After 2 months and 4 different tries I was finally able to successfully grow a sourdough starter. I've tried everything Wafaa suggested (yogurt water, pineapple/orange juice) but nothing worked. What seemed to do the trick is to microwave the water for 10 seconds (making it warm) before adding it in. Let me tell you, the next day after I started doing that my culture stopped smelling like old cheese. Then the day after I was smelling some alcohol. Two days later it smelled sweet and alcoholic with froth on the top so I tried baking some bread but didn't get a very good rise and it was too sour. I noticed that the mixture would become really bubbly with froth on the top within half a day. So, I started feeding it twice a day and now I have a monster culture. It works almost as fast as commercial yeast. Every time I feed it, it bubbles and doubles in size in about 2-4 hours. The bread I bake with it is a favorite of mine that I found in a baking book Terra got for Christmas. It's called European peasant bread and it's 3 parts white flour, 1/2 part rye and 1/2 part wheat. I also add seeds to it (flax seeds, oat meal flakes, sunflower seeds, rye flakes) I add a little honey to offset the bitterness of the wheat although this is optional since it's light on wheat. The way I bake is preheat the oven to 450, I put the bread in a buttered, floured, and corn meal sprinkled bread baking pan. I put another pan on the bottom rack with water in it so it's steamy in the oven when the bread bakes. I bake it for 40 to 50 min or until the crust is a dark brown color. Check out the pictures below :) and thanks Wafaa for your post and help.

Cool. I think you cut the process short by adding some warm water. It takes a while usually. I've been feeding mine for 6 days now, once per day leaving it in a warm spot in the kitchen and it's already started to smell sour and bubble and froth. It'll definitely be all set in a week for a bake. It did go through the old cheese smell phase before going sour. Maybe it's a little cold in Arizona these days, that's why it was taking so long. Last year, I did mine in spring and summer.
ReplyDeleteOf course, when you are actually baking, you have to add warm water to the yeast to bring it to hyper mode, and that's why the dough doubles in around 2 hours.
Also, that bread looks delicious. Can't wait to bake mine :D
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