Holy Giant Bread!

So, back to that starter I started 3 weeks ago...

 After 24 hours it was already starting to bubble nicely.  I think it helped that I put it in the oven over night with the light on.  It gets nice and warm in there with just the light.

For the next few days I continued to put it in the oven over night with the light on.  But on the 4th day it started looking flat.  It would be nice and bubbly after adding the 1/4 flour and 1/4 of water, but by morning all was still.  And when stirred it was very soupy.  So for a couple of days I skipped the water and only added flour.

That seemed to perk it up a bit again, but it would be flat by morning.  I decided it was because I was not feeding it enough.  And I stopped putting it in the oven, letting it get a bit cool at night (around 60 degrees).

When I got to two cups of starter I did a loaf of bread.

 The bread got HUGE.  My oven is small, 17 inches across on the inside, which means only my dinner plate sized stone fits within.  I started the loaf in the bread machine, no need to do all the mixing myself.  When the dough was ready for the final rise I put it on my little stone, covered it in plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, then finished the 30 minutes of the Dr. Who episode I was in the middle of.

I really thought it would take longer than 30 minutes for the loaf to double.  It did not.  And it continued to rise as I heated the oven.

 It's bigger than my head!

 Nice on the inside though, no big holes.

Nice texture too.

And: not too sour.  Could be for a couple of reasons.  Maybe my starter is too young.  Over time it may get more sour.  Or maybe the natural yeast in Hawaii just won't make all that sour of a loaf.  Either way, the starter now has a home in my fridge.  I'll give it a few more loaves before I decide how worthy it is.

Sourdough Starter

I really like sourdough, but where I live it seems hard to find.  I've often thought of making my own starter, and then I see a stray ant or two in the kitchen and worry that a starter would attract them.  Then recently I read an article on a quick sourdough starter in Vegetarian Times.  I decided it was time to give it a try.

First I located a glass jar. My last attempt at a homemade sourdough starter was in Colorado.  It took a few days, but I ended up with a bubbly, beer-smelling concoction.  It smelled so right.  And the resulting bread was anything but sour.  I think the problem was the plastic container it was in.  Though I managed to keep it alive for some time, it never got as sour as I would have liked.  Most bread made from it didn't even have a hint of sour to them.  When I gave up and threw out the starter I ended up throwing out the container too.  No matter how much I cleaned it, it always smelled like the starter.

Then I went back to the recipe in the magazine, but realized I did not have the yeast it called for.  My yeast was regular, it calls for fast-acting and has a side note that regular won't work.  That didn't stop me though, to Google!

Google had too many choices.  Then I remembered my book, Forgotten Skills of Cooking.  Her recipe looked to easy to be true.  So I looked in a couple of trusted cookbooks, and then returned to the hers: put 1/4C of flour in a jar with 1/4C warm water. Stir and let sit for 24 hours.  Feed with 1/4C flour and 1/4C warm water every 24 hours for 6 days.  Starter should be complete.  We'll see.