How come you didn't post your note in the previous thread? If your trying to make a sourdough culture from a baked bread, its not usually possible. Yeast dies at above about 140 degrees. What you have is naturally occuring yeast (who knows what kind?) that was in the flour already or was in the water. A sour milk smell with no trace of added milk used, isn't good. Usually a sourdough smell after a while will have the odor of alcohol (hooch). This what happens when the sourdough is stored in the fridge for a few months or more. I keep two kinds of cultures going. One is a very thick paste and stored in an air tight jar in the fridge. The other is spread on some plastic wrap and allowed to dry a couple of days and then crumbled and stored in the fridge as well. If my paste version doesn't 'wake up' within a few hours, I stir in a few bits of the dried culture. Every time I make a batch of starter, I dry a small amount for use another time. It keeps as long as the paste version. Usually, my starters are big in size, and I use most for the bread, while saving just a 1/2 to 3/4 cup to the air tight container. Depending on the room temp, the starter will start to bubble within 4 hours, and thats even if its made from a previously dried culture. I allow mine to bubble for a couple of days before making the actual bread. I also will add a little regular yeast to the dough, to help it rise a little faster. NEVER add anything but flour and water to a sourdough culture. adding sugar, milk, salt, or any other ingredient while making the culture will cause it to spoil. I will also use a little whole wheat flour for a better 'food' for the starter. One of my cultures is at least 100 years old and was taken from my grandfathers bakery about 50 years ago. It was originally a rye flour based one, and after many iterations has been gradually made into a regular flour sourdough culture. I will probably seperate some and start making rye flour based culture again, but its not my favoriite.

See the other link as well..

Here is a link that might be useful: Sourdough link

How come you didn't post your note in the previous thread? If your trying to make a sourdough culture from a baked bread, its not usually possible. Yeast dies at above about 140 degrees.

My Reply,
reason is i did not expect anything to come of this as i also know that yeast is killed at a certain temp, it was and still is an experiment. I was hoping for a holy grail when i took my hand and clapped the paper bag that once had the bread in it to perhaps capture any at all wild yeast that somehow might have survived in the bag which i doubt, so either i have yeast from the flour that i put in or when i make bread a sour stomach or both. I just smelled the starter and it does have a slight alcohol smell now, im still surprised though how fas this activated.I bought another starter off ebay called Washinton Walts Authentic 49er Sourdough Starter and also activating that one today . Here are a few pictures to share, the starter that i'm experimenting with and some bread i previously made from another starter of mine. Its fun
Martin
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Didn't know you could buy starter on Ebay, when I was into making sourdough bread I made my own on top of the woodburner.
If you want to try I can send you the instructions.

We have one of those stoneware bakers - the one with the clay base and dome - got it from Williams-Sonoma years ago - and it works great for bread baking. You soak the stone in water before using and it gives you the type of crust I think you are looking for.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: La Cloche Bread Baker

My starters are usually quite thick. The only way I can describe them is they are much thicker than pancake batter. The less liquid added the more the yeast will survive as it will go to 'sleep' as opposed to killing itself by converting more of the liquid to alcohol.

Thanks for the replies,
yes you can buy starters on ebay in the dry form then you have to activate them, of course one does not really know if there getting a true Alaskan starter as stated or 49er as stated and so on as they simply could be started and grown elsewhere but for about 5.00 including shipping i thought i would give it a shot, Im curious to see the end results in how the starter reacts thru the phases including the final bread as compared to the wild yeast i had started here in home in illinois im just curious.
Today i have dough proofing and will try covering for first time with our turkey pan bottom which is deep enough for any oven spring, ill do the misting as usual with cast iron pan also and put some water in iron pan as i put bread in and also try misting the cover i will use for the bread and remove cover and iron pan after about 10 minutes and let bread finish.
ksrogers,
i like to thicken up starter as you mentioned when i know i will refrigerate it your absolutely right about the alcohol, once i just had to taste the hooch (curious again) and i said to myself afterwards those were some tough people back in the miner and wagon days if they did the same . I wont be tasting it again thats for sure, but like you said more yeast survives and makes it easier when stored as a nice thick batter. Also if anyone knows how they store the starter in a dough form like some bakeries do i would like to read about that process not that i will try it but again curious about that.
Martin

The site linked below has a method for making your own starter which worked (pun intended) well for me. The method uses a couple of science-based principles which assure good results. The directions are very clear and it has a couple of photos.

I like the idea of making your own starter because each one is a little different (in theory anyway), which makes it possible to stumble onto a unique and especially good one. It's like the lottery. You never know!

