Even More New Sourdough

Previous post.

Today is Day 8 of my new sourdough making and I'm racking my brain for a good name of the new family member.

I'm very pleased with this one, it's very strong and is ready to be put to work. But let's catch up first.

Day 6

0.6 dl starter from previous day
1.2 dl white flour
0.6 dl filtered water

Even more liquid had formed than the day before and reading through the discussion thread in the original instructions post, it would appear that my starter is very hungry indeed. This is why I doubled the amount of flour.

I was also beginning to wonder about the expanding part - it was mentioned that if the starter is too runny, it won't expand, but all bubbles would come up to the surface. This problem would also be resolved and indeed after feeding the consistency was like very thick batter, very much like Monty used to be. Good.

Day 7

60 g starter from previous day
70 g white flour
50 g filtered water

When it was time for the feed, I noticed that my new starter was once again very runny, like thin pancake batter, but at least there was no evidence of hootch forming, so at least it wasn't starved.

I also decided to move over to weights now, so I measured up as for Day 6 and weighed each item. By the way, the jar itself weighs 293 g, it's good to know when the starter goes in the fridge for less frequent feeds - it's easier to feed directly into the jar and to work out how much to feed, weigh the whole thing and subtract the jar weight.

I also put some tape in a vertical stripe on the jar and marked up the starter level after it was fed and thickened. A few hours later I noticed it had doubled in volume and just before we went to bed, it had even tripled! Wow, how wonderful, definitely a strong starter I think. Monty just about managed to double in size, if I remember correctly.

What I did forget is to check the exact time between being fed and having peaked and I need to do that if I'm to bake with it. Will try to do that today.

And I've just decided on a name - Luke. After all, the Force is strong with this one.

Looking at him now, he is still double the size he was after I fed him yesterday. I'd like to put him in the fridge, but it's almost time to bake bread, so I'll keep him out for a couple of more days, bake bread and then put him in the fridge.