OK update

I haven't posted for a while because I was getting frustrated. I worked and worked until I have what I think is a viable recipe. If you are going to make this bread on a regular basis get a bread proofer.

Scald 4C of whole milk if you have a farm near and can get it use unpasteurized milk.
Put the milk in a large bowl add 1 heaping spoonful of flour and corn flour and a pinch of baking soda. Whisk well. Cover well with plastic wrap and place in the bread proofer for 12 to 24 hours. Make sure you understand your proofer and its temperature settings as the milks has to stay between 100 and 110 degrees during the 12 to 24 hour. Mine is 10 degrees hotter than the gauge reads.

My next step is a cheat to save time and to get a better bread consistency. So if you are a purest ignore this section and go to the next. At this point in my mixing bowl I take warm water no hotter than 110 degrees and I add sugar and yeast. Once it activates I go to the next section.

Take your starter it should be frothy and stinky when you pull back the plastic wrap. Give it a good whisk and add a pinch of banking soda. poor it into your mixing bowl either by itself or with the yeast starter mentioned in the previous section. Add 8 cups of bread flour a heaping small spoon of vital gluten of just gluten (same thing) and 2t of salt no heap mix until it is all incorporated together continue for about 5 minutes. Continue to add a 1/3C of flour at a time until at the slowest speed the dough clings to the bottom of the bowl but at medium speed it pulls away. lightly oil a large bowl and put the dough in the bowl. cover well with plastic wrap and place back in the proofer. if you use my cheat it will proof to about double in size in about an hour to an hour and a half. if not I have seen it take 5 hours to proof. once proofed knock it down portion it into lightly greased loaf pan I get 3 loaves plus a little left over make a great hamburger bun or the like. let it proof again until it doubles in size once again the time will be shorter if you use the cheat. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown usually 25 minutes give or take.

When I take them out I butter the top let it cool and take them out of the loaf pans. Once cooled to room temp slice and toast butter and and love life.....

Day Eleven: Good news finally

It has been a while because I was tired of typing out my failures on a daily basis. Nut I have some good information.

I had tried so many different variations between corn meal or potatoes, milk or water, adding sugar or salt or flour or baking soda. What kind of flour or corn flour etc etc etc.

So I contacted a couple places online that I had purchased SRB from before. I got some good info that is never added to a recipe. like ferment the starter for at least 8-12 hours but what I never could find was how long was too long. what what makes strong tasting bread or weak etc.

after all is said and done this is what I ended up with

Primary Starter:

In a large bowl place one thinly sliced potatoe. Cover it to the top of the slices with hot tap water not so hot you dont want to hold your hand under it. sprinkle the top with a mixture of 1 T organic or whole grain ground corn meal (so you have all of the endosperm of the kernel.), 1 t sugar, 1T flour, and 1/8 t baking soda and let sit covered in a warm place that stays consistently at 90 to 110 degrees for 12 hours.

Secondary Starter:

Dry ingredients;
1 1/2 cup bread flour, 1 T sugar
  
After the 12 hours you will have a foamy and smelly bowl of water so as to keep as much of the foam as possible push the foam to one side and remove the potatoes. Add the foamy water to the dry ingredients and mix until smooth and let set covered in a warm place that stays consistently at 90 to 110 degrees for 2-4 hours or until doubled in size.

Making the bread:

Since large bowl and cover with water aren't exacting measurement add 4 T of room temp butter and flour in a mixing bowl and combine until you have a good viable bread dough. in a standing mixer it is when the dough pulls away clean from the sides but still sticking at the bottom. Then divide the dough into your bread pans and let set covered in a warm place that stays consistently at 90 to 110 degrees for 2-4 hours or until doubled in size.

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when thumped on the top.let cool to room temp and enjoy.

Day Six: Yet another fail

 OK Today is the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing (Also my late fathers birthday) Day six and another failed starter it looked very promising but in the morning the foam was gone. it was very smelly, but no foam no leavening. At this point looking back at the blog I think it is the milk that is slowing me up and after looking at all of the recipes from grandmothers  they keep it simple in most cases no milk in the starter, 

 So I have sliced two potatoes thinly and put them and hot water to a bowl the temperature of the potatoes and water were 110 degrees when combines. I sprinkled 1t flour, 1 t cornmeal and 1/8 t baking soda on the top. The mixture is fermenting now. 

Day Five: No working starter but some progress.

OK so both failed but I got some positive results on the potato starter. Foamy and sticky but I should have let it go another 24 hours I am in the second 24 hours of my second attempt at a potato starter. going to have to buy more bread until I can get some baked.

OK great news I just checked my latest attempt.

1. Started with 1 medium to large potato sliced very thin covered with hot/warm tap water 1 t flour and 1 t corm meal 1 T sugar covered and fermented for 24 hours
2. Remove the sliced potatoes and add 1 c flour. cover and ferment until step three is complete
3. Scalded 1 C milk added 1 t four 1 t corn meal and let this mixture cool until between 90 and 110 degrees.
4.  add the milk mixture to the potato liquid and cover and ferment until foamy and stinky. The picture is after 3 hours. (also transferred to a bigger bowl at this point)
   
   
5. Thinking another 12 to 24 hours but could be less. we will know for sure on Day Six.

Day three: Something promising, but what would I know?

Today 24 hours later. Mixture has been setting for 24 hours it is separating just beginning to foam but smells more like corn than cheese or feet.

I started a second starter it is 1 large potato sliced thin, 1 t corn meal, 1 t whole wheat flour, 1/2 t salt, 1/2 t baking soda, and 1 t sugar. peal and slice thin the potato place the slices in a bowl and cover with warm tap water (not so hot that you cant have your hand under it while running) sprinkle the dry ingredients on the top of the water. Cover with a towel and place in the proofer. 24 to 48 hours until foamy and smelly. From this point Ill just call it "started" so  24 to 48 hours or until started.

Be back in 24 hours with update.

The starter from yesterday.FYI as I was taking the picture the smell was starting to come together
 

The starter from today

Day two!

 Well after discarding my first attempt I did some more research and found a more common recipe went to the store and got the appropriate ingredients and started.

3t of cornmeal (FYI pet peeve 3t = 1T) so 1T cornmeal
1t flour
1/8t baking soda
1/2c milk scalded.

This is a common set of  ingredients what is not common is how long to ferment. One said 2 hours, some said 8-12 hours, another one said 12-24 hours.

So Lesson one that I learned day one. Don't rush!

I will be back on day 3 or 4!

Day one! This is going to be great!

Last night I got a little too excited and tried to make my first starter it called for a cup of scaled milk and a half cup of sifted corn meal. Cover and ferment for 8 to 12 hours. You should end up with a foamy concoction that smells like rotten cheese or even dirty socks.   Well I did not have milk, only cream and buttermilk and all I had was polenta/git ground corn. So I used half butter milk and half cream and scalded the mixture. I added the corn meal and it thickened up completely. Knowing that this was too think I scalded another cup of the buttermilk/cream mixture and added it. It did loosen up but not as much as I had hoped. I covered it and let it ferment for 15 hours. All I got was 15 hour old grits. no foamy froth or smell. I trashed it.