed that it was acceptable to use the levain (within 48 hours of peaking) even if it had sunk a little.

Read more: Mastering Sourdough: My Levain Awakening

After a couple of attempts at making a levain, I am now more confident with it and decided I would move my starter to a smaller jar. I am happy to report that it is fine and now not taking up such a large space in the fridge (I’m a weekly baker so I don’t feed my starter everyday).

But going back to my point, I had a moment where it just clicked, and that was when Mr. Fantastic told me that fermentation neither increases nor decreases the weight of the item being fermented. And he said, “it doesn’t become more or less”. At that moment the basic science lesson back in school came to me: weight is mass times gravity. Of course! With mass being the flour and water I added, and gravity as the Earth’s gravity… The weight of my starter will stay whatever I added to it.

I don’t know why in the beginning I assumed that a “doubling” starter meant that there became more of it… I suppose because it took up more space in the jar?

I decided I would weigh my starter before and after feeding, and that’s when the light bulb switched on. I told my happy-go-lucky guru about my revolutionary discovery and she simply came back with “bubbles are just air!” She knew all along and never told me! It wasn’t an obvious question I asked either. It was simply something I needed to learn with continued practice.

I suddenly understood that I could simply use a small “discard” to make a levain and then feed my starter with how much I needed it to be in preparation for my next bake. I then also came to appreciate why everyone says to weigh (use grams!) and don’t measure by volume (ml).

I also came across this page on baker’s math, which confirmed what I had realized. I’m glad it wasn’t just me inventing something completely off. 😆

I surely need more practice. I stopped counting but I believe I’m still within less than 20 bakes, so I’m happy with my progress so far!

Would you eat this bread? Shall I start taking orders? 😁