Is there a DUMBED DOWN version of building and maintaining a STARTER??

Seed culture, mother sponge, baby sponge, why we have to use all of these terms...? I found that very confusing at first.

But what you want to do, I assume, is start a sourdough starter.  

A search for starting a starter yields: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10251/starting-starter-sourdough-101-tutorial. It's a good method. Flour and water. Follow the directions exactly. Should have you baking bread in about 7-8 days. After that it's easy to keep in the fridge. Just pull some out, build it up to the amount of starter you need for your recipe/formula.

The easiest way to get a starter going and also avoiding the nasty bacteria that some times come along for the ride is to follow our resident Microbiologist Debra Winks method. It starts out by using unsweetened Pineapple juice which raises the pH to discourage the nasty biology from gaining a foot hold. Many people have used this method successfully. Scroll down to the part where the formula starts and the feeding schedule. It's a good read and I think it helps to have some understanding of why this stuff works in flour. Good luck.

Eric

This as easy as it gets:

http://www.breadtopia.com/make-your-own-sourdough-starter/

i went throught the same thing when I started using sourdough but I have learned over the last 2 years that growing a starter is easy and actually so is maintaining it.I'm on vacation in Florida and decided tocapture some local yeast. Here is the method I use:

1 tbsp flour,water to make a thin batter.Leave on the coun ter and stir several times a day. I always work with a small amount to make a new starter-much easier and less wasteful.

When bubbles start developing(a few about the 2nd or 3rd day),toss half away and add some more flour(about a tablespoon) and water.Continue to stir several times a day.

Continue to do this the next day or 2. It will start to get a tangy taste.This is the lactobacillus making acid.

On the day you notice it rises(or gets really bubbly) after this morning feeding,feed it again in the evening (toss half away and add the flour and water).But remember-really thin,liquidy batter won't really rise as it can't hold onto the gas. At this point I start making it thicker-like a thick pancake batter. It will start to consistently rise after these feedings.Keep stirring it several times a day as this helps the yeasties come in contact with their food.

Keep doing this for several more days but if you notice any hootch formation- feed it again.Hootch formation means it ran out of food! There are lots of little beasties now!You may need to feed it 3 times a day!Some beasties are more active than others.

You now have a starter to work with.Build up the volume if you want or use it as is in a preferment.

Have fun! I'm hoping to have a different starter to work with when I get home.Mine is at the very bubbly stage at day 3 of stirring.

you could a lot worse than simply sending an envelope with adequate return postage to the Friends of Carl folks. To be brief, they're folks who maintain a starter that is said to have its origins back around 1847 or so. You send them the return envelope and they will send a small packet of dried starter and instructions on how to revive it, build it up to usable strength, but sadly, no guarantee that you'll live happily everafter with it until death do you part.

All joking aside, TFL members do use this starter and have had nothing but nice words to say about it. While it's important to learn how to grow your own starter, if you want to bake sooner with less anxiety, this is an idea. Use the search button at the top left of the page for "Friends of Carl" and Google the same to see if this helps.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Wild Yeast Blog "raising a starter" post yet - a great explanation of the process and easy to follow instructions. I have made starters this way several times with great success.

You can find it here.

(Susan, if you're reading this: the pages seem to be loading awfully slowly).

I think that most of the tutorials I have seen have used BIG volumes of flour and water. The result is a lot of flour that goes down the drain. What a waste. I have been guilty of the same but have learned over the years how to do it more efficiently. I encourage you to take advantage of my mistakes.

So,whatever method you use,just reduce the volumes so the end product can fit in an 8 ounce drinking glass at its maximum rise.

Remember that all you need to capture yeast is a carbohydrate and water.Carbohydrate can be flour,fruit,honey,or even sugar. Not every yeast will do a good job of raising bread. The best chance of success at this can be that you capture the yeast associated with the product you are trying to make. So, if you want to make wine, the yeasts assoc with fruit work most efficiently for that. The yeasts caught with flour are most successful for breadmaking.

My vacation starter is bubbling away.Flour,water,stirring,time.No scales available.No local flour is available so it technically is not a "local" yeast.Maybe I should have used local fruit!Hmmmm....I still have time!

PR 

i think PR is refferring to Peter Reinhardt (his book and starter technique i guess)

I keep my mother in the refrigerator and bake every weekend. So I remove some for baking once a week. Then I feed the mother,leave it out on the counter for an hour or so and then put Mom back in the refrigerator.

 If I'm not baking on a weekend, I remove about half and discard it(or make pancakes or biscuits) and then feed,set out and refrigerate Mom as usual.

It evolves and changes over time. Depending on ambient temps,hydration,setting out time, it can smell beery,yeasty,acetone-y,fruity sweet,sour,etc.but it should never smell like old cheese or suddenly become very watery.Then you have a bacterial invasion.You will have no doubt about the smell-it is definitely unpleasant.

I concur with the recommendation to initially use a recipe with an added yeast for a boost.This will allow your starter more time to develop and get strong.It will improve with age.

