Greeting, I'm Jack. Nice to meet you all. I'm a chef from Rhode Island, and have recently become overwhelmed by an urge to make my own fresh delicious breads. Although I have had my share of brushes with the baking world in days past, I never really took the time to learn about this segment of the culinary world. I did however learn to make my own sweet delicious homebrewed beer. Well, beer and bread share many things in common, and it was only a matter of time until I felt the need to conquer this beast which is bread making. Hey, its fun growing and nurturing yeast.
I love sourdoughs. I had read "Kitchen Confidential"-Anthony Bourdain, and recalled the chapter where Adam Last-Name-Unknown called in for someone to "Feed the Bitch", or kindle the restraunt's giant starter. My first step was obvious. I had to have my own starter. So I went and mixed some whole wheat flour and water. I let it sit. I doubled it. I moved it to every corner of the house including my bedroom. I threw some down the drain and refreshed it. I saw "hooch" form on top. I saw bubbles and I also saw things do nothing for 24 hours. I was baffled. This thing was not easy to get going. One night I came home to find it exploding with activity, and triple its size. I fed it. The next day, it barely burped. Eventually I just left it at 62f on the kitchen counter, and fed it once daily. Now its alive. Slowly and steadily it eats it eats its flour. I named it Flour Baby after the sack of flour I was made to carry around for 3 days as part of some highschool home economics thing.
I'm just a mad kitchen scientist, and hope to have some fun with this. I have some ideas that I will post in other topics.
You seem to have a sense of humor Jack. That's a key to this baking thing. There are so many moving values that it can drive you crazy if you take it seriously.
It sounds like you have a starter going to some degree. The more stable and vigorous it is the easier it will be to bake with. If you can establish a twice a day feeding schedule at a warmish temp for a while it should be active quickly and doubling in 4 hours or even quadrupling in 8 hours. Oddly, you can influence the bacteria and encourage the ones that pump iron!
What I discovered is that even if you just add a little starter to a preferment and give it a good 10-12 hours to multiply, the flavor will be amazingly better than straight yeast. Yes you can use the wild yeast alone for levain but it will take longer. So I usually suggest starting by adding the SD starter as a flavoring agent and use a smaller amount of instant yeast. Once you get the hang of that, dive in and start making sourdough boules for your guests.
Hope this helps. Look forward to seeing your work and posts.
Eric