Welcome to my chaotic experiment –
Cultivating our sourdough starter
Day 0 (2/5/24) @ 0700 – Welcome to the world!
On day zero of our experiment, we listened to instructions that I found from various sourdough folks on tiktok initially took ½ cup of flour and ½ cup of warm tap water and mixed well to create our new girl. With this texture, the mix was far too thick and crumbly so an additional ½ cup of water was added which resulted in a thick pancake batter texture. The jar was covered with a paper towel and rubber band to allow for air flow but limit the infiltration of other less desireable microbes (or cat hair). The image from day 0 comes from about 12 hours post initial feed!
It is important to note that you must use unbleached flour in this process, bleached flour still contains trace amounts of bleach which will kill your bacteria and yeast!
Average House Temp: 72 degrees Fahrenheit
Flour: 1/2 cup of unbleached bread flour
Water: 1 cup of warm tap water
Day 1 (2/6/24) @ 0830 – Meet Elsabet!
On day of life one of our experiment, we were already seeing signs of yeast and bacteria growth, as evidenced by the increase in bubbling which is CO2 let off from the cultures growing in the starter. At this point, we have no significant scent of the classic yeasty sourdough and no signs of mold or bad bacteria cultures! Due to this auspicious news, our starter now has a name, Elsabet (like our favorite character in the CAMPY film, Saltburn)! After stirring the starter and discarding half, we added unbleached bread flour and warm tap water and allowed her to rest on top of the stovetop.
Average House Temp: 70 degrees Fahrenheit
Flour: 1/2 cup unbleached bread flour
Water: 1/2 cup of warm tap water
Day 2 (2/7/24) @ 0830 – We got our first rise!
Day 2 of life showed continued signs of good sourdough development, we continued to have larger CO2 bubbles forming and no signs of bad bacterial growth. Which can be ID by streaks of color such as white, pink/peach, or grossly identifiable mold spores. Early that morning, I discarded half the quantity of Elsabet, and I fed the additional unbleached bread flour and warm tap water.
It was a bit colder in the house that day due to the outside temp drop, so I placed it in the sunny windowsill and within a few hours, we got our first rise!! Don’t mind the ugly jar, I didn’t think this process would actually work so I used an old tomato sauce jar with the label still partially intact. If all continues to go well, she will be getting an upgrade soon!
Average House Temp: 69 degrees Fahrenheit
Flour: 1/2 cup of unbleached bread flour
Water: 1/2 cup of warm tap water
Day 3 (2/8/24) @ 1130 – A new home!
On day 3, Ms. Elsabet got herself a fancy new home! I allowed the starter to rest on the counter for a bit longer than normal as I had to make my way to our nearest Ace Hardware (pls sponsor me) in order to procure a prettier jar. I wanted something smaller than what we got, but this one was the only jar sold as a single so it’s what came home with me! This AM, all of Elsabet was transferred into a freshly washed (with water only, as some people say any remnants of soap will harm the starter) jar and fed her regular amount of unbleached flour and warm tap water. She had a good bit of hooch on top (a type of alcohol that is a byproduct of the fermentation process in sourdough) which was stirred back into the starter prior to the feed.
Average House Temp: 68 degrees Fahrenheit
Flour: 1/2 cup of unbleached flour
Water: 1/2 cup of warm tap water
Day 4 (2/9/24) @ 0645 – Not much happening
Despite the excitement and hopes of seeing significant growth with Elsabet in her new jar, we didn’t end up having another rise between days 3 and 4 of our experiment. However, we did have auspicious signs of development with her CO2 formation and with her new, yeasty scent! Luckily, we have had no signs of mold or harmful bacterial growth. At this point, there has been a change in temperature here in DC so we are hopeful that the hiccup regarding her lack of rise is due to the dropping temps. For her feed, we continued to discard half and mix in flour and warm tap water.
Average House Temp: 68 degrees Fahrenheit
Flour: 1/2 cup unbleached bread flour
Water: 1/2 cup of warm tap water
– FUN FACT –
Sourdough has a lower glycemic index and is lower in gluten content when compared to bread created through the process of rapid fermentation yeast!