Care and Feeding of Sourdough Starter

Hi Jim,

Once you get to the point where the starter is actively bubbling, switch to water and unbleached flour (unless you are wanting a WW or rye starter). Then continue to feed once or twice daily for a week or two longer before refrigerating. How often to feed is up to you, but if you see that it bubbles up and then recedes and stops bubbling it means that it needs more food. Also, if you see a clear liquid on top (hooch), it needs to be fed. ALWAYS dump out all but a small amount of the old starter before feeding. This is important because it is now waste and does not contain any nutrients for the starter to feed on any longer.

If you are getting good activity from the starter then you will want to make sure that you are feeding it well. If you are only feeding to mature the starter and aren't using it to make dough yet you probably won't want to increase its volume too much. Save only a Tbsp. or so and feed it at least 1/4 cup of flour and however much water to achieve the consistency of starter that you prefer. Most people like to do equal weights of flour/water.

You can start baking with it at any time once it has frothy bubbles on top and tiny bubbles suspended throughout, but the flavor will continue to improve a lot after it ages some. I also like to give my starters a spoonful of ww or rye flour now and then, as they really like it. You won't even know it is in there by tasting. Good luck with your starter!

SourdoLady's description sounds exactly like what I usually do. The only thing I would add is that once you have the starter really going, you can refrigerate it for long periods of time without any feedings or additional trouble. When you want to bake, you take it out of the refrig, use something like 1:4:4 (by weight) of old starter:new flour:new water, and let the starter revive - usually takes 6-12 hours if the starter is more than a few days old. I repeat that feeding again usually, which will only take about 4 hours on the repeat feeding. Then it is vigorous, and you can put it in the refrigerator and use it to make bread for a couple or three days, with best use of the starter timed for around 24 to 48 hours after it rises and is put in the refrigerator. You can refrigerate the revived starter overnight in between these repeat feedings to bring it back to life.

This process allows you to start a recipe when you want with one day of notice to bring the starter to a fully refreshed state, i.e. do two feedings in one day to revive your old starter from the refrigerator, refrigerate overnight and use in a recipe the next day. That might mean actually baking the bread two days after that, as often you might make a pre-ferment first and refrigerate that for another night.

I mention all this because not everyone wants to bake everyday. I tend to bake once every one or two weeks and freeze my breads, so I don't want to be feeding my starter in between baking rampages. You can definitely be a sourdough aficionado without daily or constant attention to your culture. In fact, I left for the summer on an extended trip last year and still was able to revive my starter from sitting in the refrigerator for almost two months without any trouble.

My starter usually lives in the fridge and I feed it once a week, but it is not very lively and takes much longer than it should to double itself or raise the dough in any recipe I've tried. In order to give it a boost I've left it on the counter for the last 3-4 days and given it large meals of 1:10:10 by weight every 24 hours, but it is still the same. It takes at least 24 hrs to double at 16C - 21C. Today after 12 hrs I fed it again and this time added a bit of whole wheat flour in addition to the usual white AP. Now it's been 12 hrs and there are only a few medium size bubbles. Can anyone suggest something to liven up this lazy starter of mine?

L_M

Actually,

I realize that SourdoLady already explained all this in the recipe I was mentioning, I just hadn't read her explanations lower down the article yet.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/233 has a great explanation of these problems I was mentioning in the last post.

I arrived at her basic recipe (but use ascorbic acid instead of pineapple juice) and had 100% success with it over a number of repeated attempts, and I had been failing miserably before that, as described in my previous post. I also tried vinegar, lemon juice, orange juice, and wine. They all work, as long as you get the pH to a range of about 3-4 in the initial water, as I had mentioned.

For a 3-4 pH, I found you could get 6 oz of liquid as follows:

1 tablespoons lemon juice added to 5.5 oz water

1/2 teaspoon vinegar added 6 oz (less 1/2 teaspoon) of water.

250mg ascorbic acid or vitamin C added to 6 oz of water.

Use wine, orange juice, pineapple juice instead of water.

This is more or less from memory, so I may be off here, but I think this is about right.

This is for those who don't have pineapple juice or one or the other of the other ingredients is more convenient for whatever reason. They all work and would give eventually virtually the same result, as far as I can tell. As I mentioned the reasons for this acid addition are very well explained by SourdoLady in her recipe/article referenced above.

Thanks to both bwraith and mij.mac for your responses and suggestions!

First to bwraith - you could be very right about the fact that I need to treat my starter as a new one. I have read all of the info above many times and Sourdolady's explanations are very clear, but I guess as I was just trying to liven up my year old starter, it never occurred to me that following instructions for making a new one could actually be benefitial in my case. I didn't use (or know about) using juice when I started this one and luckily there were no problems along the way, no horrible smells, colours or large gas attacks, but it did take a good 7 - 10 days to really get going. I was never very happy with the resulting bread so the starter sort of got stuck in the back of the fridge but I did feed it every week at a 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 ratio and the discards always got used in other baking, so at least I was using the starter for something. Every once in a while I'd try to make bread with the starter but as I said it would just take much longer than the recipe suggested so I'd just stick it back in the fridge again. But now - since I really want to get this thing moving already I tried a few of your suggestions all at once in the last feed which was about 4 hours ago, and things are looking promising - it has grown by 33% but still has hardly any bubbles yet. First I cut down the feeding to 1:4:4 - maybe the 1:10:10 was just too overwhelming for my poor starter. Next I used a mixture of 25% whole wheat : 75% AP for the refreshing flour, and I put a few drops of vinegar in the water (total of 40 grams water). The water I use is quite hard and it passes through the filter in our fridge but I really have no idea what ph it is. Lastly, I also thought that maybe I was missing the peak time during the night, so I switched the feeding time so I could make sure that didn't happen, and it certainly didn't. 

Now to mij.mac - I do understand that the 1:10:10 is just for every once in a while to make sure things are healthy, and that is what I was trying to do. You said it takes about 8 hours for your starter to double using that ratio for feeding - I still say WOW cause lately mine has been taking more than 24 hrs and the peek isn't very exciting at all! Small to medium sized bubbles and just around double the volume. I had more dramatic peaking results with a lower ratio of feeding, so like I mentioned above - maybe it was just too much food all at once. About the temp - I would really like to get into a rhythm that I can rely on room temperature which is now between 16C - 21C and the fact that it takes a long time doesn't bother me at all as long as the results are worth it, having a good texture and a complex but not sour taste. What ratio do you use for your once a day feeding?

I certainly hope this slow poke of mine is on it's way to recovery.

L_M

Hi mij.mac,

So if I understood you correctly you mean I'm over feeding it because I'm not waiting until it really has a dramatic peak?  What happens if this takes 30 or more hours?  What happens if it doesn't bubble up very much? Should I just wait? Oh, and I forgot to mention that I've started to give it a good stir a few times during the day.

So far it is now 5 1/2 hrs since the last feeding and it hasn't changed much from the last report. Hmmm

L_M

L_M, my kitchen is at about 68F, 20C (if I did that right). I do a 1:4:4 feeding once my starter is active. In my case, I always let my starter rise to double volume, then refrigerate. I don't generally leave mine out once it's active, I guess because my erratic schedule means I might forget it. So, I drop it in the refrigerator as soon as it's done. In the next day or two, I can take it out of the refrigerator, use a bunch of it, and refresh some of it in a 1:4:4 ratio. It would take about 4-5 hours at 20C to double. That starter seems to do a good job of raising anything I've tried with it within a few hours, more or less according to what the recipe would suggest.

That process can be repeated indefinitely, as long as I don't let the starter stay in the refrigerator for more than about 3 days. After that, hooch starts to form on top of it, and it shrinks down in volume in the refrigerator - eventually to about 1/3 of where it gets at it's peak. If you put the vigorous starter in the refrigerator, it continues to rise for the first 24 hours, stays steady for another 24 hours, then declines slowly after that.

If the starter is older than about 3 days, I then have to "revive" as opposed to refresh, which for me means a 1:4:4 feeding, which will take quite a bit longer - maybe more like 8 hours, depending on how old the starter is. Then one or two repeated feedings are needed after that. In my case, in between feedings, I leave it in the refrigerator, just so I don't have to be that careful about the next feeding.

There is a pretty big difference in activity from 16C to 21C, so if most of the time is at more like 16C, maybe there is someone who could comment on what happens at that low a temperature. I know that winter chill very much slows things down for me, but my winter temperature is more like 20C and in summer it might be more like 23C.

I think the reason to avoid really large feedings is kind of what mij.mac was describing. When you dilute the culture that much, it will take a lot longer to get a doubling, i.e. to get to where there is a high concentration of organisms. You have to wait for that to happen, or the culture won't become stable. If the culture isn't stable, then other organisms besides the ones you want may end up establishing themselves. I agree you should wait as long as it takes to get a doubling, no matter how long, more or less. However, I would reduce the ratio to 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 until it gets going. After that maybe 1:3:3 or 1:4:4 is good in my experience.

Good luck with it. I'll be curious to hear if you discover the reason or discover a procedure that works.

bwraith you've explained very clearly the schedule you work with and it sounds like a very lenient one enabling quite a bit of flexibility, and that suits me just fine!  Just hoping my starter will accept that routine. When I think back, I very rarely had any hooch even after leaving the starter in the fridge for 2 weeks - just a strong alcohol smell. After feeding I'd leave it out on the counter for about 2 -3 hours until I saw it started to rise and then straight away I put it back in without letting it become really active. I have probably diluted this starter so much along the way that I'd be lucky if I still had 1 single yeast cell still left in it! lol.

About the temp - at night it may dip to around 16C - 17C for a few hours but for the most part it's been around 19C - 21C lately.

It's now almost 12 hours since the last feed and I'm getting quite a few big bubbles so I think it's on it's way. I'm going to put it in the fridge for the night and take it out again in the morning to continue because it just might peak when I'm asleep and I certainly don't want to miss that event. Hope I'm doing the right thing...I'll see tomorrow.

