The other day, I told you all about how to make your own sourdough starter. It's been three days now and your starter should be looking something like this:

If you remember from my first Sourdough 101 post, I told you that the starter needs to be stirred a couple times a day. Even with frequent stirring, it still separates and starts to look sort of gross, like the above picture. It also smells, well, sour! But that's how you know it's working. If your starter has turned white, blue, pink or green, that means something has gone wrong (i.e. bad bacteria! bad!) so you'll need to toss it out and start over. To help prevent problems like that, rinse your glass jar with boiling water and make sure all your utensils (and your hands!) are clean-clean-clean before you go messing about with your starter.

On Day Three, you're ready to make some sourdough if you like, using any sourdough recipe you have lying around. Or, you can procrastinate. Either way, transfer your starter to the fridge to stunt the growth process. I'll be back in a couple of days to show you my first sourdough loaf and to tell you more about what to do with your starter next!