Sourdough Chronicles: The journey

Hello fork musketeers!

I thought I'd give everyone an update on George. It's been a lot of fun; a lot of research and a lot of troubleshooting.

The curious case of
not very curious George.

The struggle

George has been a confusing experiment. While there was definitively signs of life and activity, George never rose or only very slightly - 125%.

Signs of life!

The rule of thumb for starters is that it should double or even triple (!!) in volume. The idea is if a starter can't double itself, it can't double your bread. Such a far off dream for George (sorry George). So I thought perhaps there wasn't enough yeast to actually finish all the food I was giving it. I skipped a feeding and found this...

Look at dat liquid

The liquid you see there is called hooch. Since yeast poops out gas and alcohol, sourdough starter has alcohol in it. Don't bother drinking it; it's really bad booze. In any case, the presence of hooch means that the starter is hungry! Clearly there was yeast in the starter, otherwise there wouldn't be any hooch. So what the hell, George?

I did more research and found a common problem for sluggish yeast is temperature. This month has been relatively cool for June and sluggish yeast means it isn't warm enough for them. I put George in the oven with the light on and I plan to get a seedling mat for him.

And suddenly, after a few feedings, George sprang to life.

Yes; I moved George
into a bigger container.

The top black mark is where George was before. About 4 hours after feeding him, he didn't just rise - he tripled in volume. (I was so proud and I never doubted you, George) Now that it's been getting warmer, George would always have a crust on top when I left him in the lit oven. Starters are pretty resilient, so I wasn't worried; the crust meant it was a little too warm in there. Now he sits quite contently on the counter.

After each feeding, he peaks between 200 - 250% at the 6 hour mark then falls to about 120% at the 8 hour mark. Every. Single. Time. I'm now a proud owner of a healthy, bouncing sourdough starter.

I've read that the rule of thumb for feeding a starter is to always double the amount; so if you have 1kg of starter you need to give it 1kg of flour and 1kg of water (100% hydration). However I haven't been doubling; I'm kind of cheating by using cups but I generally feed George 1 - 1.5 cups of flour with equal part water. I tried doubling the amount as well. In both cases, George always rose by 200-250% and hasn't developed a hooch layer. I guess what I'm doing is working so far.

I don't want to have this post be too long, so I'll write up another post about the first bake with George. Oooo! If you have any comments, don't be shy. I always appreciate feedback or maybe some questions you guys may have!

Until next time, fork musketeers.