L_M

PMcCool,

Thanks for this information. I've at times felt like I was just a little nuts on this point, but I did measure the pH in my water sources when I was having so much trouble getting a culture to establish itself. My well water is filtered. I've never looked into what well water ought to be in pH terms before the filtering, or what effect charcoal filters might have on the pH, but I do know the pH in my tap water coming from the well via the filters is around 9. This made a significant difference to the starting pH of my cultures and to the time it took for my culture to become acidic. The Poland Spring water I have has a neutral pH. I have not tested any other bottled waters. When you say "mineral water" could you define that more clearly? Also, what pH would mineral water typically have, as opposed to other bottled water. Basically, I quit using the well water and went to only using the Poland Spring water because of the pH problem. Also, the machine I have has hot and cold spigots, so it's very convenient to mix hot and cold to get warm water to mix with my cold culture from the refrigerator when I'm doing a refreshment or revival. My refreshment becomes active more quickly when I mix warm water with it, which more or less instantly brings the overall temperature to about room temperature or a little higher.

Bill Wraith

Yes it is coming along fine now - at least doubled and still puffing up from what it looks like to me. No major smell of any kind but I do detect a bit of bananas?????? For the next feed I'll go for 1:1:1 and I'll see how long that takes. Hopefully in a day or 2 I'll actually make some bread!

PMcCool thanks for the info on the water. In the meantime, I was quite curious so got my filtered water checked with a pH meter and it came out to be 7.35 so it is certainly lower than brwaith's original well water but does it sound like a reasonable level that I can use it as is? I was also wondering what type of water you meant that is bottled but not mineral.

You've all given me a lot of support :-)))

L_M

L_M,

I'm betting it will only take a few hours to double on a 1:1:1 feeding, now that it's really bubbling up. I'll be curious to hear how it goes. I think the 7.35 pH of your water would be effectively the same as neutral. My well water pH was much more extreme at about 9. Nonetheless, in my case, even when I changed to neutral spring bottled water, I still needed to use a little acid in the beginning to make my cultures work reliably. Only guessing from afar, but I think the problem in your case was more the very large feedings, cool conditions, and not letting the culture reach that bubbling, rising state when the acidity rises, and the culture stabilizes. By the way, the pH after feeding a bubbling culture at a 1:1:1 ratio of old culture:water:flour will be lower than it would be if you feed a less active culture at a very high ratio, so you probably don't need to add vinegar anymore. The pH should be up closer to neutral, like 6 maybe, after the feeding, and then it will drop back down to 3-4 fairly quickly, as it starts to rise again. Adding the flour and water has a buffering effect on the old culture, but the organisms multiply in the new food supply and fermentation results in acid levels rising. A stable situation is reached when you have a feeding schedule that keeps the pH down most of the time, except for short periods while the culture is growing into the new food supply after a feeding. If the time when the pH is up closer to neutral is not too long, then any organisms introduced in the flour during the feeding will not be able to get a foothold before the yeast and lactobacillus push the environment back toward a pH of 3-4.

Bill

PMcCool, Do you happen to know what the pH typically is for so-called "mineral water" such as Perrier? Just curious how it compares w/my measurement for my well water.

Thanks, Bill Wraith

This time the conditions were just right - bubbly starter and 21C room temp. Starter got fed 1:1:1 and it's temp was also 21C, and now I'll just be patient. It's been almost 5 hrs and it's coming along but not ready yet so again I'll put it in the fridge overnight and tomorrow when it peaks I'll feed it again at 1:1:1 until I see it gets going a bit faster, unless one of you suggest that I up the ratio already.

It's good to know that the water is not causing a problem for my starter, but seeing as I don't live in USA it will be interesting to see what is written on the water bottles here. Thanks.

L_M

PMcCool,

Thanks for the further info on water pH levels. I had honestly wondered if my meter was just broken or miscalibrated, but I checked it pretty carefully. I think my well just has water with a pH of 9 for whatever reason. I hope it isn't because of some sort of toxic runoff. I do live next to a large swamp. Anyway, the fact there is such a thing as water coming out of the ground advertised with a pH of 9 or even 10 leaves me less skeptical that my own water seems to have a pH of 9. I plotted pH over time in my culture, and it definitely started a couple of pH points higher with my well water in it, and took much longer to get down into the 3-4 range than my concoctions with Poland Spring bottled water and a little ascorbic acid.

Bill Wraith

Paul,

I enjoyed your posts below about water source pH and other details. It's interesting to think about what is going on way down there somewhere in the aquifer that might affect a loaf of bread. What discipline leads to taking courses in water treatment?

Bill Wraith

Hi bwraith,

We are in different time zones so unfortuately I was already fast asleep with the starter in the fridge when you posted about maybe leaving it out on the counter, but all is well and it is back on the counter, got it's feeding after becoming bubbly and it's slowly rising again. This time I'll feed it before I go to bed like you suggested and just leave it out for the night, and continue with that routine until it is really vigorous. In one of your posts above you mentioned that you put the starter in the fridge after it is active and it continues to rise for the next 24 hours in the fridge. Does that mean you put the starter in the fridge when it is just at the beginning of it's very active stage? Otherwise I may have misunderstood you somewhere else along the line, because after it peaks isn't it supposed start to fall, instead of rising anymore - please correct me if I'm wrong...thanks for helping me understand what's going on in there! 

L_M

Hi L_M,

Sorry I missed on the timing of that suggestion, but it sounds like the culture is doing well. I let my culture rise to double or a little more before I put it in the refrigerator. However, it is still active enough to continue to rise for a while. It seems to peak over the course of the next 12 hours or so. It probably takes a while for it to cool down, and it probably takes the yeast a while to shut down it's activities. I think the lactobacillus can continue on at lower temperatures. So, all that adds up to some continued ability to increase the volume of the culture. So, be careful to use a large enough container when you refrigerate, or you can get a messy overflow surprise next morning. After it peaks, there is a period where the very center of the surface begins to cave in. At this point, it seems to have a nice smell. If I refresh my culture 1:2:2 early in the morning, it will double in 4-5 hours (if done in the first 2-3 days after it was last refreshed). Then I refrigerate it, and it seems to get to that stage where it is just beginning to cave in at the center by the middle of the next day. That's when I make something with it.

I just did one version of my routine sourdough baking process in the past 24 hours or so, and I thought it might help to clarify the process if I described the chronology - sorry if this is way more than you wanted to know...

From my notes:

11:15am yesterday: approx 1:2:2 "revival" of two week old refrigerated culture. 3oz old starter, 6.5 oz bread flour, 6.5 oz water. The culture had about 1/8 inch of hooch on top and had a slightly sharp, slightly alcoholic, but pleasant aroma. (The culture would have more like 1/4 or 3/8 inch of hooch after 2 months sitting in refrigerator, and the aroma would be sharper and not quite as pleasant in some way I can't really describe.)

7:30pm yesterday: 1:2:2 "refreshment" after volume doubled.

12:30am today:put doubled refreshed culture in the refrigerator. Note the refreshment only took 5 hours, as opposed to 8 hours for the "revival".

9:00am today: created "firm starter" for Miche - 7 oz starter, 5 oz sifted red whole wheat, 4 oz bread flour, 4oz water.

9:20am today: 1:2:2 "refreshment" of starter i.e. 8 oz starter, 16 oz KA bread flour, 16oz water.

10am: raisin focaccia dough: 20 oz starter (set aside before the above refreshment), 10oz "KA Italian flour", 3oz KA rye blend, 2.75 oz olive oil, 0.5 oz salt, 1 tsp yeast, 6 oz water, 2.5 cups golden raisins, knead in mixer for 5 minutes.

10am-noon: folding focaccia every 45 minutes or so, now letting it rise before putting in pan.

12:30pm: firm starter above put in refrig after doubling (3.5 hours).

The refreshment started at 9:20 looks like it will be done by 1:30pm, so the time will only be about 4 hours this time.

So, the things illustrated here would be:

 1) After 2 weeks, the starter needed a couple of cycles of feeding to become very active. On the third refreshment it is rising about as fast as my starter will ever rise in my experience, i.e. 4 hours for my 1:2:2 refreshment.

2) The firm starter with a lower ratio of expansion and whole wheat flour rose faster than the 1:2:2 refreshment. Note that the refrigerated 1 day old culture is able to quickly raise the firm starter dough.

3) I used up most of the starter, and I want to do some more baking tomorrow, so I made a fairly large volume on the refreshment today. Note that since the culture was only 1 day old, it rose vigorously after a single feeding.

4) If I don't use it, it can still live in the refrigerator for a very long time and be revived in the same way as above. If the starter is very, very old, i.e. maybe 2 months in the refrigerator, then it might take 3 or 4 refreshments, and the first refreshment might take all day to rise - and I might toss in a touch of acid and be especially careful with my cleaning techniques, since the natural acidic and antibiotic qualities of the culture will not be in much effect until the culture revives more fully.

I'm sure there are a million variations on all this, and maybe others will have comments/criticisms/improvement on this approach.

Bill

L_M,

After I read my last post, I realize that my ratios were wrong. When I do a typical refreshment, I do 1:2:2, not 1:4:4, i.e. it's a 1:4 ratio of weight of old culture to new culture. So, my 4 hours rise time is for 1:2:2, not 1:4:4. So, a 1:4:4 refreshment, even for very active culture probably would take more like 6-8 hours.

I'll edit the previous post, which had 1:4:4 everywhere, but there was a lot of discussion before that with the same wrong ratios.

Bill

Hi brwaith,

You have really been very kind to write everything out so clearly for me, and it does make the theory easier to understand now that you wrote out your schedule as well.  For me - the more details the better!

It looks like it will take about 12 hrs to peak this time (still on a ratio of 1:1:1) so it certainly is alive but not really kicking yet. I'll fed it before I go to sleep and just maybe I'll have a big surprise in the morning!

After this slow poke of mine really gets going I'm sure I'll easily find a schedule with a convenient routine of feeding, building and baking.

I'm off to check those bubbles...

L_M

Just reporting on progress - last night it got fed at a ratio of 1:2:2 and took 9 hrs to peak. Just fed it now at 1:3:3 and we'll see how long it takes. It looks like I'll be able to make some bread soon...

