Wow.. it's great to find this resource, albeit a bit late for my first
starter batch. I can defintely see there is a fairly large learning
curve in advancing my sourdough baking techniques past where I am now.

About 10 days ago I decided to begin a starter after having a
discussion with my girlfriend about starters and sourdough, she
beleiving that sourdough starters simply added flavor to the bread and
you were still required to add commercial yeast in order to rise a
loaf. Given that she doesn't bake (nor cook more than boiling water
from time to time) I decided to prove her wrong.

I did just a few minutes of reading online and decided to jump right
in. I began with a non-standard starter method using organic Rye flour
and water. With my oven on its lowest 'warming' setting the storage
drawer at the bottom held a perfect 75 degrees. I mixed up two batches
of rye starter, one using plain filtered water, the other using potato
water. Both were started using 1c water and 1.5c flour.

Feeding was every 12 hours. I poured out the contents saving 1/2 cup
and fed with the same ration of water/rye flour that I used to begin
the started.

After 3 days there was definite activity -- I was seeing about a 25%
rise with very small bubbles and LOTS of hooch. The smell was
extremely sour.

The original instructions I read told me to switch over to regular
white flour feeds at this point which I did.

By the 7th day I was getting 150% rises, foamy tops, and what appeared
to be a very active starter. Both the rye/water and rye/potato water
starters have the same activity now although the potato water starter
probably showed a little more activity early on compared to the water
only one.

The smell is quite unique and I'm not sure if it's good or bad. It's a
very sweet alcohol smell with sour tinges. The feeding rises complete
about 4-5 hours after feeding and are totally settled back down to
initial volume 12 hours later -- which is when the hooch starts
appearing. The hooch is clear with a slight yellow tinge around the
edges.

Today I decided to try a baguette loaf with the starter. I pulled out
one cup of starter 4 hours after feeding and started a sponge adding
1c/1c and letting that go for 4 hours then repeating. I then took 2c
of that mixture and slowly added flour in the mixture until it formed
the right consistency. (salt was also added). This was about 6 cups
total -- 2c starter, 4c additional flour, 2 tsp salt. After the flour
went in I kneaded in the mixer for 10 minutes and set it in my proofing
bowl for the first rise.

I was totally suprised at how fast the mixture rose. It doubled in
approximately 35 minutes at 75 degrees. Given how fast it rose I
knocked it down and gave it a second proofing in the bowl for another
45 minutes which resulted in doubling.

I lightly knocked that down and rolled the baguettes and put them in my
baguette trays for rising for 30 minutes -- slashed and baked.

The results were still very crazy. even after two proofings the
baguettes rose over the edges of the rounded french loaf trays. I'd
say it nearly doubled up from it's starting baking point in the first
ten minutes.

The overall result was pretty pleasant. With steam and misting it
produced a nice chewy crust and light and airy core. Unfotunately
there was only a small hint of sourness in the bread.

Overall I still consider it an amazing success for a starter that was
only a week old and I definitely proved to the significant other that
one could rise bread without the addition of commercial yeast -- which
made me happy.

My question now is whether or not to continue these starters or order
some that are much more mature. My starters definitely rise well,
(Make great biscuits!! tried that tonight), but just don't have the
sour flavor I'm looking for.

Will these starters mature over time? Will I get a more sour flavor in
another month or so once they mature more?

Is my sweet but sour alcohol smell a good thing?

Should I have stayed with the rye flour instead of switching over to
white bread flour? I may spawn some of it off into rye just to see
how that goes anyway.

-Scott
Alexandria, VA