Hi all,
I've been a long-time lurker, and just did something this weekend that I thought might be appreciated.
I've only recently gotten into working with sourdough, and finally have a long enough period of time where I'll be home and able to tend a starter. As I got to preparing it, I remembered I had purchased a set of Easy Fermenter Lids some time ago for making pickles and such. If you're not familiar with these, they fit on a wide mouth mason jar and have a one-way valve to let gasses escape while protecting the contents inside. It seemed reasonable that it would also be a good thing for fermenting flour, so I did my starter in a quart jar with one of these lids on top. Two days later, I have this:
I'm quite surprised to have it so active after just two days! Well, sort of--from all my reading and watching, activity is expected in a couple of days, but usually not the right kind, leaving a less-than-desirable smell until the right environment is created. But this seems... different than I expected. Wonderful, fruity smell, nice bubbly texture... I'll definitely keep feeding it for another week, but I was impressed!
Has anyone else encountered and tried out one of these lids for their starter? Am I just making a bigger deal out of it than it really deserves?
For the record: 100% hydration using spring water and Wheat Montana Bronze Chief flour. Fed it every 12 hours for these past two days.
After reading your post I was intrigued enough to do a search. There are complete easy fermenter kits available for the enthusiastic. It does sound like a great idea but someone can DIY something similar by using the old, bubbling airlocks from their home brewing days. I made one with a recyclable liquid malt container and a bubbler but I quickly found that amount of starter required to make it practical was far more than I would use.
"Am I just making a bigger deal out of it than it really deserves?"
IMO, yes. :-)
A piece of tin foil squashed around the top of my mason jars achieves about the same thing and works perfectly for me. One thing I've noticed is when I transfer a starter to a clean vessel and give it a good feeding, the starter gets very happy and expandy. Enjoy!
I like it--thank you for posting this! I plan to get some of those lids.