Well it has been an interesting road with the Starter, I had a batch that smelt like vomit so had to discard that lot, then I started a new lot, and then after 1 day had to go away for 3 days, so it got no loving up front, but I am not on about day 8 or 9 and this batch has taken off quite nicely, the mother is not so active, but putting a small amount into a new clean jar and feeding it as per the beginner starter recipe here does show lovely activity.
I decided to try to bake a loaf with the "discard" from the starter, so I ended up using 200gm of starter, 350gm of water, 600gm of White Flour and 300gm of fine Semolina and some salt.
This was just mixed the starter with the water, left that for a little bit, then mixed the flours and water/starter together in a bowl, covered and then left on the bench overnight... it more than doubled in size, this morning I shaped (it was very wet and hard to work) let it rise in a similar sized pot to the baking pot, scored it (almost impossible with it being so wet) and being impatient, baked it in a hot pre-heated cast iron pot with a SS lid.
The bread took a lot longer to cook than I am used to... probably about 50 mins in the pot with the lid on, and then about 10mins on a stone.
I am quite happy with the result for a first effort, it has great flavour, nice and crusty, dense moist middle, but not too heavy.
It is not as pretty as other loaves I have made, and I am sure I could have done it better, but overall, I am pretty happy for a first go.
Looking forward to baking more real sourdough! :D
Replies
I too am trying to get a starter going. I have a starter that a friend gave me, it's supposed to be very old. I have been feeding it off and on and it has a nice rich sour smell but very few bubbles. I tried taking some of it and baking a "loaf" with it but it is very very slow and produces very little rise. What can I do to get this starter to be more active?
I found my starter was exactly the same, so what I did was to take a bit of it (about a large spoonful) and put it in a new clean jar, then I added 30gms of Rye flour and 70gms of white flour and 100mls of filtered water.
It really took off then, it got a lot of bubbles and rose to the top of my jar (about 4 times the original quantity)
It seems like it did nothing until I added the rye flour, that seems to be the catalyst for it to really take off.
I have just baked my second loaf of sourdough, and I am much happier with it, I gave it a longer rise and folded it about 4 times, then shaped and let it rise in the banneton for only about an hour or so, then baked.
Turned out really well, except it did burst dispite slashing.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will try it although, way back when I first started to rescue it I did add a small amount of rye flour but I did not try taking a small amount of the starter and adding rye.