It's winter.....my kitchen is in a "wing"...big windows and 3 outside walls, Poor dough is probably chilly! I'll find a warmer spot... Back when I had a family and baked bread several times a week, I always kept a biga in water in the refrig and that made my bread have a good "old dough" flavor. this starter is not so much for the flavor of the bread....because old dough makes a great tasting bread....but because my son gave it to me.....and he has killed his already!! I just want a starter strong enough to rise a loaf all by itself!!

Conditioners/enhancers/rye sours/flavors. I stay away from the list of trendy things you'll find in King Arthur's Baker's Catalogue or Lora Brody items. Many of these products came to the fore when people started using the QUICK CYCLE in bread machines. You just can't get the same type of bread in one hour that an all day method takes. You miss the complex flavors that only time can achieve. Adding flavorings is neither right or wrong, just a choice. But if you use different methods, your bread will develop many of the "flavors" naturally. Since I rarely make French- or Italian-style breads (flour, yeast, water, salt) most of my breads are "enhanced" and I commonly use these enhancers. Ascorbic Acid- (also found in yeast) I use 1/8-t. ascorbic acid per loaf anytime I use 100% whole wheat flour or wheat germ. There's a substance in wheat germ called Glutathione and this substance breaks down the gluten. Ascorbic acid in your dough will help to counteract the negative effects of Glutathione and will help the gluten bonds from breaking down. Ascorbic acid helps sustain the leavening of loaves during baking and promotes yeast growth so the yeast will work longer and faster. Ascorbic acid promotes an acidic dough in which yeast grows best. I don't use ascorbic acid in sourdough breads using whole wheat flour because it's already acidic enough. Vital Wheat Gluten- I add vital wheat gluten when a recipe uses a large amount of low-gluten flour. Dry Milk Powder, milk or other dairy product. I use homemade kefir in my breads. The fermented product contributes some acid that helps bread stay fresher longer and deters mold as well as a great amount of flavor. Fats added to dough are enhancers. They add taste and contribute to the texture and moisture of the bread. Eggs - also an enhancer. They add to the rise, color, texture and taste. The naturally-occuring lecithin in eggs also contributes. Chia seed goop - This helps maintain moisture in the crumb rather than moisture wicking to the crust, increases fiber and other nutrients. The chemical bleaches in bleached flour is also considered a dough improver. When flour was bromated, the bromites aided in giving the gluten more extensibility. I never use bleached flour and bromated flour is no longer available. Non-Diastatic Malt - When I use it I make my own. It's supposed to give the bread better structure and make it softer and more tender. The live enzymes help yeast to grow. It contributes to the flavor as well. I don't know that it made all that much difference to use it or not. Spices such as ginger, ground caraway, cardamom, cinnamom, mace, nutmeg, and thyme all improve yeast activity. Many bakers add a pinch of ginger to dough for this reason. I never use dough relaxer. The gluten strands in dough will "relax" if you allow it to - it's called resting it 10-20 minutes before you form it. If you have a problem with pizza dough being difficult to form or roll out even after a rest, try using a small amount of a lower-gluten flour in the mix. Rye Sour is another mixture of ingredients that quickly adds a taste and acidity that normally develops in dough if allowed enough time. One of the ingredients in it is rye flour - DUH! The taste most people associate with rye bread is actually nothing more than the caraway seeds. Try adding crushed caraway seeds to white bread and you'll assume it's rye bread. The deep dark coloring associated with dark rye is because of the additions of molasses, cocoa, or coffee to the recipe. Rye flour has very little flavor on its own until it's allowed some fermentation time. Rye flour ferments very quickly, which is why it's a good flour to use when you begin a starter. I often use freshly-milled rye flour in quick breads and cookies. Those are some that come to mind... -Grainlady

