I gave up on the concept of making a sourdough starter with commercial
yeast. It needs to be fed constantly. 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.
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. The color is
good. The Monday batch has grown a little, has a few bubbles and has no
smell at all. Neither did the Friday batch after just one day. 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.

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

"Fred" > wrote in message >...
> I gave up on the concept of making a sourdough starter with commercial
> yeast. It needs to be fed constantly.

You cannot make a good sourdough starter with commercial yeast.
Even if the bread from such yeast based starter taste had slight
sourness , it is still distinctively different from the real
sourdough.It is also blander in taste.
If had to do such thing.
I startt with real 100% yeast free starter carefully maintained by my
assistants but
I add baker's yeast in a different manner.....
Rather if I find that my dough from natural starter to be slow
proofing .In the next batch I tend to spike the dough side with very
little yeast( maybe around 0.1-0.2% based on flour weight) to enliven
up the proofing rate without any distinctive effect on bread flavour.
If I add more yeast the flavor profile will not be sourdough like but
more of normal yeast bread type.

Roy

"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

"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

(Roy Basan) wrote in message <snip>

In the next batch I tend to spike the dough side with very
> little yeast( maybe around 0.1-0.2% based on flour weight) <snip>

Which is 10X less yeast than would be used, regularly.