Part 1
I started my bread making journey at the beginning of the Covid_19 pandemic lockdown here in the UK. Flour was in short supply and I managed to purchase some Hovis Granary flour and Allinson dried yeast from my local supermarket.
I baked a couple of loaves using these key ingredients. My lovely daughter encouraged me to use her KitchenAid stand mixer complete with dough hook for the initial mix. The subsequent kneading was hard work, but I persevered! The resulting bread had a wonderful flavour although the texture was a little dense. If flour had been readily available I would have considered blending some strong white bread flour with the granary.
I am aware that many people began baking sourdough bread during the pandemic, so called “lockdown loafers”! Although it appears that I have jumped on the bandwagon I had been hankering to try sourdough baking after I saw that actor/writer Wil Wheaton had made a great loaf and posted about it on his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/B-6C9CHD3db/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
The problem I faced during lockdown, was, what could I use to make a starter? I trawled the Interwebs and alighted upon the Hobbs House Bakery method https://www.hobbshousebakery.co.uk/blogs/recipes/140063559-sourdough-starter-recipe
I sourced some plain (all pupose) flour and on April 24 2020 Ron was born!
It is essential to give your sourdough starter a name. Wil Wheaton has named his The Grateful Bread! After much deliberation we decided on Sour Ron, as in Sauron the eponymous character and main antagonist of The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien. I noticed that someone has a Jane Fondough, but my personal favourite is Albus Dumbledough!