If you use a "modern" version of a starter that uses baker's yeast in the recipe, it will eventually die out due to the acidic environment, and if there has been sufficient inoculation of natural yeast from the flour, the baker's yeast will eventually be replaced with natural (aka wild) yeast. This method isn't right or wrong, just one of the endless choices for starter recipes. When it comes to developing a starter with a strong colony of yeast, choose wholegrain flour for the first 2-3 feedings and then you can use whatever type of flour you wish. The outside of all whole grains are covered with yeast so that is your best source for yeast, more so than the air. If you want to mill small quantities of wholegrain flour yourself you can use a coffee/spice mill. Rye flour ferments faster than wheat or spelt (and rye starter also smells pretty bad but works like a charm). Spelt flour has more carbohydrates and is a good choice. All flour, including bleached/unbleached flour, will work. You can even make gluten-free starter with rice flour. There are recipes that use grapes in the mixture in the mixture as an additional source for yeast, and the gray sheen on grapes is naturally occuring yeast and the grape juice adds more sugars for the yeast to feed on (although there are more than enough "sugars" (carbohydrates) in flour for the yeast to feed on. Other sources for yeast in starter recipes can be found on cabbage leaves (the gray dusty sheen on the leaves is yeast; and I have recipes that use peach leaves in the starter as a source of yeast). Starter is a study of contradictions. All you need to do is do a search on the "care and feeding of sourdough starters" to quickly see the contradictions. My best suggestion is to try a number of methods until you find one that works best for you. When one starter dies, there are plenty more recipes to choose from. I use a starter called "Everlasting Yeast" that was popular just over 100 years ago and is just a little different from traditional starter. Helpful hints: -If your starter doesn't double in bulk when fed, it probably won't double your bread dough. -Until you know how your starter acts/reacts when resting in the refrigerator, you may want to place it on a deep-dish pie tin/dish. It's not completely unheard of for a starter to occasionally escape the confines of the jar/container while in the refrigerator. It's a lot easier to clean the pie dish than the entire refrigerator. I cover my pint jar with a small Quick Cover (looks like a tiny shower cap) with some holes poked in the cover for the fermenting gasses to escape. -If you don't have all day to make sourdough bread and you need to speed things up a bit, add 1/8 t. of SAF-Instant Yeast to your dough. -When I don't want to make bread and hate to waste 1-cup of starter to feed it, I make 8-crumpets per King Arthur Flour Recipe entitled "Sourdough Crumpets or How to Resurrect a Neglected Starter". For each 1 cup of sourdough starter, sprinkle over the surface: 1 t. sugar 1/2 t. salt 1/2 t. baking soda [Grainlady note: I use a 4-cup measuring cup because this mixture foams-up quite a bit and it's easier to pour the batter from the measuring cup.] Whisk these ingredients in thoroughly. Preheat your griddle and grease your crumpet rings. Place rings on the pre-heated griddle and add 1/4-inch of batter to the ring. Cook over low/medium heat until the tops are set and full of holes (the batter also looses its glossy sheen). Remove the rings (twist back and forth with a pair of tongs to loosen the crumpet and then lift the ring) and flip the crumpets over for a minute or two. [Grainlady note: if you only have 4 crumpet rings like I do, I flip the rings so the side that didn't have the baked crumpets on is now on the bottom. Now you don't have to clean and grease your rings for the second batch.] To serve crumpets you pop them in the toaster to brown and crisp. Top with butter and your favorite jam/marmalade/jelly.... I like to add flavorings to the crumpet batter, such as orange/coconut or King Arthur's Fiori di Sicilia. I sometimes add some herbs and finely chopped ham or sausage crumbles for something a little heartier for a brunch crumpet and toast them flat in the toaster oven. Crumpets freeze well. Cool separately on a cooling rack, then quick freeze while laying flat. Separate the frozen crumpets with a square of parchment paper, stack and place in a freezer bag. Don't stack crumpets like you would pancakes off the griddle because they tend to stick together. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Sourdough Primer - King Arthur Flour

I use a type of starter called "Everlasting Yeast" that became popular over 100-years ago. In the evening I add flour/water/agave nectar to the mixture and set it in the oven with the light on to keep it warm while it works it's magic overnight, and make bread the next morning. At some point in the evening before I go to bed, it's not uncommon for me to open the oven and take a deep whiff of the starter. You're right a candle with that smell would be lovely. ;-) -Grainlady