Dan Lepard's Leaven (2)

Day 4
100g water at 20º C
125g strong white flour

(The contents of the jar look pretty unappetising today; a brownish liquid has separated from some putty coloured stuff at the bottom of the jar.)

Remove and discard ¾ of the mixture – I always find this bit hard to understand. Add the water and stir well. Pour the mixture through a tea strainer to remove raisins. Pour mixture back into jar, add flour and stir well. Cover and leave at room temperature for 24 hours.

Note: There was practically no sign of fermentation by Day 4. I wonder if I had too much water in the mixture…wonder if the temperature was correct. Hmmmm.

Day 5
100g water at 20º C
125g strong white flour

The surface of the mixture has started to bubble up nicely.

Remove and discard ¾ of the mixture.
(I poured the whole lot into a measuring jug so I could see how much there was. I had 300g of mixture, so that left 75g, which didn’t seem like very much. I rinsed out the Kilner jar and dried it.)
Add the water to the remaining mixture and stir well. Pour back into jar. Add flour so that you have a thick paste.
Cover and leave again at room temperature for 24 hours.

Note: It hasn’t been very warm this week, probably not up to 20º C. I wonder if this affects the fermentation time. Also, it’s quite difficult to measure 100g of water – I had to translate from fluid ozs.