The Soul of Sourdough: The Weight of a Gas

Some years ago, I wrote a post here, one which I reposted on my own blog sometime after, about my experiences as an eleven- and twelve-year-old at an English boarding school in Malvern Wells. It wasn’t a first-tier (or likely even a second-tier) school, but it did have a few memorable teachers (almost all of them unmarried ladies of a certain age) on its staff. One of them was Miss Bronwyn Davies, of whom I wrote:

[A few of the] senior teachers [took on the role of] “housemistress” in one of six rambling old buildings into which the girls were placed (a la Gryffindor and Slytherin, only without the Sorting Hat), and where we slept. My own housemistress was Miss Bronwyn Davies, a truly gifted history teacher, and a Welshwoman, who had the hairiest legs I’ve ever seen, before or since, on a person of the female sex. She also smoked like a chimney.

Not only do I remember our childish fascination with her leg hair (she was a brunette, so it was quite noticeable, even underneath her almost-opaque, tough, seamed, 60-denier stockings), I’ll never forget the cigarette smoke that permeated our laundry, each piece of which was identified by labels sewn in by our mothers and grandmothers, and which was sent off to the local loony bin (SRSLY) every week to be washed and dried. Upon returning to the school, the housemistresses sorted it and folded it all before placing it on our beds (horse-hair stuffed mattresses on a wire mesh base; no box spring) for us to put away in our three-drawer chest, or to hang behind the curtain in what passed for our individual and tiny closet space.

Like many of her Welsh compatriots, Miss Davies was a skilled user of language, and a marvelous teller of stories. And although our history lessons (twice-weekly, IIRC) did sometimes involve discussions of material that we’d read, most of them were taken up by lectures in which she told us stories. Of Julius Caesar and the Roman Legions. Of Henry VIII and his wives. Of the American Revolution. Of the Crusades. And of the Holy Roman Empire. Our homework usually consisted of essays, written to answer questions that Miss Davies posed, and the answers to which indicated both that we’d assimilated and understood the point and purpose of the lecture, and that we could effectively and properly communicate our ideas on the matter.

One lecture that I’ve never forgotten had to do with Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1194-1250 (regarded as a highly educated, brilliant, very scientific fellow), and his legendary experiment on the human soul. Frederick had a poor prisoner-of-war (there were many such during his reign) sealed up inside a wooden barrel, with no food or water, and very little oxygen. At, or about, the moment of the man’s inevitable and very painful death, Frederick and his hangers on--who had been diligently observing the situation over the course of several days--concentrated their minds wonderfully on the very small hole that Frederick had caused to be drilled in the top of the cask. This was to see if they could spot the man's soul departing his body for the afterlife. No one claimed to, so the answer, as it relates to Frederick’s question on the matter, was a resounding,“No.”

Some years later, I became aware of the early twentieth-century American physician Duncan MacDougall, who posited that the human soul has a physical weight, and who–like Frederick II, almost seven hundred years before (please check the math; it’s never my strong suit)–conducted an experiment to try and prove his idea. MacDougall took a few debilitated and elderly patients in Haverhill, Massachusetts who were near death, and weighed them–hospital bed and all–both before and after they died. (His control group, espousing the idea that people have souls and animals do not, is believed to have been a group of fifteen or so dogs which he’d poisoned, so as to perform the same set of measurements on them and compare the results to his experiment on humans.)*

McDougall said that none of the dogs lost any weight after death.** But while a few results from his human test cases were muddled, as their weights went up and down just before and after expiration, one of them was shown to have “lost” twenty-one grams in weight, immediately after death. And this person, and this value, regardless (or irregardless as the case may be) of the accuracy and adjustment of the scales, or of the actual science or logic pertaining to the experiments, quickly became the poster child for the concept of the “weight of the human soul.” And the detail was published as such in several periodicals of the day, including this bit, from the New York Times on March 10, 1907:

MacDougall, to his (minimal) credit, never claimed absolute certainty, and insisted that the experiment would have to be repeatedly and successfully replicated, in order for it to be meaningful. It never was, and eventually, of course, the whole idea that the human soul had a physical, weighable component was debunked.

And yet…

I’ve always been very fond of sourdough bread. I realize that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s mine.

And a few decades ago, I was an enthusiastic follower of some early nationally recognized sourdough trends, such as those proposed by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik, in their seminal book, Bread Alone (1993), and of those contained in Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens (1999), by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott. Even today, those books are much-loved tomes on my recipe shelf, and–oh–how I still long for one of those outdoor masonry ovens I’ve cherished the idea of since before this century began.

But over time, as things will, my ability to pay attention to, and stay on top of, the fiddling, and the accuracy, demanded by these very precise and interesting recipes grew less and less, as other things took over, and as my hobby as a sourdough baker simply lapsed for twenty years or so.

Enter, Jess.

Jess is a local woman who runs a tiny commercial bakery out of her home in suburban Pittsburgh. I first learned of her about a year ago, when I stopped by a local farmer's market and bought an eleven-dollar loaf of locally-baked sourdough bread. Perhaps the best loaf of bread I’ve ever eaten.

