When making your first starter i truly believe that it is best to maintain it in a glass measuring cup so you can see when it really starts to grow so that you know the yeast is really active and the mixture started out after a feeding at one cup and rose to 2 or 3 cups. it should only take a couple days with the little bit of yeast you have added {if you followed my previous post}.
Because i use yeast i like to feed the starter twice daily for at least a week (7 days)to make sure there is enough of a sourdough flavor. I never refrigerate this first week. also, if you see any coloring of the starter like bright colors etc it has gone bad and you must start over. The starter will give off different smells and such but that is normal. I have never had a starter go bad so I cant give you a Picture of it. If you have gotten this far you may have active starter and want to try to bake bread.
STEP Three: pull off 1/4 cup of starter* add to it 1/4 cup of bread flour (once you start this phase it is crucial to use bread flour it counteracts the acidity of the sourdough bread so that it may rise)and 1/8 cup water (don't forget tap water can be bad see earlier posts) let double in size about 6 hours. When doing this i strongly advise mixing the flour then kneading by hand so you can feel the stiffness it should be very stiff. Densities always very, with starters and flours, and it is best to really get a feel for the way the dough feels so you can adjust in future if it doesn't finish exactly as you want.
*ALSO FEED THE original STARTER AND WAIT AN HOUR THEN REFRIGERATE STARTER UNTIL YOU WANT TO USE IT AGAIN IN LESS THAN A WEEK or you will have to warm re feed and the refrigerate for a week. I have been baking bread every couple days to master the bread so I am not sure of the best method of maintaining a starter for long periods of time without baking bread every couple of days but i will let you know
After bread has doubled pull off 1/4 cup again and add 2/3 cup bread flour 1/3 cup water let double in size approximately 6 hours again once it doubles refrigerate dough until you have 12 hours to finish making bread hopefully the next day not more than two days. The keys here are that it must double in size if it is not doubling something is wrong.
Refrigeration: i have refrigerated dough in a many different stages of making the sourdough bread and have determined this is the best time to refrigerate it and get the results you want to have to show off to your friends..
Finally i am giving a lot of information pretty quickly but will finish tomorrow and try to do a summary post also this week i think we will do homemade bagels as well and next week homemade wonder bread it should be fun i have never done either one before.
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