We're Making Sourdough! Day 7/Rye Day 3

Day 7 (10:45): No bubbles, no volume change. Strong smell of alcohol, possible thin layer of hooch. Added 100 g tap water and 50 g rye flour, stirring between each addition and scraping the sides down.

I think the volume went down.

The shiny stuff looks suspiciously hoochy.

Drawing lines... I suspect that nothing will happen yet again.

I give Thor until tomorrow morning. If there's still nothing, I'm going to the french bakery down the street and asking if they have sourdough starter I could have.

Day 7 (23:30): A thin layer of bubbles appeared on top and the jar has a yeasty smell (although that turns back to fruity if you stick your nose in it). The volume had risen slightly. Stirred starter mix vigorously but did not add any flour or water. No hooch on top of the starter.

Volume is up!

Bubbles and no hooch!

The bubbles deflated slightly, but the volume is still higher than it was.

 I now give Thor an extra 24 hours of grace. If he can produce a substantial volume change and bubbling action by tomorrow night (including me removing half the starter and adding more flour and water in the morning), I might forgo the bakery down the street alternative.
I'm in the middle (unfortunately, I don't really see an end in sight) of a long and annoying job search (not having a car is a major downer on employability, it seems, as is dropping to zero availability in three months), and it's been raining so I can't go out (I seem to be allergic to rain), and the rain has kept the sun away, which usually puts me in a vitamin deficiency-induced slump, and this has been a bit of a pick me up. Thank you, Thor. Now, just please keep it up.

We're Making Sourdough! Day 6/ Rye Day 2

Day 6 (11:30): Starter is warm and smells yeasty and fruity. No volume change or bubbles. Added 100 g water and 50 g rye flour.

No volume change...

And no bubbles.

Thor looks much larger now, but he really isn't.

Day 6 (23:15): No change in volume. Some bubbles, possible real bubbles. The starter smells fruity and a little yeasty. No addition of flour or water; just stirring.

No volume change, again.

Bubbles!

I maintain my position from yesterday. Thor has 24 hours to get his act together and double his volume, or we're giving up and just using yeast for forever. I'm afraid that we're dangerously close to getting a thick layer of hooch here.

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.

We're Making Sourdough! Day 4, Or "Why You Should Always Keep Whole Grain Flours Around"

Day 4 (10:45): A decent amount of hooch was on the starter, but the starter had bubbled through the hooch and could be seen looking down through the mouth of the jar. The smell was basically the same, kind of fruity and off. I decided to remove about 100 g (it ended up being about 125) and took much of the hooch with the discarded starter. Then I added 50 g each of water and flour, with the flour being probably about 7% whole grain stuff in probably bleached white flour. I stirred in between the water and flour additions, and scraped the sides down with the trusty spatula to prevent mold.

I took this last night a few hours after putting it back in the warm oven. Bubbles! They exist!

The first thing I really thought about this morning.

Hooch... The bane of my sourdoughs.

See how in the middle, it's lighter? That's the starter shining through the clouds of hooch.

I put a line on the jar to show where the starter started, and to see if it got above the line.

That whole wheat stuff is good for starters, it seems. It's the only change I make, and it makes a drastic difference.
Also, my camera eats batteries. I thought it was just the ones I got in England being terrible, because it lasted months on batteries before that, but oh, no. It went through duracells from 'MERICA in less than a day.
My camera is all "OMNOMNOM BATTERIES" and the batteries are all "HELP ME! HELP ME! EEEEEE!" and I'm all "GODDAMMIT I WAS TAKING A PICTURE OF A WAFFLE THIS IS IMPORTANT!"
Oh, yes. Waffles. I will tell you about them, I promise.

So, I watched the starter like a hawk, except for when I was grocery shopping. While grocery shopping, I bought rye flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, other real food that I can eat for a few weeks, and the ingredients to make pad thai (according to Emily from Well Fed, Flat Broke's recipe). I also got batteries, as you can see from there being pictures below, although my camera actually accepted the old batteries again. In any case, I have two new kinds of batteries, some "heavy duty" ones and some "high energy" ones. Even if my camera does start the battery-per-day thing, I'll be good for almost five days.
Back to the starter, whose name is Scott. There were no changes in volume all day, which saddened me.

Day 4 (22:10): No change in volume. No bubbles of starter visible through thin layer of hooch. The smell has returned to sickly sweet and unpleasant. I added 25 g tap water and 50 g rye flour, stirring between additions and scraping the sides well. The resulting starter mass has brown flecks and bubbles.

This was sad, especially after the grand success of the morning. By which I mean the small victory.

There were some bubbles, but all on the hooch and none from Scott.

After the addition of about 75 g worth of water and rye flour, I drew a new line.

Scott is so bubbly right after I add flour... I have high hopes for the rye flour.

If this has produced lots of hooch and next to no bubbles, I'm starting over with rye flour. I'll follow Mihl's instructions over Mike's, too.
If that doesn't work, I'll shelve the idea until I wind up at home and then persuade my mom to help me out.