Maintaining your no-discard starter
I'm laboring under a barely functional blog situation here: only some of my pictures are loading. The whole blog needs an overhaul — a fall cleaning if you will!
Since what I had in mind last week (and now this week) was to touch base about the sourdough starter with some visuals to go along with that topic, we're in a bit of a pickle.
But here goes, with the few pics that would load:
My method for maintaining going forward from that first stage of getting the starter up to speed is to take the starter — the one we've been working on according to the method in the previous posts — out of the fridge.
I put some of it into whatever bowl I will be mixing dough in.
In this case, I was making pizza for just the two of us, so I am using a glass bowl; usually I would use my mixing bowl for the Kitchenaid.
I began with about 2/3 cup of starter in my jar.
Your amount may vary; just use enough in the bowl to leave some (2T to 1/4 cup) in your jar.
I put about 1/2 cup in the bowl and left the rest in the jar.
Then I fed each one, separately. What's in the bowl gets fed at about a 1:1:1 ratio or even slightly more water. I try to use some whole wheat flour at this point to give it a boost of nutrients.
What's in the jar gets fed to be a bit stiffer. One part starter, one part flour, 2/3 part water.
I had a nice picture showing you, as well as I think can be shown, the stiffness; it will sort of hold its shape when you move it around with a spoon or knife and not just spread out in the jar in a liquid fashion, almost like oatmeal cookie batter and not like pancake batter.
Then I let each one ferment.
I put both bowl and jar in the oven with the light on. It actually got pretty warm, so after about an hour I turned the light off and that was enough warmth.
The bowl starter will look like this:
The jar starter will look like this:
You notice that what's in the jar does not have big bubbles such as the ones you might see in pictures elsewhere. That's because it's quite stiff! But it's very active and very strong, and yours should be too. Those little bubbles are excellent signs of a good starter.
At this point, I let what's in the jar rise just a tad more, until it's domed and has a nice lively smell, and then popped it in the fridge. Because it's so stiff, it is forgiving. It's not likely to rise quickly and collapse.
I then proceeded with the contents of the bowl (and it was really under 3 hours to get to this point — I began in the morning), adding a few cups of flour, some salt, and a bit of olive oil to make my pizza dough.
You should continue to make the sourdough sandwich bread; by now you can leave the yeast out entirely! You can mix what they call the levain (the first part of the recipe) and within 3 hours, if it's warm enough, you should be able to proceed with the recipe.
This is my procedure!
Let me know if you're not quite getting it, or if you're having good success!
bits & pieces
Time in the medieval monastery (and it can be this way, a little, in the home today, if we keep things calm and not over-scheduled)
Ten Gregorian Chants everyone should know! We found if we wanted the children to learn and memorize something, if we included it at a time of daily prayer (for instance when we said the Angelus at noon or at night prayer before bed), they would be proficient within a week. Our children learned the Salve Regina before we did! And we didn't have these lovely youtubes to listen to — lucky you!
I wanted to be sure you saw this article from Leila Miller: Heart of the Abandoned Spouse (a remedy against reflexive annulment). She has good advice for those suffering from abandonment.
from the archives
Sickness is part of life – don't freak out!
Encourage your children to have good conversational habits
liturgical living
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