Sourdough Starter

This weekend I didn't get a lot of baking done because my mom came to visit and we were way too busy sightseeing and doing home improvement projects.  Thanks to her, I almost have a finished kitchen table and chairs (which I bought unfinished nearly a year ago).  I have to varnish two more chairs and I'll be back in business (and I'll be able to have friends over without being a coaster fiend). 

Anyway, I did have a chance to start a sourdough starter, which so far has been a lot of fun.  A starter is kind of like a pet, in good and bad ways.  You get to watch it grow and play with it every day, but you also have to remember to feed it every day or it gets cranky.  So far, I have fed my starter twice, and I have to feed it again tonight.  According to the River Cottage Bread Handbook, I'll be able to start feeding it less frequently after about a week, and I am really looking forward to that!  The great thing about a starter is that every time you have to feed it, you have to get rid of half the starter (usually by baking a loaf of bread).  The awful thing is that, when it's time to feed the starter, you have to bake, or miss out on a chance for fresh bread.  I plan to manage my starter so that I only have to feed it once every week or two, so that I can make more than just sourdough loaves.  As much as I love the idea of growing my own wild yeast (and I REALLY love that idea), I know that I won't want to eat sourdough every single day, not to mention that I have actual pets to take care of. 

This is what my starter looked like when I was ready for its second feeding.  It smelled horrible - first like rotten eggs, then like yeast, and finally like burnt rubber.  Apparently this smell is how I'll know when it's ready to be fed in the future - I just hope all the varnish fumes didn't mess with my sense of smell too badly.  I don't want to spend weeks waiting for my bread starter to smell like furniture!!