[Jock]

Originally Posted by deltadoc

Am I on the right track here?

Thanks,
doc

Yeah, pretty much. When your barm has been left unattended for an extended period it looses almost all of its potency and needs to be brought back to life. It's a gradual process and I would feed it a bit every day for about a week to get it back up to full strength.

As to the brown or black liquid that forms on top of the old barm, I've heard bakers argue whether to just mix it back in or to drain it off altogether. I drain it off because it is so off putting to look at.

Jock

[cyberfish]

I need more help!

I decided to do an experiment, following the Bread Baker's apprentice sourdough starter recipe but substituting the water with tea, juice, or distilled water for the first two days. Here is what happened:

day 1: mix rye flour in 4 different containers with either water, distilled water, pineapple juice, or tea.

day 2: no rise for the juice; 50% rise for the rest.
mixed with flour and more of the same liquid (juice, distilled, tea, or water).

day 3: tiny rise for juice; 200% rise for the rest, with a sustained rise for distilled, but a rise + fall for tea and regular water.
mixed half this mixture with flour and plain water.

day 4: 100% sustained rise for juice with a spongy, bubbly texture, and juice + wheat smell; distilled had >100% rise falling to <50% rise with a wet bubbly texture and sour smell. Plain water and tea were the same as distilled except for both rose <50%.
mixed half of the mixture with water and flour.

day 5: juice rose 10% with a wet and bubbly texture and a juice/sour/wheat smell. Plain water rose <25% and is wet, bubbly, sour-smelling; distilled and tea only rose by 1-2mm and are also wet, bubbly, and sour.

Now I am not sure whether I should keep going, or whether to do so would be a waste of time, energy, and flour. I am frustrated.

Should I just try a different recipe?

[KyleW]

Cyberfish - It looks like your plain water starter is performing well, why not stick with it? It is tempting to get carried away with this stuff. I ultimately figured out that the goal is not to have a kitchen full of science experiments, the goal is to bake bread. If you keep throwing out and starting over you will never bake bread.

Take 2 ounces of you water starter and add 1 oz of bread flour and 1 ounce of water. Wait 8-12 hours and add 2 oz flour and 2 oz water. You should see a doubling, in volume, after about 8 hours.

[cyberfish]

Thanks, Kyle.
I HAVE been baking, just not sourdough! (last weekend I made two batches of the French bread from Baking with Julia, the French bread made from pate fermente in Bread baker's apprentice, and the pane siciliano; I feel I'm gradually learning the way bread/dough should feel/smell/look with each batch I make)

I ended up throwing out all but the plain water starter because maintaining all four was too much work. I found some additional information on another web site about assessing new starters and appropriate measures to take to enliven less vigorous starters, so I am following that. I may try other recipes, like the Nancy Silverton one you show on your web site, or the starter recipe listed on your web site. I feel I've learned a lot just from seeing your web site, so thanks for that.

A friend of mine actually has some of Nancy Silverton's original starter (obtained from her friend who used to work at that bakery) and she offered to give me some. I may take her up on that to just get experience with maintaining an established starter, but I am DETERMINED to make my own, too!

Tami (aka cyberfish)

[KyleW]

I would skip the Silverton Starter If I were you. In my opinion it is unnecessarily complicated and the end results don't justify the effort. I would stick with either Reinhart method.