Blog Post #13: Travelling With and Maintaining a Sourdough Starter

…She travels with a what?

Read time: 7 minutes

TLDR:

• Sourdough bread baking gave me a wonderful creative outlet in the past and now
• Baking sourdough bread while abroad is more challenging because the ingredients behave differently than home
• Travelling and baking abroad have taught me how to let go of perfection and enjoy creativity/curiosity
• I’ve never had troubles taking a starter and razors in the carry on area of a plane even through China
• **update: didn’t realize I had to declare my starter through customs so will do so on my next leg and see what happens…^^

Preamble:

Hello Readers,

I have no idea if anyone will use this information for anything but to laugh at my funny antics (and maybe learn about baking bread); however, if it brings you joy, then why not?

Since ~Oct 2023, I’ve been travelling with a sourdough starter. What is that might you ask? Well, a sourdough starter is an alternative to commercial yeast that makes bread rise. In flour there is naturally occurring yeast and if you “feed” your starter, that yeast gets concentrated in large enough quantities such that it can make bread rise.

Background:

I got into sourdough bread baking back in 2018 when my friend Amanda gifted me a sourdough loaf. I was mind-blown that you could delicious artisan style bread in a home oven. She lent me a book where she learned to bake this delicious bread. Super helpful and has excellent step by step instructions on how to make bread even as a complete novice (Josey Baker Bread – Amazon link, nope…not an affiliate, just an easy link for you)

Skip forward a few years and I was bored with life in 2023…I got really into it then. Realized I wanted to refine my bread baking and also that I got a lot of enjoyment from drawing designs, but couldn’t eat it all. It was my creative outlet. Thank you to my lovely neighbours for buying my bread ^^. The first ones weren’t so pretty, but you ate them nonetheless.

How I Came To Start a Sourdough Starter while Travelling:

By the end of October of 2023, I had already been travelling for several months and I was feeling a little homesick, yet not ready to come home. I’d been living with friends or in hostels and, if you know me, I’m a person who loves being a homebody and cooking. I missed the consistency of being in a place regularly and establishing a home base. When I arrived in Albania and was going to stay for a least a month, I decided to start sourdough baking again.

The Challenges of Making a Starter Abroad:

I was fairly confident in my sourdough bread making abilities back home, but wow, did the new atmosphere prove to be a challenge. The flour didn’t behave how I was used to, the water was different, the humidity and air temperature/quality was unpredictable. Normally it only takes 2 weeks to make a sourdough starter, but wow, it took me 4 weeks.

At 2 weeks, the starter smelled like lactic acid. Gross. Not the pleasantly yeasty smell I was used to. Goodbye ego!

Alas, trial and error later, I managed to get my sourdough starter smelling right (added lemon juice with feedings), but it was definitely not as powerful as the one at home so I had to turn to hybrid sourdough – tastes like sourdough, but uses a bit of commercial yeast to give it a boost. Definitely not as pretty as I was used to nor rose the same way, but it still tasted delicious.

Letting Go of Perfection:

Travelling and baking bread with a sourdough starter while abroad has taught me many things – the main being how to let go of convention. Many of the places I travelled to and lived at didn’t have the typical kitchen materials I was used to: a scale for measuring, a large oven, a baking pan with lid, tin foil, bread proofing baskets, a colander, measuring cups. Over time, I had to learn how to do things by eye and feel and just hope it would work out. The thing with sourdough bread is that even if it doesn’t look pretty, it still always seems to taste alright! …Even when you forget to add salt.

I’ve also overproofed a loaf (forgotten about it overnight and left it to rise for like 12 hours), partially burned a loaf (Mimi, I swear that Albanian oven is too hot), burned cookies (Mimi again…that oven is hotter than the temperature says it is).

Currently, I’m in Hong Kong and they don’t have ovens here and steam a lot of food. Perhaps I’ll try steaming a loaf of sourdough bread next? Or will put the dough on a chopstick and cook it over the gas stove?

…Will add a photo of it here later if it happens.

Unconventional Uses of my Starter:

• Flatbread: I don’t have a picture of it, but when I didn’t have an oven, I’d just stretch it into flatbread and fry it on the frying pan. Still tasted good and made a good pizza base.
• Sourdough Discard: Overtime I didn’t want to throw away my discard so I’d just add it all to the bread dough/preferment that I made the night before. Still came out fine and wherever I was in the world, I didn’t have other ingredients in the kitchen to make sourdough crackers, waffles etc. etc. That or I was leaving to go to another country in a couple days and didn’t want to start another sourdough project.

Why I Travel with a Starter:

There are many reasons. Mostly I find it fun, creative and relaxing, but also because it’s an excellent way to connect with others and share culture. In Albania for instance, they don’t have sourdough bread and don’t know what I’m referring to. Others want to learn how to bake bread. Some even wanted some starter so they could take it back home with them.

Below is Pau. I stayed with him and his family in Barcelona as a Workawayer. He always enjoyed the soft insides of the baked loaves and didn’t like the crusty parts.

How to Travel with a Sourdough Starter:

Now here’s the part where you can laugh at me (or with me…doesn’t matter). I do travel with my starter for the reasons above and surprisingly I haven’t had any challenges. “Do you only take ground transportation?” Nope, I take planes too. I just turn it into a solid starter (add a little water, then enough flour to knead it into a very dry ball), stick it in a jar and away I go. I’ve taken it in my carry-on luggage no problem. I haven’t been stopped or even questioned. When I get to my destination, I just buy some flour and feed it a few times with extra water and voila! Starter refreshed and ready for baking. I also carry a couple razors for slashing bread with me and haven’t had any problems going through security…even through China!

Customs: all that said a reader mentioned about declarations and I didn’t realize I needed to declare flour and water (woops! Always things to learn)…will do so at the next journey and update it here…shall see what happens!

Summary:

If you’ve ever wanted to start sourdough baking, now’s the time. It’s not as challenging as it looks and is full of good fun. Don’t be too stressed out getting a perfectly pretty loaf – it’ll all taste good in the end and works out well provided you have some patience and time on your hands. If you want to be crazy like me and travel with one, it’s not too difficult either.

Wishing you well and lots of happiness,

Tracy