Sourdough Starter (without yeast)

Baking bread when you have no yeast! 

Come along with me on a new adventure!

This is a recipe shared by dear friends. I'm having trouble finding yeast, so this is a way of harvesting wild yeast from the air! 

Starchy potatoes - 1 large or a couple smaller, about a pound.
water a few cups
sugar - 1 1/2 teaspoons
salt - 1 teaspoon

Glass or ceramic bowl.

Day 1

We'll start with fresh potatoes.

 I'm boiling a few I cut up. Maybe a pound. Boiled until nice and soft. 
Remove potatoes and measure out 20 ounces of the liquid.  

 Sugar and salt measured out and into a ceramic bowl.

 The water has cooled, it's lukewarm now. 

 I'm mixing my sugar and salt in first. 
My sugar is not fine grained and I want it to incorporate well into the mixture. 

 Adding in the cup of flour.

 Mix well. 

The bubbles are just from the whisking I gave it. 

The recipe calls for cheesecloth. I don't have any, 
so I'm hoping this thin kitchen towel will do the job. 

This will develop for a number days. I'll check it and stir it each day. 
**************************************************************
Day 2. 24 hours later...

It seems to have separated a bit. Heavier flour fell out of solution, to the bottom. 

So, I stirred it all up again. I covered it with the towel again to let it sit another day. 

**********************************************
Day 3. 

 It had gone through a bubbly stage last night and I stirred it down. It was a very warm day yesterday, over 80F degrees (28C)

 It needs fed today. I'm adding 1/2 cup lukewarm water and 1/2 cup flour. 

 Water added and stirred.

Now the flour... 

All stirred up again.

 A few hours later, just checking on things. 

It's so much thinner than how it started the first day when it was so thick. Now it's about the consistency of melted ice cream. 
***********************************************************
Day 4 

 I thought it looked kind of flat and still today, but my dear friend said I should feed it. So, I did. :) Another 1/2 cup of lukewarm water and 1/2 cup of flour, whisked in as before. 
*********************************************
Day 5

Today, I see very small bubbles, I will stir it and feed it again today.  It has been much cooler the last few days, unlike Day 1. I'm sure that has slowed the development of my sponge. 
**********************************************************
Days 6 - 10

 Every day, I am feeding the sponge with 1/2 cup warm water and 1/2 cup flour. This goes on for a few days. I could probably use it to bake now, but I'm going to wait a few days. 

 Every day, this is what it looks like. The water on top, heavier solids fall to the bottom. 

 Every day, I stir it up smooth and feed it. 

 And today is the day!! We are going to get ready to bake!!
Remember, you prepare the dough the day before baking! Feed the starter before we begin. 

 From the bowl of starter, I take one cup of well mixed starter. To that, add 1 3/4 cup warm water, mix well. 

 Add 5 cups of flour, one cup at a time, mixing well between additions. 

The first two cups of flour I mixed in with my whisk. I also added the salt at this time, to make sure it got well incorporated. 

 After two cups of flour, it got too thick to use the whisk. I switched to a wooden spoon. 

 After incorporating the five cups of flour, allow to rest for one hour, covered, on the counter. 

 After one hour, the dough needs to be turned. It's very sticky. 

 Flour the counter before turning the dough out. 

 Do your best to get all the dough out. Do you have a little scraper? 

 OK, dough is out. Now, mostly just flip it around a couple times, keeping flour where it touches the counter. 

 Sorry this is sideways. Ball up the dough and put it back into the bowl.

 The dough was so sticky, I had to use my scraper in the bowl as well as the counter. 

 Covered again and allowed to rest for another hour. 

 Second flipping, after the hour resting. 

 It is a little less sticky, but I keep a little flour to put on as I flip it. Both for my hands and the counter. 

I'm dusting the bowl with flour before putting the dough in so it doesn't stick too bad. 

 Covered and allowed to rest for another hour. 

After the last hour of rest. One more time...

 Third and Last turning. 

This looks like bread dough now.

 Return the dough to the well scraped bowl. 

Cover the dough with plastic wrap. 
Into the fridge it goes for at least 8 hours, and up to 48 hours. 

 Almost 24 hours later. Remove cold dough from the bowl. 

Dough ball is turned out onto the floured counter. Seam side up. Don't knead it. 

The dough will now rest on the floured counter, covered in plastic wrap, for 15 minutes, to warm a little. 

This is a lot of dough, maybe more than one loaf? 

I'm going to make two loaves instead of one large one. I just cut it gently with a long sharp knife. 

I've dusted the parchment paper with flour so the bread doesn't stick. 

Dough is shaped into two loaves and dusted with flour. 

Covered with a clean towel, will now rest and rise for 3 hours. If you have a warm kitchen, it may be ready sooner for you. 
**Preheat oven to 450F degrees half an hour before baking.** 

3 hours rising time on the counter. It's time to bake. The oven has been preheating for 20 minutes. With a dry pan in the bottom to hold some water. 

After 3 hours rising time, cutting slashes across the top to allow steam to escape. 

Put loaves into the hot oven. Pouring about a cup and a half of boiling water into pan at the bottom of the oven. 
**Bake at 450F for 25-35 minutes until very brown and crusty**

It's hard to see through this door, but sneaking a peek. 

Good and crispy, I'd say.  They also sound hollow when tapped. 

Take them out to cool, or turn off the oven and allow bread and oven to cool, with the door slightly ajar. 

It didn't rise a ton, but it was very nice. Good chew and very crisp crust with the steaming it got while baking. All in all, a very successful science experiment!