"Mike Pearce" > wrote in message
news:qftoc.5863$Md.4046@lakeread05...
> "Fred" wrote in message ...
>
> > I gave up on the concept of making a sourdough starter with commercial
> > yeast. It needs to be fed constantly.
>
> I'm not sure that you'll find a true sourdough starter any differnet with
> respect to feeding. Although I don't feed mine constantly and it does
quite
> well. I do something along the lines of this:
>
> http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/dickpics/starter.html
>
>
> >I mixed some bread flour and some
> > tap water into a wet dough and put it a bowl last Friday. On Monday I
had
> a
> > bubbly mass that had grown somewhat in size in the bowl. It had no
smell.
>
> I assumme that it had some sort of smell though maybe not a sour smell. I
> would not necessarily consider this a negative especially if the starter
was
> showing activity as you've indicated.
>
> > Also on Monday I started a second culture using organic rye flour and
tap
> > water that I had boiled and cooled to remove any chlorine. I also added
> > some of the rye flour and boiled water to the Friday batch. This
evening
> > the Friday batch is quite bubbly and smells like aged cheese.
>
> <snip>
>
> > How am I
> > doing? Do I have the start of a sourdough starter in the Friday batch?
> > What do I do next? Make it larger and try a loaf of bread? Help.
>
> It sounds to me like you've got a couple of starters on their way to being
> viable. I'd probably run them through a few daily feedings to get them
more
> active before I used them.
>
> Every few days there is a welcome message that shows up here in
> rec.food.sourdough which has links to a ton of information which might be
> helpful.
>
> There are some pretty straight forward recipes he
>
> http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/OTbrochure.html
>
> -Mike
>
>
>
>
Thanks. I took the Friday starter, halved it, replaced the missing flour
and water and put the other half in an Italian bread dough I had moved down
to 50% hydration. The dough was a little wet for my taste but I made it up
and baked it into baguettes. The resulting bread was pretty good. It had a
very slight sour taste to it and, strangely, a thin soft crust very unlike
the crust I usually get with my Italian loaves. Couldn't tell you why since
it is a very lean dough. I'm learning.

Fred
The Good Gourmet
http://www.thegoodgourmet.com