Bakin' bread! (and making a sourdough starter)

In a turn of events that is in no way linked to Covid and how every millennial and their therapy pets learnt how to bake bread in 2020 because they were stuck at home and had nothing else to do, I decided to start learning how to make my own bread.

I already know a lot of basic baking -- muffins and cakes, quiches, etc -- but when it comes to yeast products I really don't have that much experience. "Activating yeast" and such kind of scared me away from the whole "Baking Your Own Bread" thing and I wasn't just going to go out and throw money at a breadmaker.

Before today, the closest I've come to baking bread is making my own damper which is basically just flour and beer mixed together to form a dough, which is then wrapped in foil and thrown onto a fire until reasonably toasted. Classic Australian fare!

I've had some yeast packets sitting in my pantry for a while now, waiting for my brave decision to just DO IT! Make some bread! and now their time has come.

This is mostly thanks to a butt-tonne of rain we've been getting lately. My town is prone to flooding. A few sprinkles drop from the sky. Everyone freaks out. Everyone buys enough bread to feed an army. People like me, who don't go insane, are then left out of luck when we go to do a normal shop for the fortnight. I'm sick of it. I want some goddamned sammiches.

First off, I thought that I'd throw myself straight into the deep-end and get started on a sourdough starter. My own goopy jar-yeast. I'm aware that I won't be using this for quite some time, but it's nice to finally have some of this sitting in the cupboard, ready for some time in the future.

I've got some whole wheat flour, I've given it some water, and now I'm prepared to feed it more flour as required. It's gonna be delicious! I hope.

I've heard strange stories of people having starters from generations ago. Just a container of bubbling goop sitting in the back of their pantries thanks to their dear old great-great-great-great aunt. Making food with the stuff sitting in the cupboard from a century ago sounds horrifying to me, but I'm sure it's fine. Apparently it adds to the flavour........