My Sourdough Starter Overfloweth

UPDATE #2: This is the method I used for my starter. I used fresh squeezed orange juice and freshly ground wheat flour. This site explains how it works.

UPDATE #1: Every time I'm about to give up on my starter, it comes back to life. Yesterday I fed it and it did nothing. Today I fed it and it DOUBLED! That means it's strong enough to bake bread. I'm putting it in the fridge tomorrow for a week and hope it will spring back to life when I return from a little R&R with my sister in NC. ;)

See how it doubled above the tape line?? 2 hours! :O

Last Sunday I was baking wheat bread for the first time. Later that evening I was reading about breads on the internet and stumbled upon some instructions for making sourdough bread.

We LOVE sourdough. It is, by far, our favorite kind of bread.

It is also expensive.

So, I got this crazy idea that I would try to make my own sourdough starter. Most of the sites I read said that using commercial (instant) yeast creates a less stable starter than cultivating your own. And so, at midnight last Sunday, I started my starter.

3 Tbsp freshly ground wheat flour
3 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

That's it! Loosely cover and leave on the counter top while you feed it the first 11 days. I had exactly 11 days before leaving town for a week, so I was hoping it would be strong enough to put in the fridge by the time 11 days had passed.

The experts said it wouldn't really do anything (like start to bubble) until the 4th day. All I was to do was feed it every 24 hours. On the 4th day, I was to switch from orange juice and wheat flour to purified water (tap water can kill it if it contains chlorine) and white flour. I did.

I was becoming a bit discouraged when it really didn't seem like anything was happening on the 4th and 5th day. Truth be told, I'd kept forgetting about it, so sometimes the feedings were 36 hours, rather than 24. I thought I'd probably failed at my attempt and thought about buying some starter online. I fed it again last night, anyway. It grew a tiny bit. The theory is that after about 11 days of fermentation and feeding, it'll DOUBLE in size when you feed it, meaning it's ready to bake with.

Well, imagine my surprise today (7 days later) when I fed it and it just about doubled inside of an hour! Woohoo! We have created our own native wild yeast in one week!

It began to overflow this morning

Now that it's growing, I'm putting it in the jar that will live in the fridge after 11 days

Can you see those little bubbles?

That's a good thing!

In case you're wondering, you throw out about half of it every time you feed it (depending on how much you are using in your recipe and how much you want to reserve for the next time), since it doubles in size. This is how it keeps growing stronger over time.

My plan is to pull it out of the fridge mid-month, feed it for a few days to revive it, then give it a go on my first sourdough loaf! Now I really want to buy a clay baker and a proofing basket.