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Wild Yeast Sourdough Starter

Cast iron pan with water in the oven. NOT good. Cast will rust and any 'seasoning' with oils will bake off some, making for some smoke. A stainless steel or glass pan might be better to use as a water source in the hot oven.
My grandfather made bread 6 out of 7 days. Every day he just left the starter out and added flour and water after taking out what he needed for that days baking (very early morning like 4 am). The starter was a bit stronger after the no baking on Sunday, as it had two days to work. His starter was put in a 5 gallon pail and it was lightly covered with a cloth. He would dig out about 2 gallons of it per batch of bread, and add flour and water to the rest and stir a minute. It will dissolve the lumps all by itself during its fermenting. The 2 gallons removed were mixed with rye flour and regular bread flour. He did use a little regular yeast too. The bakery was always warm due to the big oven going 24/7. He turned it down a little on Saturday, but would crank it back up Sunday night.

digdirt and jimster thanks for the links , good reading.
ksrogers thats a nice story as i always enjoy reading the family ones, on the other forum i have been going to for little over 3 years now we discuss fig tree and there fruit another passion of mine and the family history of the tree's are great to read as well so thanks for shareing that. My granfather in Italy was a baker by trade my father used to tell me but i never met him nor grandmother as they passed when i was small.
The cast iron pan gets a ring of slight rust after it cools around inside rim which i scrub with water and then rub in some oil and heat on stove till i use it next ,it is cumbersome and this one pan is just for the bread , when i preheat oven with it i dont get any smoke which is good. I just have to keep at it or it would rust thats for sure, but your right stainless would be much much better.
Today i baked a loaf of bread with some starter that i had bought last year, i tried a basket i have with one of those towels in it floured nice, so i made the dough wetter i usually freeform my loaves, i figured since in a basket i could get away with a wetter dough. I had a stone but it cracked on me last year so i use a preheated cookie sheet, i took cookie sheet out of hot oven and placed over the basket i know what your thinking burn towel and basket well that did not happen but the dough flattend out more or less at this point i slashed top and put in oven, now the funny part, my turkey roaster i was going to use i thought well if the dough rises to much it will mess things up so i used tall aluminum stock pot to cover the dough to see what would happen. After about 4 to 5 minutes i pulled rack out of oven and lifted pot up and the dough would have stuck to it as it kept on spreading. So i left top off of dough and misted it and sides of oven, the bread tasted good with slight sour taste this evening with spaghettis and the works but it looked awfull , the crum had nice holes though oh well.
I have what they call chicago mettalic pan with a bunch of little holes in it if anyone is familar with it you know what it looks like, trouble is the bread crust pokes thru them iv'e tried several ways, first time for proofing in them (big mess) second time proofing loafs elswhere then baking in them another mistake as they crust still went into the wholes and made it hard to clean. Then i used parchment paper until crust formed enough not to poke thru the holes which is what i do now when i use this , basically im not crazy about it. So im going to try the basket again it seems like it works well and is the right size for the pound and a half bread i make and comes out easy for me i just need to not make the dough as wet, and i should get a bakers peel as well instead of fooling around with a hot cookie sheet like i did today, in the meen time i think i will freeform the loaves till i get the bakers peel 1 day.The starter i bought off ebay seems slow to activate but its getting there, the other one i experimented with is so far going real well as there are many more bubbles now than yesterday , today im dumpind all but a cup and then just adding cup of flour and about cup of water it seems to react faster than the other ones i have dealt with in the past and present so im anxious to try this one, it did have an off odor at first but now it seems to be ok , im going to keep feeding it for a good week and then bake and see what the results are. Sorry for long post but i tried to put what i as thinking all in one post instead of creating several different ones, any comments are always welcome.
Martin

I have 2 starters. One, I started at home, and one while I was in Denver visiting my son. I packed the Denver one in my suitcase in a zip lock, and it got through security!!

They reside in the fridge in jars, and each week, I take out a cup, feed it a cup of water and a cup of flour, and make pancakes with the extra sour dough. I have also taken parchment, painted the starter onto the paper with a pastry brush, let it dry, flaked it off, and stored it in zip locks in the freezer. It reconstitutes (bubbles and all) with the addition of a little warm water. Makes a great gift with your favorite sourdough pancake recipe and some nice maple syrup!

I ordered a free starter from the link below and we were building our house at the time so I decided to wait about using it and somehow I lost it. I keep thinking I will try again. If anyone is interested the link below will get you a free starter..

They really are easy to start though and a lot of fun to get your own going...

Here is a link that might be useful: Carl's Sour dough starter

The Carls vesrion is good. Its been avaiable on he intenet for at least 20 years. He ships it dried. I find that plastic wrap works best for drying the culture into a wafer thin mass. If you add flour and water to the starter, add a cup of flour and only half a cup of water or slightly more. You want to keep the culture as thick and gooey as possible. If you have whole wheat flour, add that to the culture instead of regular flour as it gives the culture more nutients. Someone I know adds sour cream to their sourdough bread. The dough sits for about 4-5 days before its ready to bake. Now THATS SOUR!!

I have a big 18 inch diameter pizza stone and a big peal. Also have a rectanular stone thats about 24 inches wide, and about 16 inches deep. These are about half an inch or more in thickness. Avoid cold things on the very hot stones, or worse, heating a stone on a stove burner. Did that once to get it hot and it cracked in half!