Yeast defection

By the fourth day, my starter was really going nuts.  I had moved it up to a quart sized jar, and it filled to the point where it was starting to compress against the lid.  It had developed a very beery and more pleasant aroma.  It had also become quite liquid.

I separated out about a half cup of the mix and stored it in the fridge.  With the remainder, I made a simple dough of bread flour, salt and water, using a recipe from Baking With Julia for Pain de Campagne, which is a French bread made using only wild yeast.  The dough looked quite promising.

As per the instructions, I let it rise for five hours.  It had not done much in the first five hours, but according to the recipe, this is normal.  I then shaped a simple loaf and transferred it to a floured, linen lined basket for the final rise.  The final rise was supposed to take four or five hours, and is supposed to result in a dough that has not doubled in size, but has "risen perceptively".  Unfortunately after five hours, my loaf still hadn't done much of anything except spread out in the basket.  It was actually flatter now then when I first put it in, since the gluten had relaxed and it had essentially become a puddle.  I moved it to a much warmer spot and gave it 3 more hours.  Still nothing.  It was getting late, so I went ahead and baked it off, hoping there might be some magic when it hit the hot oven.  No dice.  I might as well have been firing clay in a kiln.  I now have a lovely deep golden brown brick, with an interesting yeasty, almost nutty aroma.  I may try cutting into it when it's cool, but I need to go find my hack saw first.

Oh well, it was an experiment.  I may try again by following the recipe from the Julia book to the letter and see if I get a different result.  Their technique for the initial starter is quite different from what I did.