I’ve decided to revive this bread journal (I can’t believe it’s been seven years). It hasn’t been seven years since I baked bread, of course, but I haven’t felt the need to document it.

I started a new starter a week ago, following the Tartine formula. After I mixed it up I started doing more research on sourdough starters and found this Managing Your Sourdough Starter resource. I would like to be able to keep this starter around for a while, unless I hate it.

So, I mixed the flour (half bread flour, half whole wheat) and water last Sunday. Two days later it seemed to be puffing a bit. I hadn’t stirred it at all and it was getting dry on top, so I stirred it up and it started to look more active. I’ve fed it every day since, but it doesn’t seem to be changing much. It’s definitely alive and it has the sour smell, but it’s not “rising and falling predictably” like the recipe talks about. Today when I fed it I kept the extra that I was supposed to discard to see if it will do anything more without being fed yet. Maybe it’s just slow like my last one.