On The Third Day, For the Third Time

Bubbles!  Hopefully I don't mess it up again!  I'm going to let it sit out for the day and not touch it in any way in the hopes that my murderous touch doesnt get it.  C'mon Goop, you can do it!

I'm actually thinking that maybe tonight I will get a second mason jar of Goop going.  I'm less likely to kill two.  Well, thats the theory.

One Week

Well it's been a week since me and Goop began our zany adventures in doing very little.  I'm writing this up on my lunch break and Goop is still sleeping.  I can't really blame it, its 2:30 in the morning.  Anyone sensible is still sleeping.  Still, I was hoping for a little more action after a week.  You know, at least second base.  I'm just saying. You know how many dinners I've sprung for now and still no action.  7.  One week.  And nothing.  Worst date ever but I won't dump it yet.

I Killed My Goop

So should you ever find yourself writing a blog about a sourdough starter that you have affectionately named Goop and should you have JUST finished posting about how it's coming alive again, here's what not to do. Don't leave the sourdough starter in your oven while its pre-heating to make sourdough mead bread. It's probably a bad idea. Take it from me, I'm an idiot, we know these things.

I didn't actually bake it. I just got it really really hot. Is that the same. It's not like it turned tasty and delicious. It just turned into a nice steamy goop soup. I believe the French may call such a concoction a rue. I could be wrong, I'm not French. I'm barely good enough to ask where the library is. I do know how to ask how to get to the computer room and if I can have some coffee. That's all that's really important. Oh well.

Just incase you didn't read how to make your own goop here's a quick run down. Take jar, add equal parts flour and water, stir.  In my case I had the extra step of cleaning out the burned smelly mess from the jar before adding flour and water.  You can probably skip that step.

So we are back to day 1 of making goop. Such is life.  One day you are nurturing a new civilization of little yeast babies, the next day you are brutally killing millions by boiling them in their own fluids.  I told you this could get lethal. On the up side, if my goop starts up again on day 3 I get to make a lot of people angry.

J'ai besoin d'un café.

Goop - Day 4

OK, so the first person who did this was insane.  "Oh I'll just stir that in, we'll cook it up in the morning."

Anyway, looks like I'm starting to get something growing in my goop again.  Hopefully its the something I want.  Guess only time will tell.

In other news, I took half my goop and added some mead, yeast, and flour and decided to try that mead bread idea I had yesterday.  Sure its cheating and the Internet tells me that now I have a sponge not a goop, but oh well.  I still kept the bit in the mason jar free from the evils of proper yeast.  My sponge and my goop are sitting in a warm oven turning all kinds of pretty smells and colors while Im sitting here freezing.  We'll see how making bread with it turns out in a few hours.  I'll probably write up a recipe or something later today.  Assuming I live through trying it.

Back To Work Goop!

Well after its day out in the yard my goop still isn't bubbling up for me so I'm sending it back to the office.  After a nice meal of brown flour and water it gets to hang out beside the coffee machine while I work.  Hopefully it doesn't start too many dreadful rumors about me.

Sorry about the short posts but lets face it, for the next few days all I've got to work with is goop in a mason jar.  If my goop would just get back to work maybe I can start glooping the goop into some bread dough soon.

Starter In The Sun

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking he just needs some gasoline and a couple of planks of wood and hes ready for the party.  But, you're wrong.  He's my new garden goop complete with pointy hat and kung-foo grip.  Kung-foo grip sold separately.

In other news there's no bubbles this morning at all. I'm thinking my little goop babies didn't like that I changed up their soup.  I really don't want to go back to the stinky flours though so I'm going to put my starter out in the sun for the day and hope the warmth gets my goo back to pigging out on itself.

On second thought, maybe I'll put my goop into the barbecue.  My neighbours already keep the authorities on speed dial, no need to provoke them today.  I've got all summer for that.

Changing Up My Goop

After waking up and stirring my goop I decided that it smelled too much like a barn for me to continue with it in its current form.  Time to change up my goop. 

