Sourdough - take 3

Third attempt, different blend.

The sponge is made with 1.5 cups of wholemeal flour and half a cup of plain flour. With autumn setting in, it's cooler so I'm leaving it to do its magic overnight...

Background beers : this week's (I mean, this month's) stash, James Squires Golden Ale. Easy to drink, flavorful and certainly very enjoyable :)





The next day...

Results! Bubbly, with a distinct fermented scent (not foul - otherwise, something's wrong!)

I added around 3 cups of plain flour to 1 cup of this sponge. The rest went back to the bottle, to be kept in the fridge, for future sponges...

Check out the end result here

Sourdough Starter Experiment - results!

And one week later, here's the result of the sourdough starter experiment :

I think I can officially say that we have new pet, and we've decided to name it Bublé, because it is bubbly. :)

The 'essence of wild yeast' now resides in a wide mouthed bottle covered with cling film and a modest rubber band, and left in the fridge, and now I can feed it once a week only. For the past few days I have been religiously removing half of the mixture and adding 3 heaped tablespoonfuls of plain flour and almost half a cup of warm water to help propagate those wonderful microorganisms that would help me make wonderful (artisan?!) breads later!

This shows a bit of the 'hooch' forming on top of the mixture. Hooch is like beer - fermented liquid, basically. except i don't think it's suitable for drinking :p it also smells beery. I like to think that it's the booze for my pet! (we all gotta have our share don't we?!)

One last photo pose before it went to the fridge!

There is a lot of information about making sourdough starter but I find that this this link summarizes it quite succinctly. Check it out if you would like to make your own!