I began activating the Camaldoli culture yesterday. I built the proofing box as described in the literature, etc. Added the 3/4 cup flour and 1 cup water plus the culture to a wide mouth quart jar and put it in the proofing box at 87-88 for the night.
22 hours later, it was almost touching the top of the jar. Looked good, but the hooch was on the bottom. This is said to be a bad thing, but since it's basically a porous sponge, how does the hooch end up anywhere except on the bottom? It smells good to me, although the kids don't like the smell.
I stirred it up and added 1 cup of flour and 3/4 cup water. This was enough stuff, so I split it into a second jar. Put both jars in the proofer. 3 hours later, one jar is touching the lid, and the other is actually oozing out the side, again hooch was on the bottom on both. It seems like this would indicate that things are 'fully active', but does this seem a little too fast? Pretty much ready to go in 24 hours?
I stirred both up, added another half cup of flour and little over third cup water to both. Put one into the fridge and decided to make some dough out of the other.
Dough is in progress. I made one batch without starter and an identical batch except using the starter. Waiting until Friday to try them will be tough...
What do you think? Is this too fast to be good, or did I just get lucky and things went well? Do I dare eat the dough?
