Re: Bubble

The sourdough protostarter is not really bubbling, yet, and mostly smells of flour. I suspect the environment is more about bleach than yeast, a win from the War on Bacteria. There aren't any wheat fields visible, though there may be some off in somewhat walking distance range? I'm already doing the "leave the water in a jar for a day so it smells less like a swimming pool" thing.

A little generic store-brand whole wheat flour turned the protostarter black and icky in spots. The usual bread flour with now about 20% fresh ground red winter wheat is at least not producing obvious ick. Probably this thing needs more time, or a better source of good yeasts and bacterium.

Kneading a 60% hydration dough was good and easy. Moving that dough to 72% hydration did not go so well; it was like beating a rubber mat in mud. Also 72% hydration might be too much for the flours involved. The high hydration is because the loaf gets cooked in a big dutch oven for the self-steaming, lacking a fancy steaming oven. Probably I need to try the "boiling pans of water below, upturned cookie sheet above" method, which at least would avoid having to wrangle a very hot dutch oven.

Not sure why bread is still stuck on bubble sort, presumably someone would have invented a better method by now? Okay, that joke was a bit of a stretch. You did not need to hear any of this!

Omake Theater

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/04/trendy-raw-water-source-under-birds-nest-sparks-diarrheal-outbreak/

I'm thinking there's probably a Goldilocks zone somewhere between "eau de avian" and "smells like chlorine spirit".