January 17, 2024 - 4:12am
Older Starter lost Vigor
I’ve seen this before. I have a starter that is probably 10 years old or older. It is feed once a week (1:1:1) and kept in the refrigerator. From its inception it tripled in 4 hours at 80F. For a couple of months now it is doubling, maybe a tad more. I have tried rye, various feed ratios with no luck. Has anyone experienced this and found a solution to bring it back to full vigor?
I am not attached to the starter and may end up making a new one.
Thanks in Advance,
Danny
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By some coincidence, a thread about this just came back to life today -
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65051/how-increase-yesat-population-sourdough-starter#comment-528914
I've had the same kind of behavior myself a few times. I don't know for sure, but I think one of two things could have happened -
1. The dominant yeast variety might have changed, either because of mutations or by a shift in the population genetics for some unknowable reason;
2. A change in the ratio of bacteria to yeast (or the dominant type of bacteria) that has turned out to be a very stable equilibrium.
Less likely but still possible could be a change in the flour. Perhaps the manufacturer changed over from adding malt to adding an enzyme, something like that, or the particular growing season affected the flour's properties. That's least likely, I imagine, with large national brands, but I remember recently reading someone making a complaint about King Arthur flour to the effect that it started baking much differently.
I may have some input on this.
When you feed and leave it on the bench, I would suggest a few things you could try, see if it comes back over the course of a few feedings:
1) Increase your feed ratio to maybe 3x or 4x.
2) Try reducing the hydration slightly to say maybe 80%?
3) Give your starter a stir 2 hours, 4 hours, etc after feeding.
Reasoning:
1) It could be the acid load is high and with that you have some inhibition on yeast activity due to the high acidity. Also a second factor could also be proteolytic activity which is high when the pH is concurrent with a a high acid load. So it could be you're seeing less growth due to inhibited yeast activity and break-down of gluten structure (that is required for the rise) due to increased proteolytic enzymatic activity associated with the more acidic environment.
2) Reducing the hydration would inhibit the LAB slightly so it would give the yeast a bit more of an advantage in resources and space. Based on the findings by Debra Wink, yes both LAB and yeast are affected at lower hydration but the yeast is more resilient to such factors compared to LAB.
3) Giving the starter a stir would redistribute the available foods at the local regions. If I'm not mistaken I've read/seen a comparative study done where stirred sourdough is able to achieve a higher peak-point vs unstirred. Also, possibly under the right conditions, when the sugars are scarce, the yeast resorts to respiration (even though in aerobic conditions fermentation is the preferred pathway aka Crabtree effect).
I have posted graphs about this on TFL before. Stirring a poolish or starter after it has risen a while does invigorate it in the sense that it will start to grow faster than before and to a greater expansion before the start of a collapse. The same is true for doughs, replacing stirring by kneading or stretching.
In my tests typically you can repeat the stirring several times with similar results, and then as you would expect a time comes when the dough won't rise as high, or as fast, as before.
So I feel that stretching and folding the dough during preform and shaping will cause the dough (now a loaf) to rise more vigorously than it did at the end of bulk ferment, which is just what you want.
TomP
I’ve tried 1:10:10, 1:3:5, and other combos. Also adding fresh ground rye. In theory we know the yeast and LAB are present, but I’ve seen this before and have never successfully got the starter back to its prime.
That starter was consistent for years. Took it straight out of fridge every Monday and fed 1:1:1 using ~115F filtered water. Put in proofer set to 80F. It tripled like clock work in 4 hours. Now it is slightly over double. Still makes good bread but would like to continue with tripling in the allotted time.
I don't see how 1:10:10 or 1:3:5 (assuming you're referring to 1 part starter, 3 parts flour, 5 parts water) would help the yeast to LAB ratio. 1:10:10 would dilute the acid concentration but the ratio of yeast to LAB remains the same.
In 1:3:5, having more water would increase the activity overall of both yeast and LAB but if I'm not mistaken the literature also supports that LAB prefers wetter environments. The literature also does show that yeast is more resilient compared to LAB, and a lower hydration would drastically affect the LAB more so than the yeast even though both microorganisms activity are reduced.
The major factor in the rise comes from the yeast population (even though yes hetero LAB produces CO2 as well) so it would make sense to try and increase yeast to LAB ratio.
I can't give an in-depth reasoning as to why you're noticing a fall-off in activity causing the starter to only slightly double. Especially so when you're adamant that everything was kept clock-work consistent. It could be a latent build-up effect although I'd argue that the effect would also be a gradual taper. It could also be the flour.
I can tell you that from my experience, there is a definite carry-over effect:
I just did this experiment a few days ago:
Starter 1:100% hydration
Starter 2: 65% hydration
Both fed with 1:3 (flour) ratio.
Starter 1 with it's initial 100% hydration, then reduced to 65% for the second feeding, and again 65% for the third feeding.
Starter 2 maintained at 65% at all times.
Starter 1 still rose faster than Starter 2 by a significant margin even on that third feeding at 65%. I don't have any empirical data on how long this effect stays or whether or not both Starters would eventually reach the same activity curve if maintained at 65% continuously. Goes without saying that Starter 1 at 100% was definitely much more active than Starter 2 at 65%, but I was surprised to find that this effect was still present by a very discernible margin even when Starter 1's hydration was knocked down to 65% for 2 feeding cycles.
My 24-year-old starter periodically goes through a slump, but it always seems to come back. I just returned home after a month away, and mine was sleepy to say the least. Applied my standard starter refresh (and actually my preferred way to build a levain).
1. 5 g starter, 10 g each water and sourdough feed (90% AP, 5% WW an 5% Rye), rest 12 hours
2. 25 g refreshed starter, 25 g each water and sourdough feed, rest 12 hours
3. 75 g refreshed starter, 75 g each water and sourdough feed, rest 12 hours
This usually does the trick, though this time I needed a 4th generation to get a really lively levain. I mix 50 g of this levain with 50 g each water and sourdough feed, then refrigerate as my revived starter.
Good to see you back,
Phil
Dan, great to see a post by you. If you give up, then please let me know (via private message with your mailing address) and I will send you a nice container of robust starter.
Ted
I see 4 options -
The starter still makes good bread, but it was rewarding to constantly 3x my starter in 4 hours @ 80F.
Again. Thanks for all of the input from everyone.
Danny
Go for option 2 : Live with the starter as is.
You said it still makes perfectly good bread and you're happy with the end results. That's what a starter is for so it's doing is job perfectly well. If the final results begin to suffer then there's a problem.
Quick question... at what stage do you refrigerate your starter after feeding?