September 19, 2008 - 10:22am
FIrst starter.
I really like to do things the hard way.
So I started a starter yesterday with 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour. This morning it had doubled, and smelled faintly yogurty. Good sign, right? So today, for the first feeding, I reserved 1/2 the previous day's mixture and put in 3/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup water. I have a feeling that I'm going to be baking a lot...it's a large starter. I'm thinking that I should've started with a quarter cup of each...or less. Now I don't know what to do. It's in a fairly large container (1.5 quarts) so I don't have to worry that much, but...it's a lot of starter.
Suggestions?
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Take a couple tablespoons of the starter, refresh that portion in a lesser quantity, and use the discard for pancakes, waffles, onion rings, or whatever.
Once it grows up and develops a nice tang, you can decrease the hydration so you have a very thick starter and keep it in the refrigerator - that is, if you don't plan to bake every day.
You're doing better than I - one year ago I made my first starter. I used a gallon-sized container, which was a good thing. Thankfully I've learned a lot since then...
I agree that you can work with a smaller amount now, but I have a fairly high hydration starter that I use a few times a week and I keep about the amount you are mixing up now. Once your starter is established, you can increase or decrease quantities as needed (or not needed).
As LindyD says, the disgards are great in waffles, pizza dough etc. I even have a wonderful sourdough chocolate chip cookie recipe that I got from this site.
Marni
I'd like to try some sourdough blueberry muffins after the success I had with buttermilk last night. Sourdough chocolate cake is also something I'm wanting to play with. I think this is going to be fun. It doubled (in fact, it's about double and a half) in 6 hours!
This is the best ever use of discards! Well, along with pancakes, waffles, and the onion rings everyone else has made and I'm still dying to try.
I'm made this recipe a bunch of times, and it's now my family's all-time favorite.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6684/sourdough-chocolate-cake
I've only used the one posted by Oldcampcook, but it rocks! Also good if you toss in a handfull of bittersweet chocolate chips. The only change I've made is to combine the starter with the liquid ingredients first, then everything else together.
Yum!
edh
Well, it's officially tripled. I'm really, really happy so far. It smells...hrm...kinda like yogurt, but it's starting to smell bready.
it sould'nt start smelling right until the 3rd or 4th day. it will have a plesant beery,.sour smell then it will be ready to make stuff , . don't feel bad about the amount you end up with cause i ended up with about a half gallon hehe hated to throw any out so at the end of the week i made a lot of bread and it turned out pretty good for my first sourdough.
so now i keep 1/2 cup starter in fridg after i make my bread till wensday and then i get it out and build up enough starter by 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water each day to get 3-4 cups starter to make bread i hope this helps