Rye Bread: Day 2
February 1, 2011 § 5 Comments
My friend Amanda’s comment on my Rye Bread: Day 1 post was this: “Amazing how you make this sound time consuming and gross… yet totally tasty and motivating!”
Little does she know what this mass of flour, water and punctured grapes has turned in to …
Here’s a brief journal of my sourdough starter experience. Consider it a journal of Baby’s First Days. And oh boy, if real babies are as slimy as this, I’m so glad I don’t have one.
(I skipped the first few hours. Perhaps I had a bout of postpartum depression.)
**
Monday. 11:21 a.m. Sourdough starter roughly 19.5 hours old. Microwave trick and dissipating boiled water have warmed the starter to 74F. The best I’m gonna get at this point.
Monday, 5:12 p.m. 25-ish hours old. Sourdough starter has turned into bubbly goodness! It smells like … grapes. Really. Yeasty. Grapes. Alas, work prevents me from tackling Step 2 at the moment.
Monday, 6:49 p.m. Still bubbly goodness, with a pleasant grapey-yeasty aroma. Added 113 grams room temperature water and 72 grams unbleached all-purpose flour. Stirred. Put back in microwave. Crossed fingers. Needs to bubbey away for another 12 to 24 hours.
Baby Dough at 26 hours
Tuesday, 6:02 a.m. Baby Dough’s big! Must have almost doubled in size overnight. Lots of big bubbles. Hmm… should I move on to the next step?
Baby Dough at about 38 hours. Such a big boy!
Tuesday, 8:27 a.m.: I decided to move on to Step 3 after only 14+ hours. It calls for scooping out the grape remnants and a bit of the starter. It’s snot. It looks like snot. It pulls like snot. It’s baby snot. Of course the grapes all settled on the bottom and I had to scrounge around with an iced tea spoon and pull them up through miles of gooey snot. Good thing was there was a layer of liquid on the bottom through which I could see all the grapes. Finding them all wasn’t so hard through the gooey yeasty snot.
Baby Dough at about 40 hours
Answer me this: Why would anyone EVER think this would be something yummy to add pulverized wheat to and then put in a container to cook over hot coals? That leap of faith from snot to baked goods—if you think about it, that crazy idea created civilization. Goo. Flour. Water. Heat. The wheel. The combustible engine. The Internet.
Added 36 grams flour. Mixed thoroughly. Put back in the microwave. Waiting another 12-24 hours.
Tuesday, 4:24. Baby Dough is 48 hours old – yay! Threw a little party, invite other doughs from the neighborhood. They are so adorable at that age …
Baby Dough’s looking a tad under the weather, a little runny. I snuggled him in the microwave with another cup of boiling water and will check back in later. For now, I’ll let him rest. Perhaps the party was too much.
The Dainty Dot 
oh my gawd, that was hilarious…when are we eating!?
OMG. The grapes just put me over the edge..
Have you seen “How Beer Saved The World”?? Talk about taking a leap of faith…
The bread should be done in … I don’t know, Friday?
didn’t you go to Smith? and Cornell?
In fact I did …