We're Making Sourdough! Day 8/ Rye Day 4: Giving Up

Sorry this was delayed. At the end of the post, or half way through or so, you'll see why. I kind of quit the homemade starter thing for now, mostly because it uses up a lot of flour and doesn't give me any results, and I don't really want yet another thing in my life that's taking lots of effort but producing no results. So, without further ado, day 8/ rye day 4.

Day 8 (11:30): Some bubbles on top, but no change in volume. Yeasty smell in the oven, but not in the jar. No hooch visible. Removed 225 g starter, leaving 225 g in the jar, and added 100 g tap water and 50 g whole wheat flour.

It's doing something other than making hooch = success.

Bubbly!

Ah, new lines.

Regrettably, I didn't take a picture of what it looked like in the afternoon. There was a thick layer of bubbles on top of a thick layer of liquid-looking stuff, which was on top of a much thicker layer of flour gloop. The overall volume did not change. So, I stirred it and put it back in the oven.
Oops.
It promptly went flat and had developed a thin layer of hooch on top by four hours later. It smelled terrible. 

So, at 23:30 or so, I chucked it down the sink and rinsed out the applesauce jar.

Return of the Hooch

Lots of hooch.

 Maybe one of these days I'll get some starter from the bakery down the street, but for now I'm going to focus on other things.Like waffles.

We're Making Sourdough! Day 5/ Rye Day 1, Or "Starting Over :("

So, there were bubbles this morning. I think that was the rye flour. Then there was a whole bunch of hooch. I take this to mean that Scott is a failure at being alive, so I dumped him down the drain.
Sadface.

Bubbles!

And hooch. The level of the starter itself actually went down.

The new starter's name is Thor. I picked this name with the same logic as I picked my computer's name: if the name belongs to someone awesome, the thing will be as awesome as that person. My computer's name is Bruce Wayne.
So I chucked my old starter and started up my new one, this time following Mihl's instructions.

Clean jar, all ready for fresh starter.

 Day 5 (11:30): Combined 100 g tap water and 50 g rye flour. Placed lid on loosely, drew a line to indicate volume, and placed in lit oven for warmth.

The brown color is so promising.

I think I finally figured out how to take decent pictures of things in this jar.

Day 5 (1:30): No bubbles. No change in volume. There's a yeasty smell underneath a fruity smell. I stirred, scraped the sides, and put back in the oven. Thor's gaining that gloopy texture that Scott had on day 2 in the morning. Hopefully this means that Thor is doing normal starter things.

No volume change.

No bubbles. Still, the yeasty smell was encouraging.

Hopefully, there will be bubbles in the morning. I'll try starting over with whole wheat if there's still nothing two days from now.