Sourdough starter experiment

Great stuff scoutmum, look forward to seeing how this turns out

Day 3 (Jan 5, 2015):

As my starter seems to be developing quite quickly, I've stepped things up to every 12 hours. Looking good! Again, dumped most in the compost and added 100 g water, 30 g rye, 70 g white flour.

Loving the updates, can't wait to find out what the final product tastes like.

Day 8: I haven't posted in a few days, because frankly I was getting a bit bummed by the complete lack of progress with my starter. But tonight: froth and a kind of boozy (the husband disagree and says it smells like a bakery) smell.




So what changed? On day 7, not only was nothing happening, but the starter was growing a yucky hard crust (well, I guess that is kind of something happening, just not what I wanted!). The same thing had happened on day 6.



I considered dumping it and starting again, but didn't. Instead, I scraped all the hardened gunk off the top and poured the rest in a bowl, then completely scrubbed the bottle clean and put some starter back in, as well as 15 g rye, 35 g white flour and 50 g water.

I got up in the morning and had a look and nearly screamed in frustration. No action, and the crust was forming again. Grrrr.


I sat back and had a little think. What was I doing wrong? Yes, I think the weather has been playing a part, but surely people in NQ have made starter before and the weather has always been a bit wonky.

I decided to scrape the hardened stuff off, then looked at the starter and could see that it was just going to harden again. I took a little water, and poured it in, then stirred. Immediately had bubbles, but didn't want to be too excited as that could have just been the result of stirring...

Anyhow, 12ish hours later, and like I said, hallelujah! We have movement!

Scooped a heap out and put it in the compost and then added 30 g rye, 70 g white flour and around 115 g water (100 g was obviously not cutting it). Will have a look in the morning and may add more water again.

And here are a few of my most recent projects:

These started out being crumpets, but I was having trouble with them sticking to the rings, so they wound up kind of sourdough pancakey:



And here is my first attempt at bread, which I wound up baking late at night. Not fully satisfied (a bit burnt on the top, and I felt it came out a bit flat, amybe beacuse the starter was a little under-proofed), but it tastes lovely with some melted cheese!

Sourdough cinnamon buns!




Why am I so big on baking? A few people (not on here) have said to me with all the baking I've been doing I must be getting pretty big... Actually, I'd say I'm losing weight!

Here is why I think baking, especially baking bread, is a good skill for a prepper to have.

You might be surprised to hear that it's not actually a skill I think will have that much value in the shortish term if things go bassackwards. I suspect that flour will be in short supply, so unless you are planning on growing your own wheat and milling it, knowing how to bake bread won't achieve much! 

...However, I do think it will be a valuable skill to have in the event of an economic depression!

I've always enjoyed baking, but until about midway through last year I still bought most of our bread. Then, my husband took a much lower paying job than he had had previously, and within two months of having taken it was injured and wound up on a very small workcover allowance for four months. Changes had to be made, because as it stood our household expenditures were rapidly outpacing our household income.

For us, baking our bread at home costs maybe 1/3 of what it does to buy a nice loaf at the bakery. The same goes for lollies... they've been replaced by home-baked bickies, buns, etc., and I don't think anyone has really missed the difference! At Christmas time, instead of giving store-bought chocolates to our closes friends, etc, I gave them gingerbread and shortbread biscuits. Again, I don't think anyone noticed the difference.

So why bake? Because your bank account will thank you.

I have seen lots of tutorials on this but have never seen anyone actually make anything with it. cheers for that cause im gonna give it a go.

We are playing with bread making now as well. I do plan to buy wheat and a mill as the wheat can last forever. So I bought 1kg of flour (from a health food shop) that was ground from the same wheat I plan to buy (from Kialla in SEQ), first results not great TBH but we'll persevere.

Personally I reckon that having wheat and the ability to make bread is a top prepping requirement, I know carbs have a bad rap in modern society but I think that's because most people don't do anything active, if you get off your arse then carbs are good as they give you the energy you need.

We haven't tried making a starter yet but I also see this as an essential prepper skill.

There are a lot of starter recipes out there... But I really recommend the one that is just flour and water... Takes a while to get going, but so, so simple to maintain. I've found mine doesn't seem particularly fussy about the flour I feed it, too: wholemeal, rye, white... It'll happily work with any of them!