I had a lump of "Pte Fermentée" or "Old Dough" as a sort of fake sourdough
starter (using commercial yeast) and I wanted to convert it to true
sourdough. The original thread is still up on this NG if you wish to review
it.

In his reply, Charles Perry wrote:

>There is a theoretical possibility that the starter could be taken over
>by real sourdough critters because they are happy with continuous
>propagation. Not likely though.

>Why don't you try it and report back, You have nothing to lose except
>your time and a little flour.

Many thanks to Charles and to everybody else who replied to that post. I
learned a lot and was encouraged by the input.

I have NOT added any more commercial yeast to that mass since November 12,
but I kept using most of it and refreshing whatever remained with flour and
water ONLY.

Three days ago, I began refreshing it with unbleached A/P flour in equal
portions of the starter, flour, and water instead of the usual dark rye
flour. This morning I fed it again with the unbleached A/P flour. At 10:30
this morning, a one-gallon pickle jar with a lid was filled to about 2.75
inches from the table. By 3:30 this afternoon, the stuff had expanded to
about 6.75 inches from the table in the same gallon jar and had started to
fall about a half inch from there to about 6.25 inches. When I removed the
lid, I heard a "whooosh!" I stuck my nose into the jar to smell it and it
was like snorting a shot of whisky! I stirred it and it went back down to
its original mark in the jar. It's really sour and very white. It has
about the consistancy of peanut butter, except that it is elastic like
dough. The house temperature ranges from about 65 degrees at night to about
75 degrees in the afternoon

Now the question: What to do now? Feed it? Use it? By my description,
does it sound ready for some breadmaking?

Rich

On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 01:23:53 GMT, "NewCulStudent"
> wrote:

>I had a lump of "Pte Fermentée" or "Old Dough" as a sort of fake sourdough
>starter (using commercial yeast) and I wanted to convert it to true
>sourdough. The original thread is still up on this NG if you wish to review
>it.
>
>In his reply, Charles Perry wrote:
>
>>There is a theoretical possibility that the starter could be taken over
>>by real sourdough critters because they are happy with continuous
>>propagation. Not likely though.
>
>>Why don't you try it and report back, You have nothing to lose except
>>your time and a little flour.
>
>Many thanks to Charles and to everybody else who replied to that post. I
>learned a lot and was encouraged by the input.
>
>I have NOT added any more commercial yeast to that mass since November 12,
>but I kept using most of it and refreshing whatever remained with flour and
>water ONLY.
>
>Three days ago, I began refreshing it with unbleached A/P flour in equal
>portions of the starter, flour, and water instead of the usual dark rye
>flour. This morning I fed it again with the unbleached A/P flour. At 10:30
>this morning, a one-gallon pickle jar with a lid was filled to about 2.75
>inches from the table. By 3:30 this afternoon, the stuff had expanded to
>about 6.75 inches from the table in the same gallon jar and had started to
>fall about a half inch from there to about 6.25 inches. When I removed the
>lid, I heard a "whooosh!" I stuck my nose into the jar to smell it and it
>was like snorting a shot of whisky! I stirred it and it went back down to
>its original mark in the jar. It's really sour and very white. It has
>about the consistancy of peanut butter, except that it is elastic like
>dough. The house temperature ranges from about 65 degrees at night to about
>75 degrees in the afternoon
>
>Now the question: What to do now? Feed it? Use it? By my description,
>does it sound ready for some breadmaking?
>
>Rich
>

Hi Rich,

Of course one can create a starter from a piece of old dough
made with commercial yeast, but such an approach probably
slows the approach to the goal.

Whatever "good" wild yeasts that are in the dough will have
to compete with the commercial yeasts initially. Eventually,
they are likely to win out (because as the pH comes down,
the commercial yeast will die off) and at that point, the
wild yeasts would take over.

Sure it would make sense to try to bake with what you have.
If you are happy with the result, you have a starter worth
keeping. If not, you can get one that is known to be good (I
and others can help with that) or you can make one from
scratch.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

NewCulStudent wrote:

> I had a lump of "Pte Fermentée" or "Old Dough" as a sort of fake sourdough
> starter (using commercial yeast) and I wanted to convert it to true
> sourdough.

What Charles meant was that all you need to do is keep using it and it
will convert by itself because it will acidify and then only the wild
organisms will survive.

Use it, feed it, use it again. As long as you've got the action you're
describing it's good to go.

Just remember,it's not going to stabilize for a long time--it'll
certainly raise dough, but it won't mature/develop.

Which is what would happen if you started a starter from scratch as
well, so as long as you've got something, use it.


B/

NewCulStudent wrote:

> Now the question: What to do now? Feed it? Use it? By my description,
> does it sound ready for some breadmaking?
>
Short answers: something, Yes, yes,& yes.

You may wish to investigate the idea of keeping a smaller quantity now
that your starter is active. Look Here for one set of Ideas:

http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/dickpics/starter.html

Some keep even smaller amounts. Even if you used a container as large
as a peanut butter jar it would free up space in the refrigerator for
more beer compared to a gallon jar.

Regards,

Charles