L_M

Hi L_M,

The rise times sound much more reasonable now, especially if it's a bit cool in your kitchen.

Just in case you did not notice my earlier post, I made a mistake stating what ratios I am using. I realize my usual feeding ratio is 1:2:2, which is a multiplier on the old starter of 5x. My rise times at about 68 deg F (20C) has been about 5 hours at that feeding ratio. To me that seems like a significant dilution, and although it's certainly possible to go much larger, I'm not sure there is that much point to large dilutions, but maybe others have some comments on this. I think there is a balance between a) expanding the culture, which you may need to do if you want to use it as a poolish substitute, or if you just have a whole lot of bread to bake, and b) with making sure you don't dilute so much that you destabilize the culture. If you dilute by a huge ratio, I think you run the risk that the acid and other aspects of the environment of the culture which is friendly to the wanted lactobacillus and yeast organisms and unfriendly to other unwanted organisms won't be re-established for a long time. A highly diluted culture is a little like just starting a new culture from scratch. Other organisms introduced by the flour or just from your kitchen environment may have a chance to take over the culture before the acid environment of the culture is established once again. So, if you do a large dilution, it makes sense to be extra careful with cleaning everything and I would consider adding some acid, so you keep the pH on the acidic side even after the dilution.

In other words, if the culture is not doubling in less than about 24 hours, there is a significant number of hours when the culture is effectively just flour and water at about a neutral pH, which means during those hours other organisms have a chance to establish themselves (unless you spike it with a little acid), as described in previous posts and in SourdoLady's instructions).

For refreshments of 1:2:2, I know it works well and is very stable in terms of rise times and repetitions, regardless of refrigeration, types of flour and whatnot. Again maybe others can comment on the dilution ratios they use, what rise times they experience, and why they chose that dilution ratio. I have not deviated too far from 1:2:2 on my refreshments, and I used only 1:1:1 for feedings when trying to start a culture from scratch.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

Things are progressing nicely - the 1:3:3 feeding took 11 hrs to peak but for some reason it didn't even make it to double volume whereas before it was usually a bit more than double. Do you think this is significant at all? I did notice your ratios and  time changes, so it looks like my starter is slowly catching up to where it should be. I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to use the starter for baking so tonight I fed it at a ratio of 1:4:4 in order to start expanding. If I see that it still takes too long then I'll just keep on feeding it for a few more days until the same ratio feed to peak time is constant. For the past few days the room temperature has been quite close to 20C for most of the time so luckily that is also one less factor to worry about. Thanks for the reminders about keeping everything very clean and/or adding acid for the very diluted feeds. I'll keep you posted...

L_M

Hi L_M,

Sounds like it's very much alive. One thing to consider is that multiple feedings at lower ratios may be better than one at a much higher ratio. For example, if a 1:2:2 feeding that takes 5 hours to double can be done 2 times in 10 hours to multiply your starter by 25, it may be better than a 1:5:5 feeding that takes 12 hours and multiplies only by 11. I have not done those experiments, and maybe there is someone who knows the answer to "ideal feeding ratios". I guess there is also a convenience issue. If you can only feed the starter every 12 hours because you aren't there during the day (or you want it to run all night), then maybe the larger ratios are more convenient. That's more or less fine tuning, though. It sounds like the culture is quite active at this point, which is the main thing.

Bill

This thread has changed my drinking habits! As  a result of it, I've checked loads of the bottled water available in the UK - and  now realize that sparkling water is always on the acid side of the spectrum, so no more sparkling water! And my two favourites (because of where they come from - Buxton in Derbyshire and Abbey Well in Northumberland) are very good indeed. So - still water and from near to my childhood home!
But can I justify the cost of using them in bread? I don't think so - I'll have to move to a house with a well....!
Andrew
wine is acid too - a dreadful thought!

Hi brwaith,

Sorry it took so long for me to respond, but we've had a lot of rain and power failures as a result, and along with that came computer problems. In the meantime I really don't think my starter is gaining any strength. Rising times are still too long, and volume is less than double at peak. If a starter at peak is supposed to look like a poolish at peak, then mine is still missing a lot of medium to large bubbles throughout. I get tiny - small ones in the middle, and medium - large on top. So....I'm back to feeding at 1:1:1 with a few drops of vinegar and a lot of tender loving care!

I do remember in some of Sourdolady's and jm_chng's post (and maybe others as well) that it was suggested to discard most of the active starter before feeding because otherwise there would be too much of the waste products brought into the new feed. I realise this is only for a very well established starter, but from your usual ratio of 1:2:2 this isn't really dicarding most, and you say that your starter is very consistant and produces good results, so I guess I'll have to just experiment with my starter and see what works best, but only after I'm sure it's really, really going well.

It has now been 2 1/2 hours since the last feed of 1:1:1 with a bit of vinegar and it is just barely showing signs of life.... patience and more patience!

L_M

Hi mij.mac,

To tell you the truth I never even considered that as a possibility, most likey because I'd really like to conquer this challange I've gotten myself into, but if all else fails I may end up ordering some :-)

L_M

L_M,

I agree with Mac that it could be worth a try with a purchased starter. If you find that a known starter works fine, then maybe your starter just has some version of yeasts/lactobacillus that are somehow sluggish. You would then know it isn't your methods or your ingredients, just something about that particular culture you have. Another starter that worked easily for me was the KA sourdough starter, which literally was some fresh culture in a little plastic jar. I just added flour and water and it did its thing.

You could also try starting completely from scratch. I've used the BBA method (but add acid to the first mixture), or try out SourdoLady's method here on the site. You might discover that starting from scratch works, too. Again, that would more or less isolate the problem to the culture you have, as opposed to some detail in your methodology or ingredients.

I haven't found a good explanation for when starting with a very tiny amount of old culture and diluting it tremendously is a good thing to do, but I've read it works for "cleaning" a culture that has been contaminated. I think Mike Avery mentions this procedure in some of his tips. To me, it seems like a huge dilution is a way to allow organisms in the flour or elsewhere to establish themselves. I guess if your culture isn't working right, maybe a huge dilution would allow some kind of "reordering" of the dominance of the various organisms.

Sorry you haven't gotten it to work so far.

One last thought. Are you using a container that will reveal a doubling of volume easily? If you are using a bowl, it can be very deceiving what constitutes a "doubling" of volume. I use a 750mL measuring cup with a loose fitting plastic lid for my culture growing. It has marks at 125mL increments, so you can very easily measure volume.

Finally, one last thought on ingredients. Anything special about the flours you are using? Are they fresh, or have they been treated or have any unusual additives?

I'll be very curious to hear more, as you try various things. Darn, it's so easy once it's working, and yet I remember the seemingly interminable struggle with the acid and water problems on my first try at growing a culture from scratch. Good luck getting it firgured out.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

During this whole time it actually did cross my mind to start another starter from scratch just to see if that would be more successful, but I haven't yet - I'm still nursing 'slow poke'. About the flour - this is plain AP flour that has no additives and has not been treated in any way (at least nothing is written on the bag). How fresh is fresh? The date gives 3 - 4 months until expiry date and that is about as fresh as I've ever seen in the supermarket, and I always check. There is only 1 brand of bread flour available and that is enriched including Vit C, but since I have ascorbic acid and the protein content of both are the same (11%), I usually just buy the AP.

One thing in your last post that did ring a bell though was the size of the container you use. In order to be absolutely sure about the doubling in volume, I have been using a marked measuring cup as well so it would be easy to keep track, but mine is only a 1 cup size which made me just remember reading somewhere that for creating a new starter it is necessary to use more than a very small amount to get things established, and later on it is fine to store just a bit in the fridge and build from that as needed. So for this last feed of 1:1:1 with a few drops of vinegar I made 150 grams total whereas before this it was only 70 - 90 grams. Maybe it will make a difference. This mornings feed took almost 12 hours to peak and again did not reach double volume. I'll keep you posted.

L_M

L_M, why don't you try feeding 'slow poke' with a couple of Tbsp. of rye and/or whole wheat flour added to your AP flour for a few feeds. That will allow it to pick up some stronger fresh yeast cells which may be what it needs. If that doesn't improve things, I would also recommend that you start anew and build a starter with the freshest whole grain flour that you can get (health food store).

It is also really not essential for a starter to double in volume to be able to rise a loaf of bread. As long as it has large frothy bubbles on top and many tiny bubbles suspended throughout, it will rise your dough just fine. My favorite starter looks that way and it makes outstanding bread.

L_M, (and hello SourdoLady),

Just for convenience, here is the link back to SourdoLady's starter recipe (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/233), which in my experience is a very reliable method, although I use a lower hydration ratio (1:1 by weight, not volume). Her explanations of "how it works" regarding the rye and/or whole wheat, the acid, and all the other details is excellent.

I think the explanation for the difference between a) SourdoLady's point that a culture that doesn't rise so much but has lots of large and small bubbles will still work and b)my own focus on rising as a good measure of culture health probably is related to the fact that the lower hydration culture in the recipe I follow results in a consistency that is like a very wet dough or a thick batter. In fact, I probably am feeding it with slightly less than 100% hydration and I use either KA AP or KA bread flour, so it's pretty sticky and extensible if you lift some out with a spatula. As a result, it may form a good enough gluten structure at that consistency to normally rise to double in a few hours when fed, if it's working.

Another thought along the same lines is if the AP flour you're using has a lower protein content, like 9% instead of 11, maybe that combined with the breakdown of the gluten caused by the culture is resulting in it not rising so much, especially if your culture is wetter than what I usually do.

In that case, maybe you could try a radical experiment and just make some bread with "slow poke". If it has lots of bubbles, maybe it's good to go, and we've been too focused on rising.

Bill

Hi to all, and thank you SourdoLady for joining in as well. 

