How to start a Sourdough Pot

Take a gallon crock or cookie jar and put in:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon regular dry yeast

2 cups lukewarm water

Stir until mixture is a smooth, thin paste.  Put on lid and set in a warm place to sour.  Stir several times a day.  In two or three days, sourdough will be ready (4 tablespoons sugar and 1 ½ teaspoon salt can replace yeast, but will take five days to sour).

The night before, you want to make hotcakes – add 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, and about 2 cups water – enough to make thick paste.  As it works overnight, it will thin down.  In the morning, pour all except a cup into a bowl.  Set the pot away until you want to use it again.

To the hotcake dough, add 2 level tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons melted shortening or bacon grease, one egg can be added if desired.  Mix well and add 1 teaspoon soda dissolved in a tablespoon of water.  If the dough seems a little too thick, use a little more water.  Fold in soda gently and don’t stir until soda has been added.  If the hotcakes are tough, use less sugar next time.  Your hotcakes are ready to be baked on greased griddle.

After I make pancakes, I put my starter in the refrigerator.  When I'm ready to use it again, I bring it out and let it sit overnight.  I take out the amount needed for a recipe – then I feed it – around a cup of flour and water – and only flour and water – let it sit out for an hour or so – then refrigerate it again.  You can use this starter in any sourdough recipe.

My starter recipe was given to me many years ago – handwritten and faded in an "old fashioned hand."  Over the years, I've used this recipe – I'm sure there are others out there.  Do some research and see what you come up with!  Some recipes use honey to start the process – and some use different flour. 

Sourdough starters could be a topic in themselves.

If I question the age of it – or if I think it doesn't look or smell right – I toss it.  After all – it didn't cost that much to begin with – and it's easy to recreate.  In my opinion, no food is worth eating if there is even a slight hesitation or question about it being "good" – nothing is worth ending up over or on the toilet or in the hospital!

If I'm using it – say I'm on a sourdough kick – I use it.  I feed it only when I take from it.  I keep a cup of starter and feed that.

This site has some good tips:  http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Sourdough_Starter  I encourage you to do your own research if you decide to take this on – and feel it out for yourself.