Starter Adventure Continued
January 23, 2007 by Stephanie Patag
Filed under Uncategorized
This was the starter, bubbling away, after the previous post — about 6 hours after refreshment. It’s now waiting in the refrigerator for another feed. Another week of this and I think we’ll be good to go for baking. Can’t wait!
I’ve been following your sourdough progress carefully, as I love sourdough and it’s a matter of pride to bake good sourdough here. I’ve tried it various ways and haven’t found a recipe I really like yet. I like a strong sourdough flavor and haven’t found a way to make it without leaving the dough to set to a day or two. I’m curious to see what your results are, I’m pulling for you.
It looks lovely! Bubbles like that after 6 hours is a good sign; I think you have a nice starter brewing there.
It looks ready to bake with! Exactly like my beasts when they are ready to go. Nice job!
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone! Any tips? Like proportions? I have recipes, but like I said, this is my first multi-day starter that’s lasted this long, so I’m still such a newbie at this and to be honest, quite nervous LOL.
Stef, once you get a starter going like you do now you will want to bake/cook with it to see how it does. This is the only way to see if you need to make adjustments to your feeding schedule, your proportions, etc. I always suggest going for a really easy, no fail recipe the first try out (i.e. a sourdough quick bread like a coffee cake or biscuits or sourdough pancakes). Since these are “no fail” you will still have something edible if you find you want a more sour taste or you don’t have enough natural yeast built up yet to get a good rise. I have found that during the “do I have it right yet” stage, if you go for the lovely boule of sourdough bread (what us Starter Hounds are REALLY after) and it fails because there isn’t enough natural yeast, it isn’t sour enough or even too sour, it is disappointing AND you don’t have anything to eat!