(no subject)

[tiamatschild]

I set and started a new batch of sourdough starter a few days ago, and today I made sourdough banana bread with the overripe bananas!

It smells really really good.

Comments

[guinevak]

omnomnomnom

[playswithworms]

Oooh, that sounds lovely! I can almost smell it too! :D

[tiamatschild]

Noooom hoom hom nomnom

[tiamatschild]

:D It's really good! I wish I could teleport you some!

[tainry]

Oooooo! I've been eyeballing attempting sourdough after watching that vid about the scientists who isolated and then used ancient Egyptian yeasts to bake I think it was a very fluffy rye? And then something else....oh! It was "Cooked" on Netflix with the dude who wrote ...uh...The Omnivore's Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire... ...Michael Pollan! Anyway, it was ver interesting! <3 He did sourdough. :D I would love to hear more about your starter, whenever/if you have the inclination! <3

[tiamatschild]

I read about the ancient Egyptian yeasts! That was so so cool! I've been wanting to learn more about that, historical and ancient baking practices are *so cool*.

Sure! Of course! I've been keeping yeast colonies in sourdough starter around for a couple of years now, although my last one kind of died out over the summer (when things got so busy some kind of nasty bacteria got into it and it went blue green like the edges of the pools at Yellowstone and I decided it was not safe anymore and disposed of it). They stay pretty healthy and thriving though if you cook from them once a week - take out about half the colony and give back in water and flour the mass of starter you took out.

A sourdough colony just exists to trap yeast out of the local microbiome and keep it somewhere where humans can make easy use of it, so you can get one going pretty easy in most kitchens, because most kitchens will have yeasty beasties roaming around loose in one - or -

What I did this weekend, because it's easy and it just sort of - kickstarts the establishment of the colony. Is use some commercial yeast to get one going.

Most of what I know about the practical side of sourdough I learned from Don and Myrtle Holm's 1972 The Complete Sourdough Cookbook and I used one of their starter recipes Saturday. The preview on Google Books has the whole section on starters, with all the different starter recipes!

Mine was just a packet's worth of commercial yeast, stirred into two cups of flour, and then enough lukewarm water stirred into that to make a thick batter. And then I let it sit for three days! Today I pulled out half a cup's worth of starter for the bread, added flour, and added a little warm water again to make up the volume and keep the yeast active. The longer it goes on this way the more interesting and specific it'll be and the more character and flavor the bread will have, but it's already really nice!

Last time I kept a starter I kept it in a tupperware container, but we're trying glass this time to see if that'll help it keep nicer longer.

(questions are of course always welcome) (That's what I can think of) (it's a new starter, but it's bubbling away.) (it smells really good when you open the lid) (like a bakery and a brewery at the same time)

[tainry]

OK, so you can close the lid? I'm not sure what I was expecting, if you just had to leave it open on top of the fridge to collect cat hair or something??? XDDD

Reading the sample, opening pages...eee this is great... ok so not tightly sealed. Also I think our pantry is too cold right now, but in a few weeks it'll warm up...

[tiamatschild]

You really only need the lid to be loose for the initial catch - after that the colony will be fine if its in a sealed environment!

And yeah, once it's established it will take a chillier temp pretty well - mine have always done fine at like, sixty/sixty two F ambient in the winter, but I've never tried to get one started in the chill, so I don't know how that would go.