Sourdough Starter 2

For those of you anxiously awaiting the results of my science experiment, here it is.

Day Two, bubbles started to appear in my starter:





Day Three and it's bubbling like crazy:



And here's Day Three at night. The starter has started to separate from the liquid and the liquid looks dark. I poured off the liquid and fed the starter flour and water. What convinced me that this is working, is the smell. All of a sudden, my starter smells tangy, just like real sourdough bread.





Today's Day Four and there is no further change. I'm getting ready to bake in another day or two. I've heard that the sourdough will take longer to bake than regular bread-it sounds like close to 24 hours prep time...

Sourdough Starter

A sourdough starter is supposed to be easy so let us see what happens in the next few days. This is part of my creative kick, as I've always meant to try a real sourdough starter, not just the mysterious ones that appear in my life occasionally. (And sometimes have way too much sugar). And since I love bread, but would prefer to cut my added yeast varieties, I'm trying this out.

What I just did:

1. Find one large, glass jar.
2. Add 1/2 cup water, 1/2 flour (I used whole wheat. Mix.
3. Cover with a napkin, help on with an elastic (so the sourdough can breath and trap bacteria I understand)
4. Keep warm. (Mine's on the stove, but hopefully we get some warm days soon).

And then I plan to add 1/4 c. water and 1/4 cup flour every 12 hours. When it starts to bubble, you can feed it just once a day and with much less flour and or water. If black gunk grows (it's supposed to), pour it off before you feed it.

There are a bunch of tips I have ignored-you can start with cooking water, you probably shoudn't use tap water as I am... so we'll see how important the tips are.

Here's the starter!






Wish us luck!