Monthly Challenge for October

This is my report for October's challenge.

This month, with moving and everything that goes along with that, I didn’t get started with my experiments until there was less than 2 weeks left in the month. So needless to say, I didn’t get as much done as I hoped. I had hoped to try to capture wild yeast in 3 different ways, and learn to stretch commercial yeast in at least 3 ways.

I started with a technique called Japanese Yeast Water. You put a handful or two of raisins in a jar filled 80% with water. Store it on the counter or in a cupboard. You loosely cap it and in a couple of days, the raisins will begin to float to the top. In 3-6 days, you should be seeing bubbles on the top of the water. The bubbles are the yeast. It was at this stage, both times I tried it, that mold grew on the raisins floating on the top. I don’t think this kind of yeast is as useful as some others so since I lost the yeast water twice, I gave up on it. If you are interested in learning more about it and how to use it, visit http://originalyeast.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-make-yeast-water.html.

Next, I started what I call a wild grape yeast sponge. Aside from floating in the air, yeast is also present on the skin of fruits, especially grapes and berries. So if you mix together equal parts of flour and water then add some grapes to the mixture, you should get yeast. I did that and set it in a warm place, loosely capped. I think on the second day, there were small bubbles in the mixture and it smelled slightly yeasty. The third day, there were more bubbles but the smell turned to something off. The next day, the bubbles were gone and the smell was almost enough to make me throw up. So I got rid of the grapes and kept it for one more day. No progress so I threw it out. I tried this one again as well. On the second day, there were bubbles and the yeast smell was there so I got rid of the grapes before they had a chance to go bad and ruin another batch. I fed it an equal part of flour and water and let it sit. The next day there were still bubbles so I fed it again. The next morning, the bubbles had disappeared and that nasty smell was back. Failure again so I gave up on that method as well.

The third way to capture yeast I wanted to try was making a sourdough starter. There are lots of recipes online to start a starter with commercial yeast but that wasn’t the point of my experiment so I found a recipe for a starter that I think has gotten me my first success!

Procedure for Making Sourdough Starter
Day 1: mix...2 T. whole grain flour (rye and/or wheat)2 T. unsweetened pineapple juice or orange juiceCover and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.
Day 2: add...2 T. whole grain flour2 T. juiceStir well, cover and let sit at room temperature 24 hours. At day 2 you may (or may not) start to see some small bubbles.
Day 3: add...2 T. whole grain flour2 T. juiceStir well, cover and let sit at room temperature 24 hours.
Day 4:Stir down, measure out 1/4 cup and discard the rest.To the 1/4 cup add...1/4 cup flour*1/4 cup filtered or spring water
*You can feed the starter whatever type of flour you want at this point (unbleached white, whole wheat, rye). If you are new to sourdough, a white starter is probably the best choice. All-purpose flour is fine--a high protein flour is not necessary.

Repeat Day 4:Once daily until the mixture starts to expand and smell yeasty. It is not unusual for the mixture to get very bubbly around Day 3 or 4 and then go completely flat and appear dead. If the mixture does not start to grow again by Day 6, add 1/4 tsp. apple cider vinegar with the daily feeding. This will lower the pH level a bit more and it should wake up the yeast.

The yeast we are trying to cultivate will only become active when the environment is right. When you mix flour and water together, you end up with a mixture that is close to neutral in pH, and our yeasties need it a bit more on the acid side. This is why we are using the acidic fruit juice. There are other microbes in the flour that prefer a more neutral pH, and so they are the first to wake up and grow. Some will produce acids as by-products. That helps to lower the pH to the point that they can no longer grow, until the environment is just right for wild yeast to activate. The length of time it takes for this to happen varies.

When using just flour and water, many will grow a gas-producing bacteria that slows down the process. It can raise the starter to three times its volume in a relatively short time. Don't worry--it is harmless. It is a bacteria sometimes used in other food fermentations like cheeses, and it is in the environment, including wheat fields and flours. It does not grow at a low pH, and the fruit juices keep the pH low enough to by-pass it. Things will still progress, but this is the point at which people get frustrated and quit, because the gassy bacteria stop growing. It will appear that the "yeast" died on you, when in fact, you haven't begun to grow yeast yet. When the pH drops below 3.5--4 or so, the yeast will activate, begin to grow, and the starter will expand again. You just need to keep it fed and cared for until then.

Once your wild yeast is growing, the character and flavor will improve if you continue to give it daily feedings and keep it at room temperature for a couple of weeks longer.After that time, it should be kept in the refrigerator between uses/feedings.

I followed the direction as closely as possible. I did forget about it one night and fed it the next day but everything is still alive and going well. Around the time she stated, the starter appeared dead so I used the vinegar like she said and the next day, is was bubbling again.
I will continue on with keeping the sourdough starter alive and actually making something with it. I will also work on doing some of the yeast stretching things I’ve read about and report back another month on those things.

