Sour dough... mmmm....

Several months ago, a friend from our church offered us some goat milk - fresh - raw - YUM!!!! We made yogurt and cheese and just LOVE IT!

This same friend also offered goat milk to another friend we have. He and his girls were supposed to make yogurt or cheese or something with it - he even went to the store and tried to buy cheesecloth (I ended up giving him some muslin). I recall they did do something with it all, but I don't remember what... ?

I do recall that he left it in the fridge so long (a habit over there) and it started to go sour. So he got this brilliant idea (hey, I may have thought of it too if I didn't know any better, so please excuse my sarcasm here ;) ) that one goes about making "sour dough bread" with "sour milk".

Ahem.

(that would be a "no")

 

So anyway. He went to the library and checked out books on how to make yogurt and cheese and... sour dough bread.Now, in his defense, there are people in our area who "make" "sour dough" bread but it is NOT sourdough bread. There is a huge difference. A huge historical difference, a huge health difference, just a HUGE difference!

Well, first off, those books overcomplicated the entire cheese and yogurt process. I gave him a stripped down version of those processes and he made a few things with success.

He did learn that one does NOT use sour milk to make sour dough bread - and that sourdough bread is actually one word on the "sourdough". He did not like the book and wanted to get rid of it right away. I convinced him to let me finish reading it first.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="239"] He had checked out the older edition of this book.[/caption]

I fell in love with the book! Went to the website and months later finally bought some of the sourdough starter in powder form... and it sat in my fridge until I could get jars. Then it sat in my fridge until I cleaned those jars out and went looking for the instructions (never did find them). Then it sat yet another week until I finally went BACK to the website to find that the instructions were included there for free. Yay! So 9 months after discovering it, and 6 months after purchasing the starter, I was ready!

[caption id="attachment_962" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Here they are at first feeding - just getting started :)[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="185"] One of the jars after the second feeding (had it started; then 24 hours in added a feeding - this is the following morning; when the other one exploded - leaking sourdough all over - AWESOME!)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_964" align="aligncenter" width="300"] I awoke to what sounded like a mouse having a feast on Halloween candy under our dishwasher. It turns out to be the sourdough starter oozing, bubbling and otherwise popping out the sides of the loosely attached lid! Very funny to see! Not so funny to have lost sleep over it! [/caption]

[caption id="attachment_965" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Scooping from one jar to another - as runny as it looks, that is actually sticking together quite well![/caption]

And it's ALIVE!

 

I have moral issues with tossing the halving down the drain - so it's being split into multiple jars until I get a chance to bake with it. I should bake with it NOW but I want to experiment first ;)