Steph's Anti Bread Technology Stance

It's the latest piece of bread technology that we all knead! See what I did there? 

Episode Transcript

Steph (00:00):
There's a new product out there that is trying to
take the guesswork out of making sourdough, but it feels
like it's trying to take the fun out of
it.

Maarten (00:07):
Take the guesswork out of sourdough. What? Who, who are you?
Do you work for this company? No,

Steph (00:14):
I'm trying to tell you that this is a terrible idea.
It's making me sad.

Maarten (00:18):
What is this product? tell me about sourdough because maybe
I don't know a whole lot about it. All

Steph (00:22):
right, so
sourdough, you have like a starter and every day you
have to feed it, so you give it.

Maarten (00:28):
Wait, it's bread that comes with a job?

Steph (00:31):
Yes, yes. So it's like a little jar, it lives
on your counter, and then every day you put like
equal parts of water to flour inside and then you
kind of give it a little stir with something wooden
and it gets yeast and it grows and ferments and
then you do it again the next day,

Maarten (00:46):
but you can eat it every now and again.

Steph (00:48):
Yeah, yeah, you can make bread about once a week, uh,
if you like, and then you have to have precise measurements.
You usually use a scale.
But there's this product that they're trying to peddle called
the Sourdough Sidekick.

Maarten (01:01):
They're trying to peddle. Oh, the snake oil salesman's back.

Steph (01:06):
And they want you to just put your starter in it,
and it's gonna measure, um, the, you know, like the viscosity,
the density, the, the yeastiness of it and be like, Oh,
time to feed the starter. Automatically do it for you.
And then you can set the date that you want
to make bread, and they'll be like, I'll make this
starter ready for you exactly when you're ready

(01:29):
for it.

Maarten (01:29):
Now, is the feeding portion like optional? Because I feel like,
you know, I
I used to think that like uh fitness trackers and
stuff like that on watches were really stupid and then
I got one and I wore it to bed like
5 nights in a row because it's like I need
to see how I'm sleeping. What, what's going on if
it's optional like to turn off the feeding boat, it'd
be kind of cool to have like minute by minute

(01:51):
updates on your little bread baby that you got

Steph (01:53):
cooking. Oh, OK, so you're saying just use it as
like a data tracker but not as a take the
fun out of it because I think that's the thing about.
The starter is that when you become an expert in it,
and you can actually keep your starter alive and you
make the best bread anybody's ever tasted, it's a point
of pride. But I feel like if you're using a
machine to do it, it loses all of its joy.

(02:16):
It's just like, oh yeah, the machine did everything for
me and I'm just serving you this with a side
of butter.

Maarten (02:21):
Now I have a quick question here. I seem to
recall a power outage conversation that we had while we
were around a dimly lit table.
You talking about killing a sourdough.

Steph (02:33):
I know I did. I killed my sourdough starter. I
had great bread for about 3 weeks and then it
just went a little bit black and spotty and untrustworthy,
but I still don't wanna. I don't want

Maarten (02:44):
my point is, is that you should probably be using
this product. No, I don't want to. I

Steph (02:48):
wanna learn to be a good sourdough maker. Bread's

Maarten (02:51):
gonna die, Steph, it's

Steph (02:53):
gonna

Maarten (02:53):
die.