Hello! Let me introduce to you my kitchen pet. I’ve named it Doh-doh…
I leave it in my appliance cabinet (with doors open) near my water station. Room temperature is about 30-31C, humidity 72-78%
It is actually in a large glass beer mug covered with a plastic sheet & rubber band. I have 2 so I take turns. Each of the large glass beer mug are used alternate days.
It has a slight yeast sweet vinegary smell. Piglet mentioned that the kitchen smells like a bakery.
It’s alive so I need to feed it daily. I try to keep a regular schedule for its feeding time… same time every day. It bubbles and doubles in size between 7-9 hours after feed.
I have stored one in a plastic container in the fridge for weekly feed and I might eventually try to freeze some just in case.
Every sour dough starter is different I guess due to the environment (temperature, humidity, place, weather, organisms surrounding us) and also the type of flour used. It behaves differently so I am trying to get to know mine better…
Failed first batch
My first batch of sour dough starter did not turn out too well. One morning piglet was trying to find the source of the rotting smell and we could even smell it at the entrance of the house. It smelt so bad that I threw it away. I doubt it died. It just propagated too fast and had a funky vinegary alcohol smell. I suspect that it was ‘contaminated’ by commercial yeast when I was baking baguette on the first day. For the following batch, I refrained from baking anything using commercial yeast for the first 5 days.
Formula
And I was really confused with the instructions given for the sour dough starter recipe I was following. Eventually it clicked when I came across this.
The formula to make a sour dough starter is 1:1:1 sourdough starter: water: flour.
How I did it
Day 1
100g water + 100g flour
Day 2
100g day 1 starter + 100g water +100g flour. Discard the rest of day 1 starter.
Day 3
100g day 2 starter + 100g water +100g flour. Discard the rest of day 2 starter.
Day 4
100g day 3 starter + 100g water +100g flour. Discard the rest of day 3 starter.
Day 5
100g day 4 starter + 100g water +100g flour. Discard the rest of day 4 starter.
Day 6
100g day 5 starter + 100g water +100g flour. Discard the rest of day 5 starter
Day 7
Ready for bread making! But don’t forget to feed your starter.
I might just do 50g previous day starter + 50g water +50g flour for my following feeds.
What should I make with the sour dough starter?