Bake Sourdough Bread

First time making sourdough starter, am i on the right path?

Hello, I've decided to start baking bread at home and the first thing I made was a starter. I found a recipe online and i mixed the amounts of water and flour, formed a ball and put it in warm corner. After two days I removed the crust and fed the starter double of the original amount when it was first made. It grew pretty quickly! Today is day 4 that is has been going and im supposed to add a cup of flour and leave it in its warm corner again. When I looked at it, its super bubbly and smells terrible! I'm hoping it's just the sourdough coming through and not that it went rancid. After I add one cup of flour im the recipe says to leave out for one more day then it will be ready to use for bread! I've worked with many starters before but never made one from scratch. Is this the right process? Is the starter supposed to smell that bad and have that many bubbles? Thank you for any help!

The bubbles are a very desirable sign, indicating that the yeast is alive and fermenting.

Fermenting creates two by products: 1) carbon dioxide gas which leavens your bread, and 2) crude alcohol (which evaporates during baking).

You didn't mention otherwise, so hopefully the starter recipe you picked instructed using ONLY flour and water -- no commercial Baker's yeast or other leaveners, no milk or yogurt, and no fruit or potato.

Now the big question is as you hold back/reserve a portion of your starter each time you bake with it, will the reserved portion stay alive/viable in between bakings.
Time will tell. Good luck.

Namaste',
dwb

p.s. And yes, as other poster mentioned, hopefully you find the starter aroma pleasantly sour/tangy, not repulsively rancid.

Sourdough Bread (Part 1)


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