yeasty effervescence

My sister brought back a package of French yeast for me, Alsa brand "levure du boulanger Briochin." It is "pour pains et brioches," and in the little box were five "sachets" which I had used down to the last packet.
A couple of weeks ago, I made a quick batch of pizza dough, turning most of the remainder into a small boule of half whole wheat bread. However, that yeast was just too ebullient, too good to give up that easily, so I saved a tad of the mother from the pizza dough, adding some flour, water and less than half a teaspoon of sugar, and grabbing an Atlas quart canning jar and metal lid that had gone through the dishwasher for this new sourdough experiment.
I already have two batches of sourdough in the refrigerator that I nurture weekly. One is sourdough for bread; the other is buckwheat sourdough for pancakes. Both are in apothecary-type jars that originally held Sasquatch coffee.
Life zigged, then zagged, and the new jar went untouched for about two weeks --- until today. I was making banana sourdough pancakes and saw the jar in the back of the refrigerator. I thought I could add some to the pancake batter and replace some flour and water to keep it going. That was not a problem, however. It was still very much alive.
My first clue was the stubbornness of the lid, which refused to yield. The second clue was a major bulge in the metal of the lid. It was literally a time bomb. The jar had inexplicably failed to implant glass shards and molten yeastiness in the walls of the refrigerator and cartons of milk and eggs therein, due to the sturdiness of that Atlas jar and the Classico pasta sauce metal lid.
I grabbed a large chef's knife with a pointy tip and stabbed a tiny nick into the lid to relieve the pressure.
It was a Silly String Vesuvius, spouting a continuous strand of sourdough accompanied by a hissing sound. When I turned the jar upside down to place the lava flow more directly into the bowl, it spat and sprayed a fine liquid mist onto the knife block, French press, salt shaker and everything else in its line of fire, then resumed the Silly String.
I asked for a little intervention from Mom, as there was no stepping away from this active volcano. She rinsed out a smaller blue apothecary jar that had been languishing on the back counter, and I redirected the pressurized flow into it, while spooning foam from the bowl.
Finally, the stream subsided enough to pry off the lid. I spooned the rest of the sourdough into the new receptacle, after placing whipped cream dollops of the stuff (it was light as air) into my big earthenware bread bowl.
I added unbleached, whole wheat and spelt and gluten flours to the bowl with some water, salt and a teaspoon of honey, beating it with a wooden spoon and making a thick batter before covering it with a towel and heading to town for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes and a four-hour shopping trip.
It was already 6 p.m. by the time we returned home, and the dough had risen into an extremely light sponge. I added more flour, mostly whole wheat and spelt, then kneaded it until it drew away from the walls of the bowl. The oven was at 450, with a shallow pan of water on the bottom shelf. Forming a rough ball, I plunked it onto the pizza stone, which I had lightly oiled and dusted with cornmeal. Slitting the top of the ball, I sprinkled it with water, sesame and poppy seeds. It rose about 10 or 15 minutes while I made dinner, combining Sunday's leftovers in a casserole dish to pop into the oven with the bread.
Those leftovers were two remaining pieces of elk backstrap that I had baked/broiled, a quick Swiss steak for Sunday dinner accompanied by a rice/tomato/corn casserole seasoned with sweet red pepper, cumin, basil, oregano, garlic, etc. The meat and rice/corn casserole were combined on a whole grain tortilla with shredded cheese, garnished with salsa and sour cream.
In the second act, the meat was chopped up with the leftovers in a casserole dish and topped with a little shredded cheese, then popped into the oven with the bread, with the temperature lowered to around 400.
I sauteed two small sliced zucchinis in a shallow non-stick skillet with a little garlic, basil adding a last-minute dribble or two of chicken broth, and covering the pan for a minute or two as the leftovers were reassembled in tortillas.
Dessert was a cluster of grapes and a sliver of the bread cut from the still-warm loaf using a serrated knife. The three-inch long slice was nearly all crust.
Usually when baking bread with sourdough, I add some supplemental yeast. I didn't think it was needed this time, and I was right.
Now if I can just keep this batch going without coating the walls of the refrigerator...