 Last night's feed took almost 12 hrs to peak and this morning the "nose" court decided that 'slow poke' is going for a very,very, long vacation into the dark corner in the back of the fridge. It had an unusual smell lately that wasn't horrible but all the same I think enough was enough, and is was time to move on. So, this morning SourdoLady's 'OJ' was born. I used volume instead of weight because that is what the instructions specify, but I will move to weight like I always use, as soon as it is established. Bye now I have quite a lot of containers with discards from slow poke at different stages so I might just try to revive with some whole wheat flour, refresh, build and make some bread, but from my past experiences the results were not very good, which is actually the reason I initially asked for help.

The flour I always use for bread is AP with 11% protein (alternating between 2 different brands) and it does keep it's structure quite well so I don't think it's a low protein problem. Bwraith, as both you and SourdoLady pointed out, a starter with a higher hydration may not double itself, but will have enough strength to make bread may not be the problem in my case because I was using 100% hydration by weight. My main concern was really how long it took to rise a 1:1:1.

Anyhow...I'll probably do a few experiments along the way while I'm waiting for 'OJ' to get going, so thank you all again (especially bwraith) for helping me out and I'll post occasional progress reports. 

L_M

L_M,

Good luck with starting over. My condolences for the loss of "slow poke". I know exactly how you feel about wanting to figure out how to start one on your own from scratch even if you can buy a starter, but I learned a lot from using some of the purchased versions, too. So, I still think Mac's suggestion is worth doing, if you get a chance. It's another point of comparison. I still keep my KA SF starter going, and I occasionally use it instead of my own concoction. The one I finally started from scratch is the one I use most, though.

Meanwhile, hopefully whatever is wrong with "slow poke" will not exist in "son of slow poke". Who knows what's in "slow poke", but hopefully it's just something unique about that culture that will be gone once you start over.

I'll be interested to hear. I'm off to go sailing in the British Virgin Islands for about a week, so I probably won't be able to respond for a while, but I'll check back in as soon as I'm back. Hopefully by then, you'll be in full swing with "son of slow poke". Of course you may likely give it a different name than "son of slow poke".

Bill

Hi brwaith,

I'll be looking forward to posting successful events involving 'OJ'  (or - son of slow poke), made from fresh oj of course, and who knows, I might just purchase a ready made one as well, but I'm sure that will only be after I have created one by myself!

L_M

L_M,

Hah, "OJ", OK that gives me a chuckle, but are you sure that's the name? I was going to suggest "Tenacious", or "Patience".

Bill

First I want to thank SourdoLady for those wonderful instructions! Everything went according to the plan with no problems at all. Around day 4 - 5 it started to get hooch so I gave it 12 hr. feedings, and then I started to give it feeds of 100% hydration by weight at first using 1:1:1 and then 1:2:2 so it would be more convenient for me, since it was moving quite quickly. Yesterday (day 6) I started to build up for the first loaf which I baked today.  I'm sure the started had just peaked when I started to mix the dough, but for some reason the time it took from mix to bake was 11 hours at room temperature 21C - 22C, which was much longer than I expected since the recipe calls for 225 grams of starter added to 500 grams flour. The most disappointing thing is that the bread is much too sour for our liking. I feel like I'm back to square 1    :-(( 

L_M

Hi brwaith,

Hope you enjoyed your trip!

It seems that 'oj' has slowed down to about the same pace as 'slow poke', so even though it is frustrating, I think there are some things that I can now use as comparison from starting this new one. There are several factors that I think I'll just have to isolate and make some observations along the way. One of them being that possibly I have moved on to the 'next stage' too quickly each time as far as increasing the feeding goes without really making sure that it was strong enough and working on a reliable pattern yet. Another one that I noticed was that the activity decreased as the ratio of AP to rye flour increased.

As for the sourness - I certainly don't think I can shed any light at all on the subject of how to make bread more or less sour because even this new starter made my bread too sour (same as slow poke did when it was only a week old as well). This does make me wonder though how long I'm going to keep up trying to make sourdough, because none of us like any of the results so far and I really don't know what to do to get a complex but not sour flavour. One thing I do know is that I need a good strong starter to work with before I can really make any comparisons at all.

The recipe I used is quite basic I think:

225 gm starter (100% hydration)

200 water

340 gm AP flour

40 gm ww flour

10 gm salt

I realize that ww flour makes for a more sour taste so next time I might try it without, but it really isn't very much so I'm not sure whether it will make a difference at all but I'll let you know next time.

L_M

L_M,

After the first revival, i.e. after it doubled in about 7 hours (after about a week in the refrigerator or so), it smells yeasty and is not very sour. In addition to the yeasty smell, it has a little bit of something like banana that is the beginning of some acidity, but it has only a hint of a sour taste at this point.

I put it in the refrigerator, so I'll tell you what it's like tomorrow when I take it out to feed it again. I'm building it back up to use it to do some baking.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

Sounds like you had a very nice time out from the regular day-in day-out routine, so you are probably all 'refreshed' as well!

You have so many interesting ideas of what might be the problem(s) with my starter - maybe you should consider becoming a detective :-))) I'm sure you'd solve each case!

I doubt that the cause for this last bread to be so sour was because my starter was over - ripe but rather it just wasn't strong enough yet to raise the dough and it took a very long time, but again I am not experienced enough to say what is going on inside so anything is possible.

Back to the flour - I understand what you are saying about the possible lack of strength of the AP flour, but it does work very well in a poolish and any other form of dough, and it could be that for sourdough it just isn't strong enough, but there is only one brand of bread flour available and that has 11% protein (same as the AP I use) and the bread flour is enriched so that means introducing all sorts of extras that may or may not effect the delicate balance of the yeast and bacteria. For now I am staying with 1/2 whole rye and 1/2 AP for the feeds at 1:1:1, but actually I am using a bit more water to loosen the texture slightly and it is now somewhere in between a 100% hyrdation and SourdoLady's directions.

The taste test - how sour should it be when the pH is right? Mild, medium or very? If I remember correctly, very often I have found that it smells like bananas when it was already quite bubbly.

I honestly think everything was going fine with 'oj' and then when I got hooch long before the next scheduled feeding time I probably changed too many things too quickly and everything went out of control. Rye was replaced by AP, mixture was thickened to 1:1:1 and fed twice daily, then 1:2:2, and you know the rest of the story...

But, the good news is that 'oj' seems to be recovering and I'd like to take it one step at a time. For now while it is on the counter for the next few days or so and I'm only interested in strengthening and developing the flavour of the starter, and not for making bread yet, what should I do when it peaks in only a few hours? Feed it or let it sit and wait for a 12 hr or 24 hr feeding schedule? I'm sure we'll get this starter going!

L_M

L_M,

If the culture has developed hooch and is very sour, that sounds like a culture where the fermentation has been active long enough to get to a "declining" stage of the culture. I guess that's what makes me wonder if somehow when you switch to the AP version, it really is working fine, but maybe you're letting it run too long waiting for it to rise. Sourdough culture definitely breaks down the gluten in flour, and my understanding is that some flours don't handle it too well, though I haven't had any trouble with KA AP or bread flour using the methods I've described along the way. If somehow there is little yeast in the culture and lots of lactobacillus as a result of it sitting way too long, all the symptoms you've mentioned might be explained.

This morning, I took my refreshed and refrigerated culture out and smelled it and tasted it. It had more of a "tangy" smell, whereas last night it was only yeasty. The taste was not strongly sour, but it was definitely more sour compared to last night just after it had risen by double. Last night there was the slightest hint of sour flavor and hints of that banana-like aroma. I fed it again after tasting it, and tasted again. It was pretty much just flour paste, and it had lost any sense of being sour except maybe the slightest hint. It took 7 hours to rise yesterday after having been stored for a while. Now it has already risen by about 50% after 3 hours or so. It should be doubled by about 5 hours. The ratio was about 5x, i.e. 1:2:2.

I'm probably going to make a "barm" for my baking experiments to be done in the next couple of days, and I'll probably have a chance to taste a two day old refrigerated version of it. I'll let you know what it tastes like when the time comes.

Maybe I'll also leave some of the culture that's rising now out on the counter for a few more hours and see how that tastes.

Bill

L_M,

There can be a big difference between the time between refreshments to maintain a culture and the time you wait after a refreshment to use a culture in making bread.

I think SourdoLady's recipe says you can do daily feedings, leaving it out on the counter. I've read recommendations of twice daily in some recipes when the culture is not put in the refrigerator. You can play with temperature and feeding ratios, too, where higher ratios and lower temperatures should cause the culture to take longer to reach a ripe stage. I think the trick is just to find a repeatable process that results in an vigorously active, reasonable tasting culture in a reliable, repeatable time after a refreshment.

In my case, I refrigerate once it has risen by double, which greatly slows down the activity. The flavor will become more sour even in the refrigerator over the next couple of days. I've had good results with the basic approach of refresh, let it double, refrigerate, repeat, where I refresh repeatedly two or three times, maybe with an overnight refrigeration if inconvenient to repeat refreshments within the day, if I want to get it fully active and ready for bread baking.

Somehow, I keep thinking that if the culture becomes very active in only a few hours when you go back to the basic OJ culture, then the AP should become fully active within a few hours also, although longer than with whole grain flour in it. So, I'm still thinking SourdoLady may have had it right back when she said that rising isn't necessarily the best measure. Large and small bubbles, and tangy smell and flavor, and dropping pH, if they are there, may be a good indication.

Bill

L_M,

I've been doing some experimenting today I thought you would find possibly relevant to your experiences with "slowpoke" and "OJ".

I started with my normal bba style "barm" starter (a 1:1 by weight starter) after it had been refreshed twice today 1:2:2 (using KA bread flour) and has been doubling in volume in 4-5 hours at about 78 degrees F (a shelf above my Bunn coffee maker gets me those temps). I used the slightly higher temperatures just to speed things up a little.

I did three cultures simultaneously from there:

1) I took the recently doubled barm and refreshed with KA bread flour in usual 1:2:2 ratio, my normal procedure - call that the control in this experiment. It is quite sticky after mixing. The taste is essentially just flour paste taste, i.e. not much of any taste at all at this point right after the feeding.

