Going to tackle my own starter today. Anyone ever do it?

[ringkingpin]

I'd imagine that some of you have done this before but didn't see any threads when I searched.
In a previous life, I was in the food industry and did both pastry and savory stuff.  When working overseas in France, i did a lot of bread cooking and had a teacher / mentor who was an M.O.F.  He was great and showed me how to make "pain sure leavain" which is basically country style natural starter bread. The were a couple things which impressed me about the breads that i made with levain, first thing being the excellent taste. The other thing which really impressed me was how long the breads would last without going stale. For example a normal baguette might last a day or two but the levain baguette would stick around for a week! 
Somy plan is to make a starter which i can use for both pizza dough and for bread making, something i haven't done for quite a while.
The first step is to make the "chef." i don't even know what the word is in English maybe it's the same. The chef is a mixture of dry raisins, sugar and water which you put in a hermetically sealed container left in a stable room at a temp of 70 to 75 degrees. After four to seven days carbonate gases will form and at that time the raisins are pulled and the chef will be mixed with flour to make the starter.
It's going to be a large batch so that it is more stable. Point being ill have some starter to give away if any locals want some. I've done it with other fruit namely apple but raisins is what i usually used. I'll take some pics and try to keep this thread alive as long as my starter is alive lol. Wish me luck!

[ringkingpin]

Lol now i know why I didn't find anything when searching, i was looking in the wrong section. Doh!

Feel kinda silly now. Thanks for moving this thread to the right section.

[Jackie Tran]

Here you go.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10702.0.html

Good luck with your starter and don't forget to post up some pics of the bread and pizzas.

Chau

[StrayBullet]

I can't wait to see the progression!  I just began my starter journey so it'll be cool to see another one documented as the steps are taken

Mark

[PizzaPolice]

The chef is a mixture of dry raisins, sugar and water which you put in a hermetically sealed container left in a stable room at a temp of 70 to 75 degrees. After four to seven days carbonate gases will form and at that time the raisins are pulled and the chef will be mixed with flour to make the starter.

...Or you could just drive 6 miles and I'll give you some Camaldoli and Ischia. 

[buceriasdon]

I also am starting over with a new starter. I believe the source of problems in the past has been using bad water to feed the starter. I have some raisins soaking right now, and I have begun another using orange juice. We shall see.
Don

Somy plan is to make a starter which i can use for both pizza dough and for bread making, something i haven't done for quite a while.
The first step is to make the "chef." i don't even know what the word is in English maybe it's the same. The chef is a mixture of dry raisins, sugar and water which you put in a hermetically sealed container left in a stable room at a temp of 70 to 75 degrees. After four to seven days carbonate gases will form andthat time the raisins are pulled and the chef will be mixed with flour to make the starter.
It's going to be a large batch so that it is more stable. Point being ill have some starter to give away if any locals want some. I've done it with other fruit namely apple but raisins is what i usually used. I'll take some pics and try to keep this thread alive as long as my starter is alive lol. Wish me luck!

[c0mpl3x]

i made starter a week ago that started off with 50/50 water/heineken dark, and 75/25 AP/WW flour.

i've been keeping it somewhat cold (trying to keep it around 50) while feeding it 1-2T of ap/tap water every day. i made bread with it a few days ago when it smelled wonderful and it came out fantastic.   i made sourdough pancakes this morning and it was even better

there is loads of gluten in the starter, when i stir it there is almost strands (short, like egg noodle) of pasta in it from the heineken/WW.  i've made a dozen starters before but never with keine and WW flour.

[ringkingpin]

Cool feedback. Pizza police Im all about getting so,e of your starter but I don't want to come empty handed!  I started things out with organic sugar, some del Monte raisins and distilled h20. Stay tuned. :p

[buceriasdon]

I have a fair amount of activity in the OJ and flour starter on day three, where I add equal amounts of OJ and flour today. However the packaged in Mexico raisin water on day three has no activity so I'm throwing it out and will pickup some Sunmaid raisins at WalMart, and start over.
Don

[ringkingpin]

Interesting because the way I've always done it is wait for carbonate gases to form in the liquid which takes four to seven days, then add some flour and h20. 

[buceriasdon]

I am using fresh OJ not pineapple juice. Method outlined here.
http://www.breadtopia.com/make-your-own-sourdough-starter/

The true test will be when I stop using juice and switch to water which in the past efforts didn't produce a starter that stayed alive. Hopefully bottled water from somewhere else will be the answer to keeping it alive.
Don