The Great Sourdough Experiment

For this one I want to try to do a little better at tracking.  So I am starting with the King Arthur Sourdough information from their cook book.  It just uses a tiny bit of molasses, rye flour and water to get the starter going.  This will take about 10 days to get a really good starter.  What I have to do is feed it more flour and water every day.

Day 1

It looks kinda yucky to me lol.  Very thick and pasty.

Day 2 and 3

My cookbook is sitting next to it, moved over to a larger jar in case it really grows on me.  I find it weird that I have to pour off half of it every day, seems like such a waste.

Day 4 Time to switch from rye flour to white flour

Getting some real quantity here!

Day 5

Wow got some serious action going.  Unless this dramatically changes in appearance, I probably won't keep taking a daily picture.

Day 6-12 are pretty much the same, kept pouring off and feeding flour and water.  I did accidentally use whole wheat flour on Day 10, but it really didn't hurt.  From what I can tell in blogs online, its really best to use white because the whole grains can actually feed it too much.  Who knew.

Another thing I found in this journey is that it IS really important to do the pour off.  What that does is help balance out the bacteria (the good ones) in the starter.

So for the first baking, I made the Sourdough Baguettes

I need more practice shaping them.

And the final products!  From left to right: italian herb, sesame seed and parmesan encrusted.  The last three are regular sour dough.

Not bad if I do say so!  I still have starter and have now moved it to the fridge for long term weekly feeding and storage.  Will keep it going and see how things progress.  Another blog when I make the next bread with it.