2) I took some of the same recently doubled barm and refreshed in a 1:2:2 ratio using KA "Italian Style Flour", which is stated to be about 8.5% protein content and made from soft red spring wheat. I thought this might be an example of a flour that would have a hard time providing a good rise in a sourdough culture. When I mixed this one, it seemed like pea soup, somewhat different from the sticky, somewhat smooth surface of (1), just above.

3) I took the same barm and just allowed it to continue fermenting. Of course, it already had that yeasty smell along with a hint of an aromatic smell we've been calling "banana". It had only a very moderate sour hint when tasted.

After 3 hours the following was noted:

for 1), It had risen by 50% with lots of bubbles and not quite as strong of a yeasty smell as (2) had, but very notable, nonetheless. However, it was clearly rising "agressively".

for 2), It had only risen slightly - maybe 20%. However, there was a heavy yeasty odor wafting up from it, and there were lots of bubbles throughout, including plenty of medium sized bubbles (say 2.5 mm in diameter).

for 3), It had risen about 30%, and the smell is decidedly more aromatic than yeasty now. The flavor has a clear sour flavor, and the "banana" is more like "tangy" or slightly sharp now, instead of just a hint of "banana".

After 4.5 hours:

for 1), It  has risen to more than double and is beginning to have that banana smell in addition to the yeasty smell.

for 2), It has risen only about 50%, rather than more than double as in (1), but it smells almost the same as (1) above, just beginning to have a banana smell. Also, it continues to have lots of bubbles in it.

for 3), It has risen about 75%, so it has not quite "redoubled", but it isn't that far from it. It now has a decidedly sour smell with a slight sharpness to it. It is still pleasant. The taste is definitely sour and seems headed toward being sharply sour.

I guess right about now is when SourdoLady would be telling me not to pay attention to the rise in (2) above and instead realize it is nice and active with lots of bubbles, yeast smell, and beginning of sour smell and taste.

Meanwhile, (3) is getting to a peak ripeness that should be great for flavoring a dough and has tons of cranking organisms ready to raise a dough.

I will place (1) in the refrigerator and by tomorrow it will be not quite as strong as (3) is right now, but it will have significantly more sour smell than it does now. If I left (1) in the refrigerator for another day, it would probably be very similar to (3) or a little beyond it in sour flavor. It would probably not raise the dough quite as well as it would tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I'm leaving (2) and (3) out. I'll let you know how they are at 6 hours out, when I think (3) will probably stop rising and become very sour/ripe. I think(2) will begin to show significant sour and continue to bubble.

The basic point is that I believe the activity is about the same in (2) as in (1), although it is not rising anywhere near as much. It may well be that your flour has characteristics more like the KA Italian Style flour. Even if the protein levels are somewhat higher than the KA, maybe it contains a particular quality of protein that degrades in sourdough culture and therefore is difficult to get to rise before you've created a very sour culture and subsequent dough, as you've described.

This makes me want to encourage you to find a different flour that is "stronger" to use in your sourdough baking. I say this because even if you take the starter at the 4.5 hour point in my experiment above and use it to make a dough with the same flour, it might not work very well, because the same sourdough conditions will prevail that keep the culture from rising. Of course, this is all just a theory, but I think it fits the description of what's happening very well. I'm pretty sure that if I stuck to the rule of doubling the volume of the KA Italian flour, then used it to make a dough that also has to double, it would take a very, very long time, and it would be very, very sour when I was done.

After 6 hours (added as an edit a little later):

for 1), It was put in the refrigerator with a very mild sour smell (milder than (2) has) which we've both said has some sort of "banana" character to it. It had big bubbles and small bubbles, some were almost 1cm across. It had risen to about 2.5 times over the 6 hours. The yeasty smell was certainly there although milder than (2).

for 2), It has not risen above 50% - just seems stalled there. However, the smells are much stronger than I would have expected. The sour/sharp smell seems more pronounced than in (1), and the sour taste is definitely stronger than in (1). In fact, it seems to now have characteristics more like (3). It doesn't seem as pleasant of a smell or taste as earlier.

for (3), It has risen only slightly since the 4.5 hour point. It has a stronger sharper smell and taste. It isn't quite as pleasant to me as before.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

You certainly have a soughdough lab going there! Those experiments are very interesting and do seem to give a lot of signs leaning towards the fact that your flour theory is correct, BUT, the good news is that 'oj' actually tripled itself last night and had fallen back quite a bit by the morning but there were still large bubbles on the surface and small to medium ones throughout. the taste was very sour and sharp, quite like the container of discards left in the fridge from the past few days.

I must go now, but I'll continue later on today - I just wanted to give you a short update so far. Thanks again for helping me so much with all of your time and experience.

L_M

L_M,

Now it's about 18 hours after these experiments were fed.

I left 1) from my previous post out overnight. It has a very strong sour taste and has fallen back to about 50% of its peak.

2) Has a banana and chalk smell. The sour flavor is strong but a little unpleasant.

I also took some of (2) last night when it was about 6 hours old and I fed it 1:2:2 with bread flour. It rose to double in about 4 hours at 78F, so it behaved normally for a vigorous culture.

So, it at least is an example of how a flour that doesn't rise properly because of the protein quality/content can still create a vibrant culture. However, I think you have to switch to using bubbles, taste, smell, and time/temperature, as the indicators of when the culture is good.

Maybe your flour is fine, but I still say that your culture should be taking more like 4-6 hours at 21C to bubble up and begin to be ripe, so if you are detecting bubbles, and the beginning of sour flavor and taste in your "white flour" culture after 5-6 hours, it's probably already ripe, based on the vigorous activity of OJ, even though it did not rise.

To me the flavors are fairly subtle at the end of 4-5 hours. The yeasty smell is more noticeable. At the end of 9 hours, the sour taste and smells were more pronounced. Nest morning, yes, they were very strongly sour smelling and tasting and had fallen. Also, by the way, for some reason (2) had a particularly strong banana smell compared to the higher protein ones this morning (after about 18hrs), and there was something like chalk, if you can believe it that seemed to be in the low protein one.

Sorry if all this is way more than you ever wanted to hear, but it seemed interesting to try to make a "non-rising" 1:1 culture, and also useful to try to show how the bubbles, flavors, and smells developed in it compared to the process with a stronger flour.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

I can't believe it ! After typing a long detailed answer/experiment/observations I must have clicked on something and it all dissappeared :-(((( and now I'm all typed out. Anyhow in short for now, I checked the starter with a pH meter when it had doubled and was full of tiny and small bubbles and smelled faintly of bananas. The reading was 4.27. Then an hour later it had medium surface bubbles and tasted even a bit sourer (still smelled of bananas) - the reading was 4.17. Newly fed starter 1:1:1 with all AP this time read 5.04 and tastes mostly just of flour with a tiny hint of sourness. Is there a reading or range that would give an optimum for maximum yeast population before they start to die off?

I have to go again, but I will be back...

L_M

Val, I don't have the pH meter with me here so I will only be able to check out the brand name for you tomorrow. I do know that it was made for measuring liquids, so I hope the readings I got were correct.

 Bwraith, I'm back after some more tasting and smelling. Sorry if my last post wasn't too clear... essentially this afternoon I fed 'oj' 1:1:1 after about 7 hours and for the first time it was all AP flour. Earlier on, at about 5 hrs it had risen about 75%, started smelling like bananas and was medium sour tasting. At 6 hrs I checked the pH and it was 4.27. At 7 hrs I fed it and the taste of the unfed portion was stronger and when mixed the smell was not as pleasant as before - more sour and yeast like. The pH of the unfed portion was 4.17 and the newly fed was 5.04. The stirred down unfed portion continued to rise, full of small and medium bubbles, and a few large ones on the surface - and this time it rose til tripled and then collapsed. The taste was really sour and sharp and smells like yeast with a touch of alcohol. The fed portion has now risen by about 75% and is still rising, has lots of small bubbles throughout and on the surface some medium ones, smells like bananas and tastes quite sour. This is the same time period as before to get to the same stage, which still sounds a bit slow, unless all I'm looking for is very small bubbles, no real banana smell, and only mildly sour taste, which would be about 4 hours.

Back to the flour - for the time being I haven't found any flour here that is stonger than 11%, but I will keep looking. At this point I don't think I'll venture into ordering flour from overseas so I really have to make do with what is available, but I can easily add gluten if that will help. I feel that if I blame it all on the flour then for me that will be  giving up... and I am nowhere near giving up! Your experiments have been very helpful to me demonstrating the differences and pointing out the characteristics of the stages along the way.

I think I'll still wait until 'oj' speeds up a bit before trying to make bread.

More reports tomorrow

L_M

L_M,

I understand your issue of just having certain sources of flour. I have not found mail ordering flour to be that bad of a deal, but I'm in the US. However, it is not at all off the mark to want to just use your local ingredients anyway. You probably can use gluten if a recipe requires a stronger flour. I guess the thing that's a little tricky is that sourdough is hard on gluten, so you'll have difficulties making certain recipes that count on a long rise with lots of sourdough activity for an extended period, as those recipes may just not work well without stronger flour. Maybe others have comments on how to best judge how/when to adjust recipes if you only have AP flour.

You may want to try to work with creating sourdough preferments that allow you to add the nice sourdough flavor and then perhaps use yeast to raise the final dough, so that it doesn't take as long and will therefore not break down the gluten in the flour. Also, good folding techniques and less early mixing can do wonders. In fact, it wasn't until I started using those techniques, which are well described in the Glezer book, and (my favorite on the whole mixing/folding process) Hamelman's Bread, that I really was able to get good results from somewhat lower protein organic sifted whole flours.

Good luck with it. It sounds like you have a good culture and maybe you can now get reasonable flavor out of an AP style culture by timing/watching pH/smell/taste. I'll be very curious to hear the results as you begin to make some bread with it.

Bill

Val,  the pH meter is made for industrial use and it is 'Metrohm' from Switzerland. Hope that info can help you a bit.

