Yeast Starter: Day 2-10

Day 2

We’re on our way to having a yeast starter and baking bread. Yum!

Make your own natural yeast starter for regular or sourdough bread

Today, and every day hereafter for the next several days you want to cut it back to half the weight. The leftover part can be discarded, or given away as a start, but it’s not strong enough to be used to bake anything yet. (some people say 10 days, some say a week or two. There’s a test to do to see if it’s ready. I’ll show you that when I get to it.)

So I stirred it well and cut it back down to 100g.

Then you add it the weight you took out, with a 1:1 ration of flour and water.

So here, I added 50g water and 50g flour and stirred again. (I used white flour this time, and it’s a thinner consistency. From here on out I plan to do 25g white and 25g wheat.) Cover it again, and you’re set until you do the same thing the next day. As it gets stronger, I’ll take some before pics where it shows it bubbled up before I stir it.

Day 3

Today Bob doesn’t smell very good. It’s not unexpected – after all, Bob is a blob of flour and water letting off carbon dioxide as he digests his food – but it’s still not exactly pleasant. Kind of a nasty, sour tickle in the nose. We divided him again, and fed him (50g water, 25g wheat flour, 25g AP flour), which really helped. Now he has a sweeter smell. Certainly not like roses, but not so bad.

Day 4

Today when Bob’s hat came off, he didn’t smell quite as ripe as he did yesterday. And once we divided him and fed him, my daughter said he smelled just like bread. Not quite, by my nose, be he did have a sweeter, yeastier smell than he has sported so far. Also, today we aren’t discarding the extra portion. Instead, we fed “Other Bob” and will give him a home with a neighbor.

Day 9

3 hours after being fed this morning (and sat in the window so he’s nice and warm), he was all bubbled up. That’s this picture. So I did the float test. You know your starter is ready to be used when a blob of the starter floats. Bob mostly floats, so I’m thinking he’ll be strong enough to be used tomorrow. I probably won’t actually use him tomorrow, maybe on Monday. But he’s doing well, growing well, and eating well! (By the way, when I mentioned before that he smelled, the smell is because it’s fermenting and creating alcohol.)

Day 10

Bob is ready!

This morning, when I took Bob’s hat off, the kitchen filled with the delicious smell of yeast. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I had bread dough raising for the oven. He had also gained light, airy consistency, almost like a sponge dessert. I did not do the float test – as I could tell without it that he was ready.

I fed Bob as normal, as I won’t be ready for a baking day until Monday. So, Bob will see you again the day after tomorrow, when we mix up some dough!

To see the other posts in this series, click here.