sour dough starter

my bread-making adventures continue. having made my sour dough starter on 4 january it has been tricky getting it going. i fed it on day 2 but it then stopped fermenting and separated so there was a thin layer of water on top of the flour/water mix. stirring it up didn’t help so i took heed of a tip which said that starters benefit from being thrown into the food processor for a good blitz every few weeks. i mixed my unruly starter for 5 mins using a hand blender and since then it has been fine.

as you can see in the above picture it is producing gas bubbles. it has smelt quite revolting all week until last night – day 8 – when, instead of smelling like stale wine the morning after, it  began to smell of bread yeasts.

i’ve been feeding it every two days and will continue to do so until friday when i will scoop out some starter to make my first sour dough. i’m very excited as i need to be able to turn out something decent the following weekend when we have friends staying.