First major failure of the homesteading adventure...

The first major failure is...starting a sourdough yeast culture in my kitchen.  I used the recipe in the Joy of Cooking book for starting a culture from the yeast in the air in your kitchen.  The first day, it started bubbling and had that scrumptious yeasty bread smell.  The directions, though, said let it go for 4-7 days before using it.  I did and yesterday was day 5 and it was super sour...not in a good way.  I decided to give it a shot and see what it tasted like anyways and used it to make a half loaf of the sourdough bread.  It was disgusting.  It had this sickingly sweet sour taste and it didn't rise at all.  I have to admit, I was afraid to eat it and am still worried that I'm going to fall over dead in the next few hours from eating something that...well...let's just say that you shouldn't make bread from anything that would get first prize in a middle school science fair!

I will give starting a starter from scratch one more shot before breaking down and ordering a sourdough starter off the internet.  If I get that good yeasty smell again on the first day, I may just use that and see what happens.  We bake so much bread in our kitchen that I'm sure we have spores floating around.  If I could get my husband to brew a batch of homebrewed beer, that may add to our airborn yeast count.  I'm sure women 75 years ago didn't get the best starters the first time around, either.