Sourdough Starter: Day 03

It's been almost exactly 72 hours since I first combined my flour, water, and grapes to begin my sourdough starter. I was really nervous yesterday (really -- I felt a little nauseas -- sad, right?) because absolutely nothing was happening. Okay, well, actually all that happened was that the flour and water began to separate. I thought I saw some white mold, but it was really just the cheesecloth floating up.

I came home from work today at about 6:30PM and didn't see much going on again. I was really disappointed. I realized my kitchen is a little cold, so I convinced myself my starter was retarded (as in slow to get its groove on, of course) and that maybe I'd fallen a day or so behind. Well, I went into the kitchen a couple of minutes ago to take some photos for the ol' blog (I felt guilty I didn't yesterday -- sorry my zero readers!). I was totally expecting nothing again -- or, rather, still. Boy was I surprised.

As you can see from the photos, the total volume has increased quite a lot. Lots of yeast and bacteria lovin'. Oh yeah. The color is a bit more yellowish-brown. The vat o' crap is bubbling quite a bit -- it's not exactly edge-of-your-seat excitement, but if you watch for a couple of minutes, you can totally see the bubbles float to the surface, overcome surface tension, and pop. And it's o-so-satisfying to actually HEAR the bubbles pop. I have a renewed enthusiasm here. In just about 3 hours, things totally turned around. My flea-like patience just got a little boost. Maybe now I can have cat-like patience. Better not count on it, though.

Oh, and for the record, I did taste it as reccommended by Silverton. I was surprised by the raw flour taste, because I'm a doofus. (Did I cook it? Of course it'll taste raw.) It's got a nice funk going -- my refined palate detects flavors of alcohol and fish, with a mild yogurt finish. Mmmm-mmm good. And check out the picture with my finger in it. How good does that look? Remind you of anything? God, I hope not. But it is interesting that the texture has changed quite a bit. Or, at least interesting to me.