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After looking at several other blogs showing amazing sourdough results, I'm feeling really envious!    My starter experiment is dying a slow, horrible death. (If figures that the 3 other starters I have took off in no time at all, but the one I share with everyone tanks!!)   I fed the starters again trying a reduced amount of flour and water to see if anything will change.  If not, I'm going to toss both of them and start over.

I began my sourdough journey last week on the 16th. My starter was active on day 2, died down and remained quiet until day 6. I fed it over those two days to make sure it was alive and kicking and it looked great. each time with in feeds it doubled even trippled and I decided yesterday that I was going to start my first sourdough loaf. I followed reinhearts baasic sourdough from BBA and put the starter (biga type I dont know the word) in the fridge over night. Took it out this morning, and began my permentation. I was so excited to see it grow to much.

Hello there, flour-heads,

This weekend I made my usual sourdough, but added the extra step of retarding it in the fridge after 4 stretch & fold cycles. It was in there for 19 hours. Then I let it warm up for 2.5 hours, shaped it, rested it for 30 minutes, slashed and baked. It's a two sponge recipe that I began on Friday morning and finished baking about midday Sunday. It has the best tang of any I've made so far -- wouldn't really call it sour, but a nice lingering aftertaste.

Yesterday morning I was busy feeding starters and I recalled some recent mentions on the forum about using the excess starter instead of discarding it. I decided to quickly put twice the amount I normally use (100g) into a bowl and start a soaker for later. My starter was very happy, bubbling away and smelled great! So I weighed out 200g and finished feeding the boys.

We're having fun now! The bread baking mentors of this community have been so generous with their advice and encouragement. It's starting to come together in my kitchen. I baked a sourdough no knead using notes by JMonkey and Susan this week and here is the result-

Dutch Oven Sourdough

Seeing everyone make such beautiful whole grain breads lately inspired me last weekend to finally try Jane's lovely sourdough technique (Jane's results here), with tips by JMonkey and Tomsbread as well - thanks guys!

After being graciously guided through the process of starter CPR by BWraith, I found myself with a significant (and growing) stash of starter cast-off. Thought I would save it for the next batch of dog biscuits, but a remark of Mini Oven's that the discard can be pressed into service as poolish gave me paws. (I am SO sorry...) So instead of actually making sourdough bread with my born-again starter, I took the spare and made some yeasted oatmeal bread.

Well, 5:00 Wednesday evening was first feeding time for my starters.   The one on the refrigerator looked nice and bubbly after 48 hours.   The one that was outside, however, was relatively dried out from being out in the wind for 2 days.