I started growing my own sourdough culture about a week ago. Just using some flour and pineapple juice for about 3 days was enough to make the wild yeast in the flour and the lactobacillus that is everywhere form a healthy symbiotic relationship. I learned this trick online, the pineapple juice keeps the pH low (2-3ish) during the first couple of days for the yeast until the lacto culture increases enough in size to produce enough lactic acid to do the job.

Finally on about day 5 or 6 the starter really started to take off and would reliably double in volume after every feeding. I started feeding it twice a day on day 5 and now that the starter is about a week old it seems the yeast cell count is up and ready to start doing some baking.

We started with a loaf of bread that turned out pretty good.

This morning it was sourdough english muffins.

I named the sourdough starter Gary. This is Gary about an hour after feeding:

Made the “sponge” (most of the dough) the night before. It doubled in volume overnight

Then this morning, finished the dough, rolled it out, and cut out the circles with the rim of a glass.

After an hour to proof, on to the griddle they go. About 6-7 minutes per side.

then on to the cooling rack

then turned out pretty good. Best part is that Ava really likes them.