From: N51L5201@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (David Auerbach)
Subject: Re: REQUEST: Sourdough Starter and Bread Recipes
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 22:27:13 GMT

In article <1992Oct15.182310.14321@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com>
sharen@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Sharen A. Rund) writes:
 
>In article <1992Oct14.211554.8250@cis.ohio-state.edu> ray@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (william c ray) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct14.202448.747@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com> sharen@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com (Sharen A. Rund) writes:
>>>In article <1687EF45E.N51L5201@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu> N51L5201@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (David Auerbach) writes:
>>
>>>>There is, despite the misleading terminology of some books, no such thing
>>>>as a recipe for sourdough starter.  If you want sourdough starter what you
>>>>need is either   a) someone else's sourdough starter  or b) the patience
>>>>and luck necessary to "capture" the requisite beasts (from either the
>>>>air or the skins of grapes or hiding in unprocessed flour....).
>>>
>>>I beg to differ with your basice statement - with time & patience, one
>>>can create a 'starter' of their own - granted, its better to get one
>>>from someone else, but, a starter can be made - just like in the
>>>_good old days_ when yeast wasn't readily available and one created it
>>>with the basic bread dough left out (covered with a cloth) for days
>>>and stirred in the yeast that formed .....
>>>
>>
>>...Beg to differ with _your_ basic statement, but yeast does not "form"...
>>As poster 1 pointed out, you will need to capture it from somewhere,
>>your can't create it from nothing.  (barring spontaneous creation of the
>>yeastie-beasties out of random protiens and amino acids being broken down
>>by cosmic rays, or some such.  Which is unfortunately about as likely as
>>your normal storebought yeast evolving into a sentient lifeform and
>>taking over your kitchen...)
>>
>
>if yeast can't form, why can I put flour & water together to make
>a 'dough' I can stir down, set it out and once a day sitr_down
>bubbles that form during the day, and after about a week of
>doing this, do I have a sourdough starter..????
>
>
>
>--
>________________       __        ________________   "They that can give up
>\_________      \     /_ \      /      _________/  essential liberty to
> \_________      \_____/  \____/      _________/  obtain temporary safety
>  \___________________      __________________/  deserve neither liberty
>                     /______\                   nor safety."
>ALL disclaimers apply ....                           --Benjamin Franklin
>	
 
This is the first poster above again. If you read what I said you will see
that nothing I said denies that you can do what you say: I said you can
make your own starter.  I compressed into a disjunction the open question as
to where the beasties are coming from: the air or the flour (or in the case
of certain other "self-starting" techniques grape skins).
The major points I was making were: 1. Making a starter from commerical yeast
is NOT a sourdough (though it is a time honored and good method)  and 2. that
sourdoughs are complicated symbioses and getting a unique and successful
colony from someone else is a good method of aquiring a starter that might
be worth keeping going.  Sourdoughs develop unique characteristcs and also
develop over time so that making a new one every week is both chancy and less
than optimal.  There, is that clearer?