Bwraith, the progress seems to be just about the same as yesterday. Last night I fed it 1:2:2 just to make sure it would last through the night and it took about 8 hours. Todays feed of 1:2:2 was just about the same and I'm going to try and make sure I don't let it sit for too long from now on, just in case this was causing a gradual decrease in yeast population as you suggested might be happening. In addition, if 'oj' doesn't start ripening a bit faster I will loosen the texture to something like 125% hydration at first to see if that helps and then for sure I'll be looking for bubbles/smell/taste rather than a rise.

When I finally get some bread going here, I really hope we are going to like it! If not, then I imagine using a sourdough preferment would be the next best choice. In the meantime I always use some of the discards that I save in the fridge and add some to whatever I'm baking for extra flavour, so that is sort of the same idea but on a smaller scale.

Generally I add gluten to a recipe that calls for grains or if I want it really chewy, and hopefully it will help the dough stand up to the tough sourdough conditions as well.

I'll keep you posted

L_M

Yes, I should have done this a long time ago but bwraith just inspired me with all of those wonderful pictures on another thread, so I decided to whip out the old camera...

I seem to be having a bit of trouble organizing them in the post, but the top and bottom pictures are 11 1/2 hours after 'oj's meal last night and had risen about 60%. The middle 2 are after 13 hours and have risen only a little bit more.

 At what stage should I feed? Maybe even earlier or later than the pictures? The smell wasn't too different between them, but at 13 hours it was more sour tasting.

All opinions welcome - thanks

L_M

start 1 -a

starter 2 astarter 2starter

In your middle pictures I can see that the surface of the starter looks like it has a small depression in the center. That is an indication that it has reached its peak and should be fed again.

Last night I was reading in Hammelman's book and he says that the rise in the first several hours is not from the yeast multiplying but rather from the gases produced during fermentation. If you let it go 8+ hours then the yeast start to multiply. With that in mind, maybe your next feeding will give you more volume. Just thought I'd pass that tidbit on.

Thanks to both of you for the input. The dip in the middle picture started about 1/2 hour before I took the picture and fed it.  The rise usually takes a long time to get going and goes faster towards the last third. This time after a few hours I put it in the oven with just the light on to see if it would speed things up - well it certainly did, but unfortunately it got to 32 C, so I won't be doing that again. So with that extra heat it has now taken 9 hours and it looks ready again, but this time it rose to double! Hopefully the flour is ok after all.

So as before, I'm not really sure when to feed. when it dips or earlier? My main corncern of course is that I want good textured bread that isn't sour.

L_M

L_M,

I think if you want less sour results, try to feed it before it gets to the point where it is dropping in the middle. Sometime around 1/2 hour or even an hour before you think that dip occurs might be worth a try.

I think you will find that the culture will become more vigorous if you repeat at a more frequent rate, i.e. before the dip in the middle of the culture happens, because I think right now the culture may be suffering from being fed too infrequently. Sorry if that turns out to be wrong.

Also, I think the culture will become somewhat milder in flavor if you don't let it ripen as much each time.

I see what you mean about the oven light being too hot.

Bill

Val, thanks for your feedback. I've ordered the DVDs so maybe I'll feel confident enough not to have to make the drive. Or at least make the drive during the summertime when weather isn't an issue.

Val that did ring a bell - when I first got 'oj' going I did stir a few times a day and things progressed very quickly but for some reason I stopped, so I'll try that today and see if it helps to wake these guys up. The instructions you quoted from KA actually call for feeding the starter 1:1:1 once a day as a daily routine. Is that really enough for a starter that is active?

Today's feed was at the 11 hour picture stage and again it did take 11 hours to get there with about 70% rise. Bwraith it certainly makes sense to me about not waiting too long in between feeds if I want a very mild flavour in the bread. At this point (and I believe this is exactly what was happening with 'slow poke') I think the starter is not balanced correctly and when I get that solved, fine tuning in the bread will probably be a lot easier. I truely feel that it is something I'm doing wrong and not the flour or the culture itself, and I'm open to all ideas to get things back in balance, but keeping the starter at a controlled temperature (other than room temp) seems to very difficult for me. Let's see if the stirring helps.

L_M

L_M,

There is a difference between maintenance mode and refreshment mode. All you need in maintenance mode is a process that keeps the culture alive and in a state that reliably allows you to bring it into readiness for bread making, which I'll call "refreshment mode". The upper part of Val's instructions is for maintenance mode. She can feed it once per day at 1:1:1, and the culture stays alive indefinitely. However, the culture is not ready for bread making until the lower instructions for "refreshment mode" are used. Refreshment mode is where you feed it repeatedly a few times. The time between feedings in refreshment mode is more like 5-10 hours. The objective of refreshment mode is to bring the culture into a an active cycle of refreshments that should be happening in less than 8 hours, typically. In Val's instructions, you feed 1:2:2, and it refers to times from 6 to 8 hours. It says "minimum" 6 hours, but actually, there is a maximum too. You can't let the culture become too ripe either, which is one of the points in "The Bread Builders" discussion I was mentioning.

I think you are right now in refreshment mode. You want to know that the culture is in a reliable vigorous cycle.

I would suggest the following:

The culture should be in a cycle more or less like:

• Quiet phase - after feeding for a few hours.
• Rising phase - the majority of the rise (even if not double) happens.
• Ripening - the rising is much slower, a dip occurs in the middle, increase in sour flavor and tangy, sweet pleasant smell.
• Decline - the dough falls back and becomes sharper smelling, maybe not as pleasant.

Try to feed the culture at the end of the rising phase - lean a little earlier in the cycle - a few times and see if it helps. It may be that it will do better and the time to get to the end of the rising phase will be shorter.

Bill

The stirring hasn't seemed to make much of a difference but I'll keep it up for the rest of the time until the next feed. Brwaith I'll try feeding a bit earlier and see if there is any improvement in the time it takes to rise after a few meals. One question about the two 'modes'. If for some reason when you were getting ready for a bake and you wanted to move into  'refreshment mode' and the starter didn't react as you had expected - let's say you saw that it was going to take much longer than your usual 8 hours for the first 'revival' feed. Wouldn't you wait until you felt it was ready to be fed? The reason I ask is that all of the instructions in recipes and books are for 'when everything is going well' and the rise times etc are within the normal range. Do you feel that if 'everything is not going well' as in my case, feeding a bit early will help re-establish a healthy balance by diluting whatever shouldn't be there in such high concentration, but at the same time hoping it's not the yeast I"m diluting? More news when it happens...

L_M

Hi Bill,

Yes I have been following this thread all along. It is interesting to read all the variances between the baker's cultures, isn't it? I have come to realize that there are many ways to achieve the end result that you are striving for and conditions are so different from one kitchen to another that it is impossible to have one way that works for everyone. Keeps life interesting, huh? I do believe that temperature in proofing is a huge factor in getting higher volume during the proofing. 

The page I was reading on in Hamelman (took me awhile to find it again) is page 55 on the bottom. While he isn't specifically talking about sourdough yeast, I'm sure all yeasts reproduce in the same fashion.

Good luck to you and L_M with all your experiments!

L_M,

In another recent posting someone asked Shristi about how the starter is being handled. I hope this is OK to just quote and comment here, and that Shristi won't mind. If not, sorry...

Shristi said: 

->My starter  is at 100%

->After making a bread I save a little bit of starter (about a 1/4 to 1/8 cup). I add 100gms of h2o & 100gms of flour to it and mix it up. Leave on the counter for an hour and then put it in the fridge. Then when I want o make the next bread I take it out of the fridge leave it out for an hour and add 100gms each of flour & water again and leave it on the counter for 7-8 hours or until it's really rising nicely and super fluffy. Then I am ready to make the dough with it!

--->end of Shristi quote...

So for "maintenance mode" Shristi just feeds it what looks kind of like 1:2:2 or so, leaves it out for an hour, and then refrigerates it. This way it is still quite immature and has lots of food left, and even though going at colder temperatures, it can bubble gently away in the refrigerator at very slow speed for a while. I don't know how long Shristi leaves it in the refrigerator between uses.

For "refreshment mode" the feeding looks like about 1:1:1 and leaves it out at room temp for 7-8 hours until it is fluffy and rising nicely (like end of phase 2). I think that since it goes in the refrigerator after only an hour, the culture can go longer before shutting down and declining. So, maybe that's why it can be completely refreshed with only one feeding. Mine would normally take 2 feedings, if I do it a week later. If I do it the next day, though, it could be only one feeding, even though I wait until the culture is more toward the end of Phase 2.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

Here we go : the quiet phase lasts for about 4-5 hours

                  the rising phase is most evident from 7-10 hours

                  the ripening phase is from 11-14 hours

                  the decline is about 14-16 hours (I think)

This is all a rough outline of course. This evening I fed after 10 hours and the periodic stirring during the day didn't seem to make a difference at all. My scheduling was a bit off so I fed it 1:3:3 so it will last through the night and not get over ripe in the meantime (my vicious circle).

Your last post to SourdoLady got me thinking again about the flour...when I stir down the starter before it's meal, it is still very strong and elastic and not at all like pea soup or paste or anything of that sort. Even the left overs that are in the fridge for a day or two are still very elastic and the gluten hasn't weakened that much. Very often I make a double batch of yeasted dough using left over starter, yogurt, and even some ascorbic acid. I mix it in the mixer until I get a very, very thin and clear windowpane. Then it goes through a bulk fermentation of about 3-4 hours.  Then I shape, put 1 loaf or some buns in the fridge for tomorrow and proof and bake the rest. The loaves that have been retarded usually are only about 10% smaller in size than the same day baked ones so in this case the flour seems to hold out very well. In this particular bread I add oats so I also add about 1 teasp gluten per loaf, but if there were no oats I wouldn't add the gluten and it also keeps it's strength.

 The other thing I remembered is that when the starter got very hot from being in the oven with the light on, it did double, which seems to correspond with SourdoLady's remark above about temperature being a huge factor in getting higher volume.

I really think (hope) everything will be within the normal range once these yeast really get going.

