Hello!

[Crastney]

Hello all, I'm another refugee from The Green Living Forum. I've been posting on there for what seems like years (at least 6).
We don't have solar panels, or a wood burning stove, and we don't have an allotment, or much garden. I've put in one wall of internal wall insulation, and we had loft insulation added, all our windows are double glazed, and I think we just replaced our last old style filament light-bulb. we have a rainwater but on a downspout.

I live in Norwich. I'm an Aston Villa fan. I make sourdough, sauerkraut, and other fermented stuff, including cider, wine, and beer. I have a wife, two children, and three cats. I play badminton.

so that's me! hello everyone.

[richbee]

Hi Crastney,
Welcome to the forum!

[Joeboy]

Hello Crastney, welcome onboard. Good call on the filament bulb replacement.

That makes a huge difference to background load. It's worth checking for any other vampire loads around the home. I used to be up about 800W (5.8MWh pa) background load in the bad old days. Now down to about 120W (1.05MWh pa) between freezer cycles.

[Stinsy]

I found an old signal booster in the loft that’d been pulling 10W for a decade. We’d never even watched terrestrial TV.

[Columbusrat]

Good to see you here Crastney

[Bugtownboy]

[Adokforme]

Hi Crastney and welcome, we're just down the road in Feilixstowe so almost neighbours. We're into fermenting too just wine though, sounds like you'll be a good fit on here!

[Fintray]

Welcome to the forum.

[Moxi]

Hi Crastney, welcome to your new “home” from home, sourdough - how often do you feed your starter ? I used to make it but maintaining the starter was using more resources than the loafs I was making !

I recently watched a video where the person fed once a fortnight and only had a very small starter so I got a jar in preparation to try a new starter in the near future.

Moxi

[Crastney]

Hi everyone!

Hi Moxy - right, sourdough. I started using a recipe in Artisanal Cooking book by Dick Strawbridge's son James. You have to add water and flour, then leave till it bubbles, then it says chuck half of it away and add equal volumes of flour/water, and leave again, for a day till bubbleing, then do the same several times. Well I wasn't going to be throwing it away, so I kept all the 'halfs' in a different container, and then mixed with eggs, and milk, to make a batter to make pancakes.
I've had the same starter ever since, I keep it in the fridge. I add 200g of water, and 200g of flour, leave it out on the side till it's bubbling. Then I used 400g worth of the starter in the recipe, instead of 200 of each flour water from the recipe, and I normally have about 100g of started left which I put straight back in the fridge. I make about one loaf a week at the weekends. Sometimes I've left it a month or longer, and what happens is a liquid forms on the top, and it goes a dark colour. I just stir it all back in, add equal parts flour/water, leave somewhere warm till bubbling, anywhere from 2 to 24 hours.
I've seen someone who uses all the starter in his bread and puts the scrapings back into the fridge, only a few grams worth, and then revives with flour/water and he said it's fine doing that, but I prefer about 100g or more of starter. Sometimes I'll add the extra before putting back in the fridge.

Hope that helps.