I looked her up online, and noticed that she offered “classes” in bread baking. Still, I’m a bit lazy, and “life” does tend to get in the way of “other plans,” and it took several months until the irresistible force that is my sister–who lives in Scotland–descended on me for ten days in May of 2026, before I did anything about it. My sister and I stopped by the same farmer's market. Bought another $11 loaf of bread.

My sister--also a bit of a lapsed sourdough baker herself--bless her heart, picked up the tab for the several lovely products, without really registering the price of the bread loaf. When she finally came to her senses, I think she thought I was a bit daft. Until she tasted it.)

“My God.” She said. “Let’s phone her up and see if she can do a class before I have to go home.” So we did. And she did.

The class included a couple of glasses of wine, and a couple of slices of pizza with a sourdough crust. That alone might have rated it amongst the best $75 I’ve ever spent. But the sourdough education?

I haven’t bought a loaf of bread since. I don’t think my sister has, either. (For advice on how to transport small amounts of active sourdough starter across lengthy travel times and international boundaries–it’s usually legal, but you should check first; please DM me.)

I'd describe what my sister and I both refer to as the "Jess Method" of sourdough breadmaking as "relaxed." Making it work for us, rather than having us work for it.

Of course, the “soul of sourdough” can only be the starter. The class my sister and I took included a small blob of years-old sourdough starter we could take home. Jess showed us how to keep it fed. How to adjust and be relaxed about the process, depending on our lifestyle. How (this is most important) the “discard” can be used in so many other recipes, and needn’t be thrown out, week after week. Neither of the seminal books mentioned above even has “discard” as an index entry, generally suggesting that it should simply be thrown away.

There is still something of a calculus that needs to be made, though, when it comes to keeping the sourdough starter alive in the fridge between bakings, and then feeding it two or three times on the counter before it’s time to make bread. (I tend to bake about once a week.) A person doesn’t want to create so much starter that the amount of discard is overwhelming between feedings, but a person needs to be sure that there’s enough left over once the loaf is made, to put the starter back in the fridge, with additional flour and water, so it’s ready for next time.

When baking a single loaf, Jess’s standard recipe calls for 20-22 grams of starter to be left over after removing what is needed as an ingredient for each loaf's bake (105 grams). To that 20-22 grams of starter, you add 60 grams of water and 60 grams of flour. Mix it up, stick it back in the fridge, and it should be good for 5-7 days before your next bake. (You can adjust that timeframe by varying the proportions.)

So, 20 grams starter, 60 grams water, 60 grams flour—140 grams total (please check the math, etc). You could, perhaps, repeat that proportion for each feeding before you bake your loaf. After all, the result of "20+60+60" should total 140 grams, or plenty for the 105 grams of starter you need for each loaf, with at least 20 grams left over for the next feeding to put in the fridge.

But, no.

Just as with the “angel’s share” that distilleries assign to that part of spirits that vanishes from their aging barrels into thin air (a result of evaporation, which is a different, but with much the same effect), I always lose a few grams of gassy, bubbling starter weight to…something. (Hint: It's the gas. Sourdough starter releases CO2 as a byproduct of fermentation. CO2 is heavier than air, so when it leaves the arena due to the bubbles, what's left is lighter than how it started out.***)

And, if I’m sailing too close to the wind, when I’ve totted up my amounts, and think I’ve left “just enough” for the next round–well–I never seem to have quite enough for the next round, because some of it inevitably wafts away in the gassy bubbles. Sure, there are always a few grams left stuck to the jar, or the lid, or the spoon. But (and unlike Doctor MacDougall's irreproducible experiments), I have weighed and replicated with certainty that–time and time again–a few grams of the starter's weight disappears between the time that I first feed it and the time that I next measure it.

So I’ve learned, over the past few months, to overcompensate a bit.

Here’s a reliable recipe from my blog (where I use one of a relatively few plug-ins, so you can print it cleanly) for a 50% whole wheat sourdough loaf. I’ve sought out, over the past few months, local and organic stone-ground mills. The white bread flour is your standard, available at Sam's Club: King Arthur bread flour. (Costco's Kirkland Signature brand from Central Milling Company is equally good.) The stone-ground organic whole grain Glenn flour is from Weatherbury Farm just down the road. I encourage you to look for local alternatives:

Next up, the definitive recipe for seeded sourdough rye.

*Cannot help thinking that both Frederick II and Duncan MacDougall may have been guilty of what, in the 21st Century, might be referred to as a “Faucian Bargain,” when it came to their disgusting experiments on both humans and animals. I know history doesn’t really repeat. But, by gum, it often (almost) rhymes. Ugh.

**I presume he said this because he was invested in the whole "animals do not have souls" idea, and--if the dogs had lost weight after death, that would have been a difficult needle to thread. But I find his conclusion that no dogs lost weight when they died--after forty years of sheep farming on my own tod--hard to credit. Over the course of those four decades, I've had to deal with dozens of ovine deaths, some of them rather unpleasant, and I can certainly speak (without going into too much detail) to the gaseous nature, and explosive discharge, of some of the aftermath.

***All you wonderful engineers out there, please weigh in (see what I did there). I've just said everything I know about gas, CO2, and weight. Whatever else you bring to bear can only be a plus.

PS: Apparently, sourdough is a "thing" at the moment. I had no idea. I, more or less, regard it as just going back to my roots. Everything old is new again.