nanetteb

I will never again... Totally forget I'm cooking dried beans in a cheapo Presto pressure cooker . I don't know what was worse when she blew - thinking that someone had fired a shotgun at me or the hot bean puree covering every surface in the kitchen including the ceiling. My dog wouldn't come out from under the bed for the rest of the day. Nanette, who now has a nice clog-free Cuisinart pressure cooker http://cookingincolor.blog-city.com

Thanks Jackal10. It is pretty hot here lately. Do you think high altitudes (I'm at about 7,000 feet) can affect a sourdough starter in any way? I think my starter is a pretty fast starter as it was ready in about 2 1/2 days. Last night I left it out and it wasn't fed for about 12 hours and I think it suffered a bit. The bubbles were larger and fewer, the smell was milder, and it was less thick with some hooch. I fed it and it responded slightly and I waited about 4 more hours and fed it again and it came back to life with tiny bubbles throughout, a good cheesy sour smell, and a nice thick consistency. It is in the refrigerator now. I think I screwed up by not feeding it for 12 hours - it needs to be fed more often I think. The bread is baking now and smells absolutely wonderful, much better than commercial yeast-risen bread. Nanette http://cookingincolor.blog-city.com

Thanks for that source for canning jars slkinsey. I am going to get one for my starter. And the online class looks great. Have any of you ever tried putting a new starter outside to ferment? Ed Wood recommends it in Classic Sourdoughs and I'm curious to see if the wild yeast outside my house have different properties. Also, how often do you have to use your starter to NOT refrigerate it? If it stays looking halfway decent and I feed it/replenish it every day would that work? I think I'd like to go on baking jags for a couple days each week and keep it out at room temperature for that time (and refrigerate it for the rest of the week when I'm not baking). To break in my new starter I made the World Bread from Classic Sourdoughs. I was amazed at how beautiful the dough was to knead. (I've baked before but have never done so without commercial yeast.) I put one loaf in a loaf pan and the other half I patted out and filled with cinnamon and raisins and then rolled back up. Because I had so much starter and I don't need to keep mass quantities of starter I also started a sponge for the blueberry sourdough waffles as well. Nanette http://cookingincolor.blog-city.com

Forget that last question - I found the FAQ from rec.food.sourdough that answered my question completely down to the minute details of wild yeast sourdough starters. You can read it here: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/ne...rdough/starters My sourdough starter is completely healthy and I'm ready to start baking. Nanette http://cookingincolor.blog-city.com

How do you know when a homemade sourdough starter is ready to roll? I made the sourdough starter briefly discussed in the intro to Classic Sourdoughs by Ed Wood. It was 1 1/2 c. flour and 1 c. water sitting out at room temperature. After about 2 1/2 days (I stirred it down twice a day), it was about like bubbly muffin batter so I fed it with 1 cup flour and 1 cup water. Then it bubbled up to about twice the volume. In the book he says it is ready when you have one to two inches of foam on the top. Now I'm thinking beer foam or something like that. Instead I have a bubbly muffin batter. It is definitely alive in some sense as you can kind of see things moving if you stare at it long enough. Am I ready? Also, the book's recipes either specify a liquid culture or a sponge culture. It doesn't say which type I made but am I right to assume it is a sponge culture? You can kind of pour it (I needed to divide it because it was bubbling over the container) but it isn't as liquid as some sourdough starters I've had in the past. Thanks for any help you can give me! Nanette http://cookingincolor.blog-city.com