Phase 2 begins...

After two days of seeming inactivity, I've decided my starter needs feeding. We're six days after birth, well short of the stated ten day minimum in my recipe, but after the five day period that some online recipes say. Also, the book I'm following (Moro) says that after ten days the bag containing the crushed grapes should be inflated - this happened after about three days for me. So here we go, moving on a little early.

As you can see, it's all gone a bit quiet and has separated out quite a bit. After so much activity at the start, I've got a bit nervous with all this quietness.

A quick look in the top shows that there's a healthy-looking yeast bloom on the surface of the liquid and the bag, and there are still a few bubbles coming up from the gunge in the bottom. I'm not sure what this means, but I've embarked on this feeding lark and I'm going to see it through. I suspect yeast needs a firm, decisive hand to coax it into full, breadmaking productivity.

Odour-wise, it's not actually as bad as I thought. It's hardly Chanel No.5, but it's clean-smelling, sour and definitely grapey, with a growing yeasty character. It doesn't smell rotten, and the slight cheesiness I got off it the other day has gone.

So I lifted out the bag, scraped off as much gunge as I could, and squeezed the residual juice out of it, which by now had taken a decent amount of colour from the grape skins. This went into the sink, to be dealt with later on.

A quick stir, and in went the requisite 100g of flour and 150ml water, more stirring and we're done. I realised with some horror that I'd forgotten to discard a third or so of the total mass first, as all the recipes tell you to do, but there's plenty of room in the container, so I think (hope) it'll be ok this once. I've made a mark on the side where the mixture comes up to, so I'll keep an eye on it and see if it's getting unruly.

Here it is after its first feed. It looks quite contented and settled I think. The lumps of flour in it are apparently ok - I've broken them down a bit but didn't want to work the mixture too much. We'll see; if it's still lumpy in a few days I might give it a bit of a go with a whisk or something.

So here we go - two feeds a day at regular intervals for two weeks. Who knows though, this might come together sooner if the process to date is anything to go by. This is the bit I've been worrying about a bit to be honest - it all seems like rather a lot of work, but I'm sure it'll pay off in the end.

I'll post a next instalment either in a week or so, or if anything astonishing happens, whichever comes first.