Sourdough, End of Week 1

Those first few days of making the sourdough starters were magical, and then things got much less active and worrisome in a hurry. The fast start version is now a stagnant mass of brownish gray sludge with a pool of brown "hooch" on top. It smells decidedly funky and more pungent, even sweeter, than its cool start cousin. On day 7, I've decided to drop in half a teaspoon of honey to feed the yeast a little bit, and it will sit in the fridge until tonight. I plan to take half a cup out and prepare a sponge for sourdough pancakes tomorrow morning.

The cool start version has a sour smell and seems slightly more active, but the days of glorious foam and bubbles are over. Last night I took out a cup, nearly the entire thing, to begin a sponge for making sourdough French bread later on today. I then put in a cup each of flour and water and let it sit out on the 70 degree countertop overnight. It now looks like the fast start, slightly less gray with some slightly less-brown hooch on top. I gave this one a half teaspoon of honey as well and put it into the fridge.

The sponge for the bread has been sitting in the warm oven (around 80 degrees) overnight with 4 c flour and 1 1/2 c water plus 2 tsp each sugar and salt. The result? Practically nothing interesting to report so far. A few bubbles, that's it. I'm giving it until mid-afternoon and then I'm baking a loaf one way or another (with the addition of yeast if necessary.)

I'm going to do some more reading and see if this is all normal behavior. In the meantime, in my next post I'll just tell you that I've come across maybe the moistest carrot cake recipe ever.