Mom & Dad

Mom and Dad just left to go back home. They came for a short visit. (Sorry about there not being a lot of food here). They came late Friday night and we stayed up talking. Jack loves his grandma and kept shaking hands with her and sitting near her and staring at her. Bear kept sitting next to her as well. Mom and Dad said they slept really well. I'm glad they had a better experience on the air mattress than we did!!

On Saturday, Mom and Dad had to exchange their rental car because of some maintenance lights. Afterward, we drove to the gorge near here. it's beautiful but I didn't have my camera with me so I have no pictures of it still. We got out of the car for only a minute because there were bugs all over the place. I was really hoping there were some roads following the river but one way seemed to end at some buildings and the other ended at a dirt road so we didn't take that one. We headed back to Boise for lunch at Cracker Barrel. Mom tried turnip greens and said she liked them but by the next time she took a bite, she had definitely changed her mind. I love them. Then, we stopped at Payless for some shoes for Dad but Mom found a pair instead which ended up matching a skirt she later bought at Walmart. We went bowling next. All three of us were sore in various places afterward. Dad won both times. Mom beat me the second time. We used the bumpers since they were up when we got there. We were looking good! We got 137 (Dad), 128 (Me) and 115 (Mom). The second game was similar with me and Mom switching places and me way below 100. :o) It was a lot of fun. Back at home, we had dinner then later went out for dessert at Dairy Queen. People were pretty tired so we were in bed by 10:30.

Today, we went to church, had lunch afterward and they were on their way. Love you guys. I'll miss you. And to everyone else, please know, you are welcome to come any time. We love visitors.

So before they got here, I discovered that two of my yeast starters went bad. I found mold growing on a raisin in the water and the other one made me want to gag when I sniffed it. I can't imagine it possibly being any good so I tossed them both and started over. This is why I shouldn't have procrastinated. It's going to be the end of the month before I know it and I won't have anything positive to share. Well, the sourdough seems to be doing what it's supposed to so I hope at least that one turns out well.

I tried the powdered milk and I was surprised by how okay it was. I wouldn't want to drink a glass by itself but as long as I drank it with a meal, it wasn't too bad. There was only a slight aftertaste when you swallow that gave it away when drunk while eating. So now I just need to calculate costs and see if it actually does save money and by how much. I don't know if it would be worth it to switch. (But the milk has to be cold so I don't know how you could ge the same results without a fridge.)

In my ward, there's a deaf woman. There were two ladies sitting in front taking turns interpreting for her. I watched them through most of the meeting. It was fun. Some signs came back pretty quickly...I learned a couple new signs but there were some I knew I knew but I just couldn't figure it out. Oh, and there were plenty of signs I didn't know. There is a sign language class every Monday so I will be starting that this week. :o) One of the woman is trying to get me to help with the primary program in 2 weeks. Well, once she sees how little I can remember, I think she'll change her mind.

Wild Yeast

Well...way too much of my time today was spent hovering over the 2 yeast starters I have. Currently, I have two started. I'll start the other 2 kinds tomorrow. The water one was started on Monday. The dough one was started this morning, bright & early after dropping Adam off at the airport. The raisins in the water are supposed to all rise to the surface. They slowly move up and look as though they are suspended in gelatin but it's just water. Kind of weird. No bubbles in that one yet though. The other one has some small bubbles in it already(dark bumps are an ingredient in the starter), though certainly not enough to rise a loaf of bread yet. It's a science experiment. It's a lot of fun! :o) I'll give more details later since Valerie is part of the challange group and I don't want to give anything away.

The other experiment I've got going on right now has to do with powdered milk. I was reading someone's blog. This guy hasn't used a fridge in over 30 years. I made a comment on his blog that there was no way I could give up a fridge because I have to have my cold milk. He said that "you CAN get used to using powdered milk". So, for the sake of giving it a shot, here goes nothing! Following some instruction he gave me, I mixed the first batch up tonight and I'll have it with breakfast in the morning. Wish me luck! Childhood memories of powdered milk don't sit so well with me so it will be interesting. Though two thing make me feel better about drinking it now than when I was a child. 1. Powdered milk tastes better the fresher it is...more than a year old is no longer good for drinking, only for cooking. Well, if memory serves me correctly, we had that Eureka milk for a long time before we started drinking it. and 2. The flavor is supposed to have gotten better in the last few years. I don't know if that's true or not but it gives me hope. So I'll let you know my verdict later.

When Adam's out of town, it's always time for food experimentation because I can eat just about anything I make.

Making Yeast

Well, I have finally started my thing for this month's challange. I have had a hard time deciding what to do. I had already had something picked up, and will do it another month but right now, it just isn't fesible since my stuff is lost in boxes. I finally decided that I will be making yeast. I was toying around with the idea but hadn't made up my mind until today.