A couple of years ago I got some Carl's Oregon Trail dried starter and began my first attempts at real bread-making. So far the sourdough experiment has been a dismal failure and I've got just enough unactivated starter to give it one more shot so I'm looking for advice on how to activate it. In both of my earlier attempts, the bread always had a very unappetizing mildewy aroma and tasted chalky. When your fresh-baked bread smells bad, you know something's very, very wrong. The last starter, I varied the feeding a number of different ways, feeding it often and feeding it infrequently, feeding it rye and feeding it white, leaving it in the fridge and leaving it the warm, and every permutation of each, but it always came out the same. Bad. So I let it the starter die.
In the meanwhile, I took up pizza-making. And I've taught myself to make a pretty decent pizza crust, if I do say so myself. Best of all, the results are consistent. I had six makings in a row turn out acceptable before I worked up the nerve to show it off to friends, and now I can turn them out in my sleep. And that's got me feeling frisky, like I want to tackle the sourdough again. The first starter attempt I followed the reactivation instructions at Carl's Friends to the letter. The second time I tried using unsweetened pineapple juice. I'm open to the possibility that the sample of dried starter I got was bad, as unlikely as that seems, and I need to just get a completely different starter, but I figure I might as well use the final third of dried Carl's to see if maybe what I've learned in my pizza-making exploits is of any help. But before I try kick-starting that final third, I would like to solicit advice on just how I should go about it, preferably something I haven't tried before. And as always, your hoots and jeers are welcome. ;)Category:
Replies
Hello Barnicle Bill,
From the sounds of what you have gone through it's about time Carl got sent up the Oregon Trail to join his maker.
Just have a read of SourDom's beginners blog on this site (links at the top and right) and start yourself off from scratch. You will end up with a sourdough that is every bit as good as Carl's might have been and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you did it yourself.
And I can vouch for the fact that just such a sourdough makes damn fine bread and damn fine pizza and damn fine crumpets and damn fine croissants and damn fine pannetone etc etc.
Just do it!
Farinam
Try taking a look at these two videos. One will show you how to revive a dried starter and the other will show how to make your own as farinam suggested.
http://www.breadtopia.com/starter_instructions/
http://www.breadtopia.com/make-your-own-sourdough-starter/
Good luck!
Hi Barnicle Bill,
I've been making sourdough bread with my home made starter for a few years now with great results after a lot of experimentation to start with. Recently after reading about Carl's Oregon Trail Dried Starter I ordered some and it was delivered a few weeks ago. I revived it using their updated instructions as per the attached link but used only 1/2 tsp just in case it didn't work. As it turned out by following the instructions to the letter I had a working starter in 24 hours so I will give my remaining 1/2 tsp to a friend. Give it another go and Good Luck !
Cheers
http://carlsfriends.net/revive.txt