Sourdough? couldn't be dour, though

Making sourdough bread has been on my mind for a while, for some reason I never found myself doing it even during times where I had plenty of time on my hands. It's probably because I never baked bread before, so creating a starter for it or y'know just using a packet of yeast felt like a big jump at the time. Worrying about unintentionally forgetting about it was also a factor.
Anyways, I still don't have any prior bread experience but with a decent grasp of following instructions and some improvement in keeping track of things, I've decided to give it a shot.

Ultimately, it comes down to mixing equal parts, like 60 g flour + 60 g warm water into a jar and leaving it be in a roomtemp to warm area. The summer temp here has been on the slightly hotter side for starter, so I'll give it a little more caution. Overall, a lot more straightforward than I imagined.

Today is the second day of the starter-making process, and I think it's looking pretty good so far, yippee :D
The expected signs are there, at least. The mixture has risen around twice it's size (it rose even more, a few hours later), bubbles are present, smells a bit funky from fermentation.

The next step(s) of discarding the existing starter and adding more flour+water comes tomorrow. Realistically, I'll probably keep most of it in the fridge indefinitely after getting tied of eating flour throughout the week, but I'm a little excited try out some new recipes. Woe, pancakes be upon ye.

08/21/2023 update

It's basically the end of week 1 for this sourdough project. I haven't checked and fed my starter yet, but I'll write up a quick reflection on the progress before I get to it.
As I predicted before, didn't do anything with the discard yet, but I have about two cups' worth of it chilling in the fridge so I'll get to working with them soon.

Currently I'm holding onto the hope of trusting the process. I'm a little worried? Making starter usually takes a week. An active starter can be discerned by the telltale signs of bulk growth, the presence of air bubbles, and a sweetish scent... and as it approached the end of the week, none of these signs were present in my jar of starter.
HOWEVER, I need to remember that it's not uncommon for the process to take around two weeks rather than one, so I'm not giving up yet.
Initially, the starter had a very strong (it was downright pungent XP) smell, but thankfully it has lessened over time and possibly has hints of a fruitier scent? I might be just imagining that last part, but I'll take it as progress.

Given that the timing that I had with feeding the starter has been fairly inconsistent so far, as sometimes it was during the afternoon and oftentimes it was sometime in the evening, I'm going to put more effort in feeding it at the same time every day. Cheers to week 2.

2 Kudos

Comments

Displaying 0 of 0 comments ( View all | Add Comment )