L_M

L_M,

Well, I have to admit that the fact the culture still seems sticky and elastic at the end of say 10-11 hours, doesn't fit my theory very well regarding the flour. After I did the test with KA Italian flour, it seemed so similar to your descriptions in other ways, that it made me think the flour quality is involved. Also, the fact the culture behaves normally until you try to switch to all AP seems to indicate the AP flour could be a problem. However, the KA Italian flour starter turned to pea soup very quickly.

I don't know if the behavior of the flour with yeasted dough is such good evidence of the flour's performance, though. The sourdough culture has a much stronger deteriorating effect on gluten compared to a regular yeast dough.

All in all, I still think it would be worth trying to feed more like at the end of 10 hours, i.e. at the end of phase 2, rather than any later. It just fits written instructions, explanations of the timing of growth, and real examples better. The only part that is mystifying is why what seems to be good flour won't rise. It still may be simply that the culture is out of balance due to letting it run too long between feedings.

Another interesting test might be to try to add flour to some of the starter when it is about 8-10 hours old, enough to get about 65% hydration overall and knead it into a dough, let it sit a couple of hours, fold it a few times, and see whether you get a good windowpane result. That might give some idea of the quality of the gluten in your flour when exposed to a sourdough culture. For example, if you have 100 grams of 8-10 hour old starter, add 30 grams of flour to that, (OK 62.5% hydration), and then make a dough out of it, let sit a few hours, fold a few times to develop the gluten, and see how the windowpane test comes out.

Sorry, I know every time you post, I throw out eight things to try.

I'm very interested to hear how it all goes. Sorry nothing has worked yet, but I think it must be close to working, or you wouldn't have bubbles, rising, and a life cycle, as you've already posted.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

No need to be sorry - I'm learning a lot from all of this - the experiment is under way! It's been 4 hours already and the gluten is developing nicely but so far in my attempts at the NK bread using yeast, I don't feel the gluten gets as stretchy as when I mix in the mixer even with quite a few 'stretch  and folds' along the way.

The example of my yeasted bread does have about 50 grams of old starter per loaf in it, and I realise that it is only a small amount, but I imagine it would have some effect, and this is of course after I have fully developed the gluten during the mix. For some reason I find that I get the best volume for same day baked loaves that way.

Last nights feed of 1:3:3 went well. It took 12 hours to get to nearing the end of the rising stage and it had increased by about 90%. It could be that we are on the way to correcting the balance. The fact that with the larger feed ratio the time was just slightly more than before sound promising. Maybe 'oj' is a hungry fellow and would be happier with meals like this all the time. If again the timing works out that way, I'll feed it a big meal at night again.

I'll let you know when the gluten starts to fall apart in our experiment

L_M

L_M,

The idea of making dough just by adding flour to the mature starter may not tell all that much. I think it should be a fairly difficult test for the flour to pass. The mature culture should have done some serious damage to the gluten in the culture flour, then you only add a relatively small amount of fresh flour and let the culture work on it for a while too. So, it might not mean all that much if the gluten is not good after that, but if the gluten is still OK after all that, then the flour held up well against a sourdough culture. At least it might give you some idea of how it behaves relative to yeasted dough you've made with the same flour.

I agree that while you're in "refreshment mode", if you want to leave the culture out on the counter longer, it makes sense to feed it in a higher ratio. However, since the culture population should grow exponentially during part of phase 1 and all of phase 2 (Bread Builders talks of "doubling times" for the population), then increasing the ratio from 1:2:2 to 1:3:3 shouldn't make a huge difference in time. In other words, if it takes 2 hours to double the population, then you have to double the ratio to get it to take 2 more hours (theoretically). OK, so your mileage may vary. However, by going from 1:2:2 to 1:3:3, you probably only add about an hour to the time when it will reach the end of phase 2, let's say, because it's only a ratio of 7/5, i.e. not even a 50% increase in fresh flour and water.

Don't forget temperature is a great tool also. If you have a cool spot for the night, you can slow down the process that way probably as much or more than a large feeding.

Paraphrasing some tips for "Routine Care of a Leaven" from The Bread Builders:

• Allow your leaven refreshments to ferment at 70-75F (21-24C) so neither yeast nor bacteria are favored.
• Only store leaven that is active enough, i.e. you know it would be ripe and bubbly in eight hours or less at room temperature. If not, continue to expand/refresh at room temperature until it is. (To me this means you want to get to the end of phase 2 before 8 hours at room temp, if things are working right).
• If you will use a leaven the next day, let it ferment for 5-6 hours at room temp and refrigerate it. (This is my usual way of doing it)
• If you will use a leaven in three days, let it ferment at room temp for three hours and put it away (heading toward Srishti's approach)
• If you will use it in a week, let it ferment for only an hour before refrigerating (Srishti's method).
• Refresh leavens before they become soupy. Gluten softens at pH of 3.7; L sanfranciscensis dies at pH of 3.6.

Also, interesting advice from The Bread Builders (paraphrased):

-> Refreshment schedules are dependent on temperature. A culture that might be stable when refreshed once every few days at refrigerator temperature should be refreshed twice a day at 57F and four times a day at 75F, as in the classic French three-leaven method.

This quote refers to "refreshment mode" once again, not "maintenance mode". Actually, I kind of want to change maintenance mode to "storage mode" or "stalling mode".

I hope the above gives some further feel for some typical approaches.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

The dough held up for quite a few hours but I never really got a great window pane. When I checked again lately, which is about 13 hours into the experiment I could see it had lost some of it's strength and when I tried to gently stretch and fold it, all I had  was soft dough that was ripping.

'oj's feed was again about 10 hours, and had risen to only about 60%. There doesn't seem to be any improvement as far as time or volume goes. What you pointed out about increasing the ratio makes sense and I decided this evening to give it a much higher ratio feed - 1:5:5 - first of all to last though the night, and secondly because I feel that it might be a more drastic way to clean out the acidity and get things back in balance. I've got to find something that works already...

'Storage mode' sounds like a very appropriate name. The methods suggested in the book all sound quite convenient and could easily fit into my schedule, but I'd like to wait with 'storage mode' until I'm sure it can be activated enough to make bread with.

Hope 'oj' likes his big meal

L_M 

L_M,

Well the last dough making/window pane test may not mean a lot, but at least you can say that you don't get good gluten results with a heavy dose of your culture in it.

I hesitate even to begin to suggest yet another thing, but...

What if you took some 8 hour old starter and make a typical dough out of it, i.e. a 65% hydration, 30% of the flour being starter.

For example, 100 grams of 8 hour old starter mixed with 100 grams of flour and 45 grams of water, so you get a total of 150 grams of flour mixed with 95 grams of water. Knead that normally and just see if you get a good windowpane test on that right after proper kneading and then a few hours later when it would have risen if things were going better than they are at the moment. If you don't get a good gluten test sometime during that test - like right after kneading, then that could indicate a problem with the flour, as that would be pretty much a typical situation. If you are able to get a good gluten test with regular yeast, then this test should have a good chance of succeeding.

You said you put some ascorbic acid in your yeast dough. I was curious if this was to help strengthen the gluten in your yeast breads.

At least doing some more dough making tests might give you another feel for what is happening with the flour and how your culture affects it.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

It sounds lke a good test - if it is too small for the mixer I'll knead it by hand. Come to think of it, at the moment I don't have very much starter rising so it will only be a 1/2 batch. Yesterday's test is still sitting in a bowl on the counter and by now it has turned into nothing more than a puffy, stringy, mess.

The feed of 1:5:5 took 14 hours, but unfortunately I think I caught it a the point where it had already finished rising but it did increase by about 90 %. So far I seem to get a better rise with a higher ratio feed. Any ideas why? This morning I gave it 1:5:5 again, and I'll keep an eye on it to make sure I catch it earlier.

Ascorbic acid : I've read it does strengthen the gluten but I haven't done any back to back tests to really know if it works, so sometimes I add and sometimes I don't. Another thing I"m not sure of, if it's actually the ascorbic acid that is doing something or just the fact that it slightly lowers the pH, because I've also read that adding lemon juice or vinegar is just as effective.  

Test results will follow...

L_M

When you add the water for feeding the starter, do you use room temperature or warmish, like baby bottle temp water? I've been using room temp. Maybe that is one reason mine takes so long to get going - next feed I'll use warmer and see if it makes a difference.

L_M

Elagins@sbcglobal.net

Hi all; been following the thread with considerable interest and am surprised that no one has mentioned Nancy Silverton/Breads from the La Brea Bakery. She bakes exclusively with wild yeasts and has not only detailed instructions on growing and feeding starters, but also on creating different kinds of starters for different kinds of breads, e.g., whole wheat starters and rye sours.

Almost all of my "creative" baking is with wild yeasts (I use commercial for things like sandwich bread, english muffins, and pizza crust). I've found that wheat starters (unlike rye, which is very finicky) can be neglected pretty heavily. As long as there's one viable organism in the mess, it will spring back to life after a few feedings (incidentally, i like to keep my starters looking like stiff pancake batter, so it's usually at least 1:1, and often more like 1:1.2).

The trick to sour isn't in the yeast as much as it is in the bacteria, of which there are two kinds to worry about. one produces lactic acid as a byproduct and the other produces acetic acid. the lactic acid guys like cold and the acetics like warm, so the trick is to let your starters triple in volume in a warm environment, then refrigerate it at least overnight to promote the lactic acid.

Often, when i make sourdough bread, i'll raise the dough over 2 or 3 days. day 1 refresh starter and grow preferment (refrigerate); day 2 ferment dough and shape loaves (rise and refrigerate); day 3 proof at room temperature and bake. one of the things i love most about doing it this way is that authentic sourdough crust, covered with those tiny little bubbles all over -- to me, the sign of a properly prepared and respected sourdough.

Again, i strongly recommend Nancy Silverton's book for anyone who's seriously into wild yeasts ... also Peter Reinhart has written some very good stuff on sourdoughs in The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Enjoy!!!!

L_M,

On the optimistic and hopeful side, I'm hoping the reason it's rising higher is because maybe you are catching it earlier and the yeast is getting ready to crank up more, i.e. you hopefully will get both the yeast and the lactobacillus going. I think by letting it ripen too much may have ended up with more lactobacillus and not much yeast, which I think would explain a sluggish, very sour culture.

