Severe storms postpone University of Illinois sourdough class in central Illinois

Severe storms forced University of Illinois Extension to move its free sourdough class at Warner Library, resetting Sourdough Made Simple for July 8 at 5:30 p.m. The class had been planned for June, but the weather disruption shifted the timetable instead of wiping out the lesson.

Caitlin Mellendorf, the nutrition educator who serves DeWitt, Macon and Piatt counties, said the class at Warner Library had to be rescheduled because of the storms. Mellendorf has worked as a Nutrition and Wellness Educator in those counties since 2012, teaching community classes on diabetes and heart disease nutrition, home and restaurant food safety, canning, home food preservation, and basic food skills such as cooking, shopping and budgeting.

The July 8 session is built for beginners who want more than a recipe handout. Participants will learn the basics of sourdough breadmaking, including how to care for starter cultures, shape and proof dough, and troubleshoot common problems. The hands-on format also sends people home with a jar of starter, a practical detail that can make the difference for bakers trying to move from reading about sourdough to actually feeding a living culture and building a loaf from scratch.

Registration for the class is due by July 6. People can sign up in person at the library or by calling 217-935-5174. The workshop is free, and the extension listing describes it as hands-on, which puts it squarely in the lane of the in-person instruction many home bakers still lean on when starter gets sluggish, dough feels too sticky, or shaping does not quite click.

The rescheduled class also fits the broader mission of the DeWitt, Macon and Piatt Counties Illinois Extension Unit, which offers programming in agriculture, local foods, small farms, leadership, nutrition and wellness, horticulture, 4-H and youth development, community and economic development and consumer sciences. That reach matters in a place like central Illinois, where public classes at Warner Library in Clinton can turn sourdough from an online trend into a local skill, even when severe storms force the calendar to shift.