Today marks the 2 week mark in my sourdough crumpet journey. For the last week or so i’ve just been feeding and splitting the starter to refine the sourness and make sure it is still happy.
Last week i ordered some flour from Honest To Goodness in Sydney. 5kg of organic unbleached white bakers flour and 5kg of organic rye flour.
The courier company called me on Thursday afternoon in a huff about the perishable goods package they had for me. They wanted to deliver it immediately but no one was going to be at the shop (this was 5pm). Friday was fine i said, so of course they still havent delivered it. I hope it is ok? couriers.
So anyway I purchased some organic bakers flour from the Vic Market on Sunday and split the starter in half, kept one half small and the other half I added 200g flour and roughly the same amount of water to make a batter for the crumpets. Stuck them in the fridge and this morning they were still bubbling and very happy. They smell awesome.
Day 7 arrived with much fanfare. Rhys was outside with some mates ready to film an interview with myself and Matt for uni project or something. Cameras and boom mics and stuff everywhere.
After that. i decided to trim down the starter and feed it another 50g flour and only 20g of water. I filled a latte glass up and turfed the rest down the drain then gave the jar a good wash through the dishwasher as it was getting a bit grimey. Seems a waste to throw some out but if i left it too full i think it might start to stagnate a bit? Just imagine it would i base that on absolutely nothing.
When i checked it at lunchtime it was bubbly and happy and it is smelling like sourdough does. No photo today as it is pretty unchanged in look!
Today is Monday and it is day 6 of my sourdough experiment. Day 4 consisted of another feeding while extremely hungover so no photos huhu. Day 5 i left it all to itself to see what would happen. So i was pretty happy when i fed it this morning with another 50g of floud and 50g of water and it immediately doubled in size! Should have taken a shot before tbh as it looked pretty ordinary, flat with yellow liquid underneath.
Observe:
It no longer stinks like hell which is what is meant to happen i think. At this stage i actually reckon it’s ready to use but as I have only this much i want to keep feeding it for the next week or so to get about 1/2 a cup out to use and still have some left to keep growing.
It smells pretty horrible and looks no better to be honest.
So today i am meant to feed it again. I was going to do a smaller amount of water this time to try and make it less runny, but i stuffed that up and made it 60g flour and 60g water. I also put it in a new jar as it more than doubled in size so would most definately ooze out all over the place if i kept it in the original jar!
This morning I took 50g of plain flour, put it in a sterile glass jar and added 50g of filtered tap water. Today was the start of the future of breakfast.
I’m assuming using filtered Melbourne tap water won’t be a problem but it probably will. I guess we’ll find out maybe by Friday.
I think i’m going to try and make some. But first i will need a sourdough starter or “mother”. Short of asking our local sourdough bakery that all the bread for the little mule comes from, I will need to make this myself.
This is a completely uncomplicated process, and i seem to recall my mother making a sourdough starter when i was much younger and she used to bake bread all the time. If she can do it, I can do it!
Step 1! 50g flour and 50g (or ml i guess) of water. I’m going to use good quality organic bakers flour, probably a rye t150. Mix it in a glass/ceramic or plastic bowl that is very clean, cover it with something and wait around for a few days for it to start bubbling. Make sure it’s around 18-22 degrees (room temp) for maybe 3 days? we’ll see!
Step 2! Feed it again. 50g flour and 50g water. Probably the same flour but maybe another kind of normal non rye. Wait around for another 2-3 days and it will bubble some more and start to smell a bit. If some liquid appears on the top, don’t freak out.
Now keep this up everyday. When the starter decides to puff up after a feed (maybe double or triple in volume) then you can bake! Or in my case MAKE FUCKING CRUMPETS! YESSSS! If after a feed it puffs up! Then collapses like a souffle then you will need to keep feeding to get some new yeast to grow. From now on it can be kept in the fridge.
A good starter will crackle and pop when stirred with some elasticity, it will come off easily from the walls of the bowl. It should seem alive!
Well that is my take on it anyway. We’ll see how it goes in a few days time!
he is out to ferment overnight on the bench.![[del.icio.us]](http://www.madcaow.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
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couriers.
