Okay, well last night I woke to a 'beep...beep...beep...beep' sound in my dreams...lol! Actually, it was the timer reminding me that it was time to do the next step of our bread dough. (I was actually supposed to start it early enough in the day I didn't have to be woken up but that just didn't happen and I was too excited to wait for another day...lol)
So I got up and mixed in the next set of flour and water. I decided to do a 1/2
whole wheat - 1/2 all purpose flour mixture. So this was the all purpose flour mix in. We had been 'storing' the mixture in the microwave for extra insulation to keep the bread between 65-80 degrees. But since night time is the coldest time, I decided to put it
in the oven with the oven light on.
When we woke up this morning...WOW it was HUGE! It had at least grown 5x's its original size, but Marion said it was 10...lol! Anyway, it was VERY bubbly and VERY stinky :0) Marion was CONVINCED I was the best yeast maker on the planet! I'm still not so sure...hehehehe ;0) Anyway, by the time we got ready to work with it, the starter had 'dropped' which is what they say happens when the yeast goes dormant...a good sign...means it is ready to be fed again!
Since we are apparently doing it 'correctly' we decided to go ahead and feed the sourdough starter again today but we did take out the 1/2 cup needed to make a sponge, just to see if the yeast really is high enough (we will see if Marion is correct or if we needed to wait longer...lol). I'm told that it could take weeks to get a stable starter. We will see what happens as we learn!
Here is the picture of the starter before we set it in the oven again for the 24 hour processing!
(by 11 am, the starter has already doubled. I may have to divide it in half to keep it from overflowing...one site recommended having a 'backup' starter anyway...you can see how much it went down from the previous picture...and this is AFTER we fed it!)
Next, you'll see the beginning of our first trial batch of sourdough bread! For the initial recipe I am simply following the directions and not doing anything 'different'. We will see how it turns out. (eventually I'd like to try the sweet version or the various French bread recipes) The directions say that it will take 12--15 hours for the sponge to froth...then we make the dough and bake the bread!
We will keep you posted...lol!