My goop is now:
• A cup of water
• A cup of white flour
• Half a cup of old goop

Hopefully I saved enough to keep the bubbles but got rid of enough of the rye, barley, and oat flours so that it doesnt smell so bad.

Its Alive!

I got back from the airport and decided to check my starter, err, goop.  Im already starting to get bubbles!  Now it smells like barn AND bad beer!  Since it was such a good little starter I fed it some more and gave it a nice stir.  I also took it for a nice walk back to its spot beside my coffee pot.  Hopefully it doesnt learn to play dead while I get some sleep.

My Second Day With Goop

So its after work on Monday and I've got to drive the mother in law to the airport. But while she is waking up I'm going to play with my goop.

Goop maintenance is probably essential so always be sure to take care of your goop. I gave my goop a nice stir and dumped some of it out.  I fed my goop some more flour (I got lazy and just used whole wheat today) and some more water (damn out of old tea water, I guess tap is going to have to work). I stirred my goop up and put it back in my office beside the coffee machine (MM nice warm comfy office).

I'll play with my goop some more after a good days sleep.

Making the Goop

Somewhere half way through a Magic Bullet infomercial when I stopped being amazed at how damn well the things will juice vegetables I don’t own it struck me that maybe I could be doing something more productive with my time. Thus the Bread From Goop idea was born.

I’ve been reading online that people make these magic jars of goop called sourdough starters and thus save themselves the $2.50 that jars of yeast would otherwise cost them. I figured this I must have. Now due to the fact that I was reading about this a few weeks ago when my "Hey I should make bread" urges first struck I didn’t really remember too much about this magic goop but I figured how hard can goop be.

So here we go:

(My method for making sourdough starter may kill you....read somewhere else if you are a hippy....otherwise...you know...carry on)

I remembered that this goop was made by gold farmers or something and it struck me that people in Korea may not know about hygiene so I went with the non sterilized method here myself. For those of you who like life you may want to think about cleaning your equipment up some before you start. I figure some guy 5000 years ago probably didn’t worry about it when he was making bread, so I won’t either.

You're going to need:
• A large mason jar (Get a pickle jar or something if you are addicted to 10 dollar meals.)
• Some water
• Some flour like substance
• A mixy thing
• Some cheese cloth
• The outside lid part of your mason jar (or an elastic if you are a fan of the 10 dollar meals)

To Start:
• My jar was nice and clean from when I washed it a week ago and put it damp into my spice cupboard, but you may want to give yours a spit shine (especially if there is still pickles in it...pickles are bad here).
• Pour in your water (I used the water that was sitting in my tea pot from 2 days ago....). You want to put a cup or so into the jar.
• Pour in your flour.

For the flour I went with:
• 3 Tbs of bleached white flour
• 3 Tbs of whole wheat flour
• 3 Tbs of rye flour
• 3 Tbs of barley flour
• 3 Tbs of 7 grain mix
• 3 Tbs of whole oats
• I'd imagine if you can make bread with it you can throw it in the goop. I got a nice pancakey substance that smelled a lot like a barn.

Now:
• Stir your sourdough starter till its goop (I read someplace that goop doesn’t like metal so I used some wood chop sticks)
• Put your cheese cloth over your jar
• Put your outside lid dealy on to secure the cloth (Or ... elastic...twine...hair....whatever)
• Now this next part is going to take a lot of TV. Stir your goop every 12 hours or whenever you decide "Hey, I wanna stir me some goop". Feed your goop every 24 hours or whenever you decide "Hey, I wanna feed me some goop".

Feeding the goop:
• Throw half of it into your neighbor’s yard.
• Follow original goop recipe again into the same jar.

As I’m writing this I just got done the stir your goop every 12 hours stage so we'll see if I'm alive in a few weeks. I'll keep ya posted. Or maybe this blog will just end here. I guess then you'll know.