Umm... in a word...
What? Have you lost your mind woman
No, other way around.
I was trying to save us this (the other sourdough conversation is proofing here) but the lactobacillus in the sourdough makes for a fine culture to start digesting the doo-doo. As you usually throw out half of a starter when you maintenance feed (for if you do not, the estimates I have seen say you will be feeding a swimming pool sized batch by the end of a few months) it seems sad to waste it. I have been baking a lot instead, but the wife is about fed up with the constant kitchen chaos, so I've shifted to maintenance feedings (plus my culture needs work; I am doing this myself instead of purchasing a starter, and the flavor is great but the rise is still a little lame).
It had been going to the kitchen scraps bin (mixed with water into a slurry and dumped on, a practice likely to continue), but now I have foodstock (eeeww

) more in need of facultative anaerobes, so there it will go. I will likely get some EM cultures as well, but suspect I could get by just on sourdough if I needed to. In the interests of kicking up the culture I added the "juice" from the feta cheese to the last feed and got a very nice doubling, despite low temps (in the mid-50's at night) which means the culture is getting right. I had started it with just the cultures from the wheat flour, which was too lame to bake with after a week, so I added a teaspoon of old yogurt. Better, but still not a great rise; I had to add yeast, so the purist angle was out and the flavor not as good.
So now the feta, which I will try soon; a bigger gas bubble already, although it is quieting down. Perhaps some kefir, or some Stoneyfield yogurt (the most cultures I know of) if I need to keep going. I will just keep adding lactobacillus strains until it does right. And by the way before you all run out and follow my lead, this is all mad scientist territory. I was warned on several sites about this leading to heartbreak and bad bread, but I persist, because I feel I am close. Should I get this up and running, then we will discuss this methodology that makes scientific sense to me but remains unproven, but for the moment, I walk alone where all men fear to tread.
In search of wild bread. That can double as poo goo
HG