another loaf of sourdough is baking with i think my weirdest starter yet?
i'm still new to sourdough cultivation so please bear with any stupidity i may have stumbled into.
i split my starter in two - a little bit to go in the fridge and be dormant (i fed it ofc!)
and the rest to grow into the starter i need for the bread
now that i have a digital scale, i can measure out the ingredients WAY more precisely!
anyways after prepping the baking starter, i accidentally left it out and unfed for about half a week. i intended to bake this past weekend. i did not.
when i went to use it tonight for baking, it initially smelled pretty strongly of hooch, but leaving the lid off for a little bit and the smell dissipated
and
the sourdough started really bubbling????
was it accidentally oxygen deprived? the lid wasn't on tight though... maybe it was already bubbling and i just didn't notice?
a n y w a y s
the smell became a very pleasant fruity sourdough scent, still with a tad bit of the hooch smell. there wasn't a layer of hooch on top though. lots of bubbles coming up!
so i got all the ingredients into the bread machine in the proper order. the starter didn't seem to be that glutinous? which is... unfortunate. kinda implies the starter wasn't sufficiently mature. but the smell and bubbling did suggest activity. and it had been sitting for four days by the heater. the conditions were right for it to go fully glutinous.
now, the original intent behind this starter batch was my dad wanted sourdough for xmas. i wasn't told til last minute (well, i offered him bread for xmas, and unfortunately my sourdough starter wasn't ready in quantity for a bake when he responded 'sourdough' as his preferred type of bread) so i needed to make the sourdough starter in enough quantity fairly fast. i fed it in a 1:1:1 ratio 3 times over 36 hours which got it up to the right size. it still was not ready in time to bake by the time he arrived, so he said it's fine 😔
that is definitely a fast feeding cycle... but it shouldn't overburden it from what i understand? that's the upper limit of what's safe. and regardless, i gave it four days to sit and do its thing.
the dough is looking good at least. i've been peeking in through the bread machine's windows every now and then. at the very least the bread should come out just fine. it just might be a little less tangy than intended.