I Think I Finally Got The Hang Of It??

Making sourdough bread that is. Last winter I created a sourdough starter from scratch. No yeast other than that which is in the flour and in the air. I've tried several times to bake bread with the starter with varying results.

This was my first attempt and it came out OK, a little overbaked and burnt on the bottom. Then I tried baking the bread in a breadpan and less time. Those turned out to be underdone and doughy in the middle. The Old Lady compared some to a brick!!

This is my latest attempt. I made these the other day. Figured out I was rushing things. I didn't allow enough time for it to proof and rise. These loaves took almost 24 hours total from start to finish. I started the proofing the night before and 12 hours later started mixing the dough. Then 2-3 hours to rise, a couple more hours to rise again, and finally a couple hours to rise in the pans. They finally came out of the oven in the evening.

Before I made these loaves I shared my starter with The Oldest Daughter who is a cook. She took it to work and everyone there was excited about it. Haven't heard yet if they have baked anything with it or how it turned out.

Bread

This is a picture of the sourdough bread that I baked the other week. It took me more than a dozen tries to get a sourdough starter using only flour and water. My early attempts were using a Mason jar and I didn't have any luck. The last attempt I used a mixing bowl and was successful. I guess it needed a larger surface area to work.








I created the starter while UP on the tundra and was able to transport it down to the land of Kudzu in a cooler with no problems. It is happily living in a Mason jar in the back of the fridge. Once a week, I either make bread or feed it half a cup of flour and half a cup of warm water. You are supposed to throw half a cup of starter away when you feed it, but I don't because I want more starter so I can do two loaves at a time instead of one. After going thru the trouble of making a starter, the Old Lady said, I don't know why you bothered with that because I don't like sourdough bread. I just like the idea of making bread without buying yeast and it isn't a real sour sourdough. Also I just wanted to see if I could do it and I was able to create a sourdough starter from scratch. Maybe it will get more sour as it gets older but for now it has a sour smell in the jar and when I proof it but the bread has very little sour smell or taste.