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Once every couple of years I decide I’m going to give sourdough bread a shot. I’ll find a recipe and method online that’s worked for somebody that lives somewhere other than the desert, and give it a try. And it always fails.

So with that in mind, last month I got the sourdough itch. I found this series of blog posts and really liked the idea of using pineapple juice to get the starter kicked off. Las Vegas is not known for its wild yeasty air, so I figured the little bit of help from the fruit could only help, right?

Cats and can openers. It never gets old.

The starter went off without a hitch. I used a rubberband to mark the height of the starter to see if it was growing at all.

It grew beautifully. I kept it fed and warm for days.

It finally came time to make the actual bread. I measured out what I needed and made sure to replace it with more flour and water. I used this bread recipe from the King Arthur Flour site.

The dough looked great.

And the crust looked great after baking but I could already tell the rest of it didn’t look right.

Dense as can be. It actually tasted okay – not as sour as I like my sourdough to be, but you could tell it was there.

I’ve still got the jar of starter in the fridge, and I need to find another bread recipe to try. I’m tempted to add yeast to the next batch. Is that cheating?