Growing the culture: Days 3 – 8

I have a lack of culture, its clear to me now.

If you haven’t read about my culture, I’m trying to capture and develop yeast to create my own sourdough starter, read how I did it here.

I don’t know what went wrong, but I have not yet seen the tell-tale signs that I’m supposed to be looking for to tell me my culture has developed… which are:

• The surface will be glossy and dotted with air bubbles, like a pancake ready to be flipped (I may have seen this)





• The culture will have risen anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 (never saw this)
• It will smell like very ripe apples with undertones of wheat (nope)
• It will taste tart and fruity (possibly)
• When you draw a rubber spatula through it and lift it up, long elastic strands will hang from the spatula (definitely didn’t see this)

He ( Daniel Leader) also talks about how if you don’t stir it for a while there can be puddles of grayish water on the surface… which is alcohol and water, normal byproducts of the fermentation which are referred to as hooch. I saw a clear separation of liquids when I didn’t stir it, but the liquid was more yellow and clear (see below)… being that I only had maybe one sign above, I don’t think I had a healthy culture.

So I started again… and the same thing happened…
Tomorrow I am going to attempt to create a culture in a stiff dough levain… the starter needed to make the “Quintessential French Sourdough”. I will not give up.

Similar Posts:

• Cultural Experience
• Creating a Yeast Culture – Take 3
• A Sourdough Starter: Success?
• Things that get left out overnight on our kitchen counter.
• Sourdough from Scratch!