Somebody already mentioned this but I will say it again...

I use PR recipes too.  When delving into starters I read a lot and got really confused so I used his starter information out of his Whole Grain BReads book and stuck with it and how he recommends maintaining it and refreshing it.  I stored less than he recommended but stayed with the same percentages. 

I stuck with his until I had a good feel of what was happening and then, a few weeks ago, I took the plunge into confusion again and have been doing all sorts of experiments to see what happens....

I would recommend you stick with one person's method until you have a feel for what is happening and then explore...

I also cheated.  I ordered a dry starter from Breadtopia to make things easier in the beginning.  I also started my own using Dan Lepard's recipe in THe Handmade Loaf. It was a very easy process.

DO what is easiest for you and have fun!

Your photos are so huge they can't be easily seen on a computer screen.  Why not download a nice little utility which will let you resize your photos before you upload them?  

I think Picassa and Photobucket also offer the same option.

The crust and crumb looks lovely.It might develop a little more flavor the day after the bake. Beautiful loaf! Wish I could take a bite.

As for sourness, natural levain (sourdough) does not necessarily make a sour tasting loaf. The SanFrancisco sourdough image has perpetuated this expectation. There are many threads on how to get more sour from your levain.Do a search. Methods can vary from long ferments to different feeding schedules. 

Have delicious fun experimenting and keep posting!

Hi Rico

I recently began a starter using this very simple method. (And I've thrown nothing away!)

I like the attitude of S John Ross to sourdough, and I give a link on my blog.

Nice looking loaves, BTW!

Cheers, Paul

I'm a little late getting to this, but here goes. Since I bake only for myself and my wife, and only use my sourdough starter every 6 weeks or so since there are several other loaves we like to eat, I need a starter that's very forgiving. I found this in the King Arthur Flour starter which a friend gave me as a gift. Got the starter up to speed per instuctions. It lives in the back of fridge in a large Glad container. I gave up long ago feeding this sucker every week--was throwing and giving away more starter than I ever used myself-- and now am down to feeding once a month, or building it up the few days before I need it. Has always given a good loaf. Probably the key to its survival is sanitation which is promoted by infrequent handling and exposure to competing nasties in the kitchen. So if you can live with a worry-free starter, this might be the way to go. Mike in Maine

Your crust is beautiful-I don't think it looks burned. Did it taste burned?

One suggestion is to do a stretch and fold during the fermentation. Notice on the crumb shot how all the large bubbles are on the top and finer on the bottom. A stretch and fold would re-distribute the bubbles.

My latest method for my starter is to use 2-3 tbsp starter,1 c flour,1 c water as a pre-ferment (mix and set out for 4-12 hrs-but no more than 24).Sometimes I set this up before bedtime and bake the next day. Just add the preferment to the rest of the recipe. If the recipe isn't set up for this, then I just do 1/3 the flour and all the water/milk. Great flavor! I'm starting to adapt all my recipes for this.And then I only need a small amount of starter to maintain.

Try different things and see what works best for you and your style.

Ferment for 8 hours at room temp:

4-5 oz. starter   (liquid ounces or weight ounces?)

1/2 c flour (what kind?)                   

1/2 c water                                              

THEN:

Refrigerated   (For how long?)

THEN:

Mix with flour,water,salt,yeast(how much?).

I believe your starter was probably pretty hungry if it fermented for 8 hrs on the counter and then was refrigerated. It continues to eat when it's refrigerated-it slows but doesn't stop eating. If it was refrigerated for more than a few more hours, you could also be experiencing a spike in enzymes that can pretty much disintegrate the gluten in the dough thus producing the liquid mass.

Refresh your starter a few times before a bake and use it at its peak activity.It takes a little timeing finesse.

Several ideas for you-decide which one will work for you:

       ***First, make sure your starter is active and at its peak activity***

1. Use less starter in the preferment- perhaps only 1-2 tbsp OR

2 Keep the starter at 4-5 oz but increase the flour/water in the preferment to 1 cup    each OR

3.Keep the starter amount at 4-5 oz and flour/water amount where it is but decrease the ferment time to 2-3 hours.Either use at this time or refrigerate for a short period only.Use within 8-12 hours.This is a guess. You will have to try it a few times to see what your starter will handle best.

If you have a higher amount of starter in a preferment, it has a higher yeast population and the food (flour) is consumed fast-leaving you with a very hungry and spent preferment that will be unlikely to raise the loaf adequately. If left too long,enzymes can be released and cause gluten bond problems. When gluten bonds break, water is released and liquifies the dough. Only good for pancakes then.

So the balance you are trying for is to have enough yest in the preferment to increase the yeast population enough to raise the dough,eat enough to produce the flavor molecules to flavor the loaf but not be too spent and produce undesirable byproducts and enzymes.The timing can be individualized between starters so you have to get to know your starter and keep using it so it grows and stabilizes. It may change characteristics as it matures.