Sourdough starter

[John Brown]

Hmmm...
Turns out I had two jars, not three.
They are both the consistency of a fairly stiff Brie with a good crust.
I have tranferred a portion of each to a new jar, fed them and used the oven-with-the-lamp-on tip mentioned earlier in this thread. I'lll have to wait and see what happens.
The nice thing about sourdough starters is that even when they go a bit wrong, if you keep feeding them they very often go right again, and the acidic environment tends to kill off the nasty stuff.

 

[bugbear]

The nice thing about sourdough starters is that even when they go a bit wrong, if you keep feeding them they very often go right again, and the acidic environment tends to kill off the nasty stuff.

Indeed. Since they're partially self-correcting, the mystique ascribed to old/original/precious starters is a bit doubtful.

BugBear

 

[Steve Maskery]

Today I have received a little package of dried sourdough, courtesy of Kalimna.
Thank you very much, Adam, I shall enjoy having a go with that.
=D> =D>

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It'll be interesting to know. As I said, I tried a San Fransisco starter, and I used one of my own for a few months, and all both seemed to me to do was make a perfectly pleasant bread heavier. If the SF hadn't soured, I don't think I'd have persisted with it. I could see no taste advantage in either.

 

[Kalimna]

Glad it arrived safely, Steve

 

[whiskywill]

Get some (almost) free from here. http://carlsfriends.net/source.html

I tried it a few years ago and it worked well but I neglected it and my wife threw it away.

 

[whiskywill]

IMG_20151129_142018
MSeries, on Flickr

What does baked starfish taste like?

 

[whiskywill]

20 g organic honey,

Can honey really be organic? In the UK the rules for calling honey "organic" are strict requiring the apiary to be in area surrounded by certified organic farmland along with a restriction on applying medication or feeding the bees. What if your neighbour (within 5kms, I believe) uses inorganic fertilisers in his garden? You cannot stop your bees foraging on his produce.

Organic honey status is very difficult to achieve in the U.K and most, if not all organic honey sold in the U.K is imported from countries such as Brazil where their rules don't come anywhere near those of the U.K.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Same reason as you can't sell it as clover, apple blossom or whatever. The only one that can be sold as a single flower in this Country is heather, because for one the hives are usually out on the moors away from anything else, for two it's late in the year so most other things are done flowering and three its texture woulds give it away if it weren't heather.

 

[whiskywill]

Same reason as you can't sell it as clover, apple blossom or whatever.

Oh yes you can, provided that the source of nectar is "wholly or mainly" from a particular flower. This can be confirmed by analysis of the pollen in the honey.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's a long while since I kept bees and it was not legal then and I've not seen anything to make me think think the regs. changed, but I'm out of touch so won't argue. A quick google shows loads of single flower honeys, but none are British which makes me think maybe it's difficult to prove "wholly or mainly" in a small island if the product were queried. Of course as you say it can be shown by pollen content, and the bees work a flower at a time - I've had frames of half a dozen different colours in the same super. I have however bought honey that was undoubtedly near 100% ****. :evil:

 

[marcros]

I have however bought honey that was undoubtedly near 100% ****. :evil:

stops it dripping off the toast though. :mrgreen:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Stops you getting it on the toast in the first place ...

 

[AJB Temple]

Re organic. I believe I was reciting a recipe from a well known baker.

I get my honey from my next door neighbour. He has 8 hives. I expect his bees forage where the like. We are apple orchard central, but they must rely on more than just those. There is also quite a bit of lavender grown nearby. I don't expect he can guarantee organic but it is quite unadulterated and is certainly about as local as I am going to get. I am toying with the idea of having a stab at beekeeping myself this year.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Give it a go, it's a fascinating hobby. You'll never make a fortune but you can go some way towards its paying it's way. I started to show at Royal Cornwall Show (many moons ago) where the honey section was the fifth biggest in the Country and got a third for comb honey on the first attempt. There were only two prizes awarded that year to people who hadn't shown there before (out of a few hundred entries), and the guy I beat into fourth place had been showing there for fifty years. I requeened my hives with New Zealand queens the following spring and then had to give up due to a case of anaphylactic shock that nearly killed me.

 

[whiskywill]

had to give up due to a case of anaphylactic shock that nearly killed me.

I used to keep mine in my garden at home but my wife who was then very much involved became more and more intolerant to the stings so gave up handling them. One day after the local bee inspector had carried out a routine check he knocked on the door to tell my wife he had finished. A disturbed bee stung her on the forehead, she collapsed and was rushed to the local hospital by the inspector. She was on a drip for 4 hours. The bees are now in a farmer's field.

The "wholly or mainly" statement is included in the Honey Regulations.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Funny that - mine was on top of the head. It's thought that the poison goes straight into a capillary. I always thought I was more affected by stings than most and I have a very high pain threshold. If I have a bad nettle sting it'll still be sore 8 or 9 days later. A couple of decades late the doctor that treated me said I was the closest he'd ever seen anyone come to dying from a sting.

 

[MIGNAL]

I 'captured' a wild yeast on my very first go. I just mixed flour with water and a few days later it startred to bubble. I kept it going for around 2 years before someone in the family threw it away. :roll:
I got nothing on the second attempt. The I sent off for the Oregon starter dough. Of course that worked well but in reality it was no better than that first yeast that I captured.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Thinking logically, there must be an ideal time of the year to try a wild one - this wouldn't be it.

 

[mseries]

Thinking logically, there must be an ideal time of the year to try a wild one - this wouldn't be it.

we did ours in August