Saturday 1:00 pm A mixture of flour and water was sterilized. Looked like pancake mixture, enough to top one cup. Used steam and boiling water. Nearly boiling, 180℉, sufficient to kill hitch hiking organisms. The mixture is in a bowl, placed on outside patio, 5th floor. Temperature moderate considering it's late November. Covered with an upturned strainer, like a tight screen hat.
Friday 9:00 pm Nearly one week on the patio. Seems longer than that. Maybe it's nearly two weeks. The weather was cold. The sample froze a couple times. It was brought in to warm up then put back out. It was held inside a few nights to prevent further freezing. The sample is weighed and a fresh sample of equal weight is prepared. The two samples, one the collection, the other with fresh flour, are left to incubate with a low wattage incandescent lightbulb.
Control Denver.
Very first proofing.
Saturday 11:00 am As found 14 hours later. Denver sample on the right. Both have reacted with cultivation, the Denver sample creating different type of bubbles in the cooked flour than the control sample with raw flour. The texture of the control was much closer to the gelatinous texture of other sourdough cultures.
Both sample were fed and left to incubate further
Denver sample feed scalded flour so it's limited to the organisms picked up locally.
The control was fed raw flour.
Control↓ Denver↓
Saturday 11:00 pm 12 hours later, 26 total hours with low wattage bulb. ↓ The Denver sample had a strong alchol odor, rather pleasant, complex and sweet. The control sample had a one-dimensional raw odor.
Now everything has changed. Both cultures contain high concentrations of active culture, although they behave differently in cooked and raw flour. Now, the same amount of both samples were fed the same amount of the same raw food.
Left alone to ferment, or proof at room temperature. The Denver culture is now contaminated with whatever yeast and bacteria is piggybacking on the flour that has already proven to amenable to cultivation. We're counting on the numbers of organisms in the Denver culture are great enough to completely overwhelm or assimilate any piggy-backers.
Sunday 1:30 am 2 and 1/2 hours later, Denver culture completely overtakes control.
7:00 am Sunday Both samples appear to have peaked.
The Denver sample is doubled with fresh raw food, 1 Cup room-temperature puffed up starter → 2 Cups flattened out, whipped-up-in-the-mixer-and-still-there freshly feed starter.
The Denver culture is now a proper sourdough culture. The washing out, or purifying-of-the-sample phase, in which a tiny portion is used to inoculate a whole new batch, is omitted, therefore the present culture contains any and all airborne impurities that found their way into the collection.
I don't care. It passes the smell test and that's fine with me. The control will be tossed. At this point there's nothing to recommend it and I already have volunteer starters from controls of previous experiments that are pleasing and demonstrated more virile qualities.
This culture is fast. The 2 Cup mass rapidly filled the mixer bowl. It was fed 2 Cups water and however much flour made a dense sponge. It filled the bowl within an hour. Knocked down and chilled over night.
6:00 am MondayRemoved from chill. The bowl tried to overflow but it was covered. This messed up the top.
Added 1 egg
6 flax seed capsules flax seed oil (discarded capsules)
2 TBS wheat germ
1+1/2 TBS salt
Overproofed at 4 hours. Baked on high for hour + 5 minutes.
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