sour-dough bread

[pottyaboutgrowing]

Has anyone ever tried it here.. I have a starter sitting on the window sill in the kichen.. it got to a point where I thought ooohh this looks good. Now I'm not too sure it has separated and not looking as good as it did.

[albertajune]

I have tried to make sour dough bread but not very successfully. Just about edible and the flavour wasn't all that special. I thought I'd have a go as it is about £3 a loaf to buy so I'm told, when you can buy it, and I wanted to see what it was like. I do make all my usual breads but found this process very, very time consuming.
I too am interested to see if anyone else has made a good loaf.
Don't let it beat you!

[manda]

Mmm love sour dough...did have a starter living in my fridge for months but during the summer I didn't look after it enough ...will start one again for the winter though as everyone in our house loves sour dough bread.

[TEZ PAZ]

hi pottyaboutgrowing, sounds like you need to feed it. the liqid starts to separate off when the yeast is dying. you will need to feed it more often now its warmer. the windowsill is not a good place to keep it now as it will be too hot and the starter will run out of food more quickly the warmer it is

[pottyaboutgrowing]

Oooh OK thank's for the advise oi will move it right now..

[maderedundant]

I made my first sourdough loaf last week after seeing Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's programme on TV. 3 days after starting the sourdough culture it was good to go.
I cheated on the first attempt and put the mixture in the breadmaker up to the dough stage.
I put the dough to rise on the top of the oven in a 2lb loaf tin. I found that the loaf didn't rise as much as a yeast dough but a quick poke (gently mind!!) told me it was ready.
The end result was a loaf that was completely different to a normal loaf. Far better I thought.
The second loaf I made in the breadmaker using the normal white bread setting (3 hours/medium crust) which made a good loaf but the crust was quite hard.
Those of you who asked about the liquid seperated from the starter, this is a natural byproduct of the fermentation process, in effect it is beer. BUT DON'T DRINK IT
I have read that it can be mixed back in to the starter without any ill effects.
For sourdough recipes have a look at Teresa Greenway's e-book downloaded for free. Teresa has a great website at http://www.northwestsourdough.com/
Unfortunately the ebook cannot be downloaded from the at the moment but if you google it, there are other sites with it on. The book is called "Discovering Sourdough" and is downloaded as 3 pdf files.
Regards Paul