The little yeasties in the sourdough are supposed to produce a type of alcohol. It is called "hooch" by sourdough enthusiasts. Sounds like you are on the right track!

After several days of storage in the fridge, the starter will look as if it is separating into a floury liquid on the bottom and a more clear gray or brownish liquid on top. The top layer is the hooch and I usually poor off some of it if there is more than an inch of the hooch in the jar. Always stir the hooch back into the floury part when feeding the starter and stir well to beat in some air into the starter as well.

Teresa

Sourdough starter is an imperfect art. It's full of rules, and contradictions to them. As Teresa wrote, refrigeration will cause separation of the liquid from the solids - hooch - but it's perfectly normal.

As far as the hooch goes (a separation of water with a small amount of alcohol - 12%-14%), you just mix it back in when you feed your starter, otherwise you will alter the hydration (ratio of flour to water) of your starter if you pour it off each time. Less hydration = more sour flavor.

Contradictions (options) to the hooch rule...

-You can pour it off and add back enough water to make up the difference to keep the hydration level.

-If you get a lot of hooch and you're not satisfied with your starter, you can remove a tablespoon of your starter and start a new batch, building it up to an amount you need for use.

This same method is used if your starter gets too sour. My World War I-era grandmother called this "sweetening the pot". They didn't call naturally-leavened breads "sourdough" and most of them didn't favor a sour flavored bread, so occasionally they would "sweeten the pot".

When you feed your starter, if it doesn't double in bulk, thats an indication there isn't enough "umph" to double the bulk of your dough when it rises.

You have a problem when the hooch turns pinkish or orange. Toss it if that happens and start a new one.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Sourdough Q&A

Thanks. The information is very contradictory. The test loaf of bread was pretty dense and very sour, but it needed more proofing time. I'm going to try again on the weekend.

Is this a wild yeast starter? One where you gathered the yeast from the environment? If so, isn't 8 days a bit soon to be baking from it? I grew a wild yeast starter by Nancy Silverton's directions years ago, and it takes about 15-16 days before it's ready to use. Goes through a lot of changes along the way! Some pleasant, some not so. You might want to check her directions (in Breads from the La Brea Bakery)--she goes into wonderful detail about what the starter should be doing/looking like at each step of the process. I would have probably tossed the mess in the middle, if I hadn't had such an excellant 'road map' leading me to the destination.

That's a great starter, btw. I still use it (and I have dried back up, just in case. I really don't plan to make another batch until I start getting grapes on my vines at the 'new' house--will be fun to compare and see the differences in the yeast in the different locations)

Be patient, and good luck.

Sounds right to me. I grew my starter from Amy's Bread recipe and it didn't take 15 to 16 days to get a "wild yeast" mother active enough to bake bread.

Ann

azzalea -

What's the difference between "wild yeast" and "gathered the yeast from the environment"? In my books, both are so-called "wild yeast".

"Wild yeast" are actually naturally-occuring yeast that cover everything in our environment. In starters that use grapes, the silver/gray haze on the skins of grapes is a yeast source, and the grape juice is a source of carbohydrates with which to feed the yeast. Some starter recipes call for cabbage leaves. The silver/gray haze on the inside of the cabbage leaves is a source of yeast. There are even starters that call for certain tree leaves, such as a recipe I have for peach leaf starter, once again, it's covered with yeast.

The first basic source of yeast in a starter is the flour, especially when we use wholegrain flour. The outside of grain is covered with yeast. The old "catch yeast from the air" is more-or-less an old wives tale because the yeast that builds into a colony in starter is basically from the flour source, not from air (although there ARE yeast in the air), and whole grains assure a good quanity of them to start with, above using bleached or unbleached flour, which has had the outside bran removed. Hops are another yeast source for making starter.

We renew our yeast each time we add flour to the starter. The old yeast die off, and the new flour adds a new source.

Even modern starters that are made with bakers' yeast eventually become "wild yeast" starters because the bakers' yeast quickly die and the "wild yeast" in the flour take over.

-Grainlady