Sourdough Starter

So I've read about making your own sourdough starter, here and here. Apparently the key to making a sourdough starter is simply to leave it alone. This is my favorite type of instruction. "Here, do nothing to this." I am really, really good at doing nothing. :)

I began my starter (that sounds gramatically incorrect to me) on Sunday afternoon. 1 cup of warm water + 1 cup of flour + not-very-air-conditioned-apartment = fermenting sourdough starter. The instructions said this would be "brain-dead simple." (Which means I will likely screw it up somehow before its all over...)

So we are on Day Three now. Each morning I have dumped out half of the batter and added a fresh 1/2 cup of warm water and a fresh 1/2 cup of flour.

On Day One it looked like this:



And on Day Three, it now looks like this:



Hmm. I'm not sure what this means. Its supposed to have a "beery" smell, too. I sniffed it -- it smells like bread, kinda. Is a bready-smell the same as a beery-smell?

I can't decide if its time to put it in the fridge or if I should leave it out for longer. We are going to the ATL this weekend to meet my niece, and although we have hired a puppy-sitter who says she would be happy to water plants, turn on/off lights, etc., I think asking her to feed my fermenting flour-and-water mixture might be a bit much.

Although, if she can deal with this little guy and survive, she can probably handle a small container of dough...



Maybe. He's more dangerous than he looks...