The higher feeding ratio means that you will delay the point where phase 2 comes to an end. The trick is to try to monitor the culture to feed it at the end of phase 2, regardless of what feeding ratio you use. Your approach of using a higher feeding ratio if you plan to wait longer before a feeding is good. If you can, going back to 1:2:2 or so would be good, but still trying to feed it at the end of phase 2, which should be a couple of hours earlier with that ratio, if you have a chance to monitor it. What I'm hoping is that you will see the culture pick up, so that you could feed it twice in one day at 1:2:2 with less than 8 hours between feedings. If you also get a doubling of the culture within 8 hours, then I think it's really working.

As far as water, I would try to have the temperature of the culture end up at about room temperature. So, when I take the culture out of the refrigerator, I do put in water that is up around 90F to help bring the culture up in temperature. However, if you have your culture sitting at room temperature already, I would just add water at room temperature. At around room temperature you will not favor the lactobacillus. At temperatures much above or much below about room temperature, you begin to favor the lactobacillus.

Bill

Hi bwraith,

Perfect timing - still rising but probably nearing the end. It took 12 1/2 hours and increased in volume by about 90%. The experiment will have to wait for tomorrow because I just didn't have enough starter to work with, so tonight I fed again 1:5:5 (with room temp water) but built it up so I'll have enough. Tomorrow I'll go back to 1:2:2 and hopefully it will now be faster and I'll be able to feed twice during the day as you suggested.

I'm very pleased that others have joined in as well, and thanks for the ideas and comments.

L_M

The thread is so long, I didn't realize there is a second page!  I just wanted to add that I have been baking in China with low gluten flour and found that by adding an egg white to every loaf  (measured with the water and after my poolish has stood while I'm combining my loaf ingredients together), the stretch and shape of my dough improved a lot.  My gasses weren't escaping and it could hold itself up in the oven.  I couldn't find gluten to add and eggs was a cheap alternative.  Just a thought... :)  

Last  night's feed of 1:5:5 took only 11 hours this time and again it rose by about 90% and was still going. I divided it up and used 100 grams in the experiment and the rest I fed at 1:2:2.  It was later than the 8 hrs that you suggested bwraith but anyhow I mananged to get a good windowpane after a several 'stretch and folds' along the way. At about 5 hours it was best, and by 6 hours it had already started to become slightly weaker. I believe that is actually a greater amount of starter than called for in a usual recipe, and if I can get it rising fast enough, I think the flour may hold out possibly with a bit of help from gluten or egg whites as Mini Oven has suggested.

My main concern is now back with 'oj'. It has been 9 1/2 hours now since this mornings 1:2:2 feed and it has only risen by just under 50%, but it isn't ready yet. It seems that there is more activity when I give a higher ratio feed.

I'll post final rising time and volume later.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

The results are : 11 hours and just over 50% rise, and the taste was certainly sour. The smell is pleasant until I mix it, and then it gets stronger but it doesn't smell odd or overly sour. During the day I can easliy feed after 6 hours regardless of how well developed it is but I am concerned that it might be diluting the yeast if I use that as a regular routine.

For tonight I gave it a very large meal 1:8:8 so I'll be sure to catch it on time, and tomorrow I can split it, feed part like you have suggested and the other part in a large ratio feed, which so far I have found seems to get the starter more active. I think I'll try this back to back experiment for a few feeds to see if we can get some conclusive results.

I guess you can imagine that I would really like to make some bread out of this starter by now...

L_M  

So bwraith, you really think I need yeast for actually making some bread? lol - maybe that's why it isn't working! There is no yeast smell around here - only bananas. The only day I had a beery, yeasty smell was around day 5 -6  after I started 'oj' and then it disappeared and never returned.

Last night's feed of 1:8:8 lasted 15 hours and increased by almost 90%. This morning I divided the starter and went ahead with the experiment I mentioned in my last post, so maybe after a few meals we'll see which method is more successful. The reason I am trying out this high ratio feed method for a few consecutive feedings is because after seaching high and wide in my books and on the net, I have found a  few places that mention how to revive a starter if nothing else works using this method, so I thought along with everything else I'd give it a try. Mind you I have no idea whether these are reliable sources or not, but we'll see if it works. I'll let you know how everything looks, smells and tastes at the 6 hour feed.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

Nothing really new to report this time after the 6 hour feed -  just more of the same. No yeast smell, a few bubbles, a slight rise, and medium sour taste. But, there is always hope that tomorrow will be the day it just takes off. You have really been a terrific coach, and I appreciate all the time and effort you have put into this for me. Something will work - it's just a matter of finding the right combination, and I hope we are getting close. To start off with I"ll add a bit of whole rye and make sure to cut down the length of time between feeds as you have suggested, and we'll see how that goes before adding the ascorbic acid. 

Simple routine....hmmm that does sound nice.

L_M

I know what I was told regarding a firm starter but I'm not sure if it applies to a batter starter.   I've read a batter starter must be fed more often but I only know that from reading and not by experience so I'm wondering if what works for firm starters could apply here...?

I can tell you that I have an extremely vigorous firm starter going now - Maggie Glezer's - and when I was having problems getting it to quadruple in the 8 hours or less called for I found I was actually feeding it too often by watching the clock and not the behavior of my starter.   When it is fed too often somehow the organisms get diluted and it becomes weaker and weaker.  I was told not to be so concerned about the hour of feeding rather to make sure I allowed it to fully rise and then fall before I fed it again.   And that overfeeding the starter was a sure way to kill it. 

I learned the "quadrupling in 8 hours or less" was only to tell me it was ready to bake bread with but the most important thing was to wait for it to rise and then collapse.  And then I could even wait another 12 hours after that quadrupling, which is the beauty of a firm starter, to feed it again because it is so packed with flour that the pH falls slowly, and there is plenty of sugar for the flora.

With this starter you do not have to use so much flour to refresh and you get an extremely strong starter that takes a tiny amount for a recipe.  I refreshed it today and in just 4 hours so far it has already more than tripled so that shows me a huge improvement when I followed the above instructions.

Hi bwraith,

Today I started digging into the fridge to see what was going on in all of those containers with left overs - and I have quite a few by now! The oldest one is about a month old, and in it a 1/2 cm layer of gray hooch has formed. Next, the 2 weeks old one smells like apples and alcohol and there are lots of small bubbles and just a tiny bit of hooch. Then there are the recent ones of up to 1 week old, and one of yesterdays feedings and both smell very alive (strong banana?? Could it be that this is a yeast smell after all?) with a touch of alcohol, and lots of medium to big bubbles. Aren't these all good signs - just like one would find with a starter that is healthy and is in 'storage mode' in the fridge?

After posting last night I realised that in order to discover what will really make a difference in my experiments, I needed to make them more extreme. The 1:2:2 will continue to be fed at 6 hour intervals regardless of the stage it's in (and that means it looks like it is somewhere between the quiet and rising stage), and the high ratio feed will get fed when it looks like it has pretty well risen all it's going to.

Val - that certainly is a different way to look at what is going on inside, and gives another explanation as to why the stirring helps.

zolablue - I have also read that a firm starter rises faster and keeps longer than a thin one, and that the time to feed it is just after it starts to fall.

Oh dear - I'm getting kind of jealous of all these fast moving starts! lol  After I get this all worked out I'm sure I'll try different textures and methods to see what works best for me.

Thanks again to everyone for trying to help

L_M

Hi bwraith,

You are right - I have a lot of patience, but to tell you the truth by now I'm starting to wonder if this is ever going to work, and I certainly don't know what is or isn't growing in there. But...as you suggested, I've made it into a more liquid culture for now since I know that it worked well that way in the beginning. During the day I feed it every 6 hours and at night I feed it a higher ratio so it will last. There are some bubbles but not that many and certainly no frothing yet. The other high ratio feeding starter seems to be improving as far as time goes and it does get quite bubbly, so we'll see.

I'll let you know if anything new happens.

L_M

Yes folks, we have hooch - so at least something is happening. This morning there was about 1/2 teasp of hooch and the rest of it was very foamy when I stirred. This morniing and afternoon's feed was 1:2:3 (starter: flour: water) by weight. I was about 1 hr late for this afternoons feed (7 hours) and there was a little bit of hooch starting again. This brings me back to exactly what happenned on about day 5 - 6 with 'oj'. It was just about the same consistancy, and I had already moved into using AP flour. The hooch came, I thickened the culture to 100% hrydation, started feeding more and things went off track. This time I'd like to stay on track! So far it isn't easy to see the stages it's going through because it just gets foamy only a few bubbles and no frothing. Should I stay with the 6 hour feed intervals, and what about at night - feed it more or just let it go til the morning? I want to keep this one happy - so far the thinner consistancy seems to be  a winner. The only reason I changed into a thicker one before is because it seems to be more popular and any recipe conversions or changes just seem to be easier with a straight forward 1:1, but if 'oj' is happier like this then I'll stick with it. This sounds very familiar.... (kids)

L_M 

Hi brwaith,

It seems that 'oj' is still happy in this thin consistancy, and lasts for about 6 hours at the most before the hooch starts forming at a feeding of 1:2:3. I guess that means either he is just a hungry fellow, or things still need to stablize before it will last a bit longer until the hooch forms. When looking at other posts and threads there certainly does seem to be quite a range of what people consider to be an adequate amount of food for maintaining a culture at room temp, and how they go about it.

The high ratio feed experiment of 1:8:8 at 100% hydration is still chugging along, and it seems to be doing ok. It usually takes about 12 - 15 hours to get nice and bubbly and it rises anywhere from 80%-90%, so there is still hope that this will work out as well.

Tomorrow I will experiment to see how long each of them take at 1:1:1

When I do finally get around to making bread, I will try to get the dough ready for the oven as soon as possible, and hopefully the addition of a bit of gluten and ascorbic acid will keep it strong enough to last.

I'll let you know how it goes

L_M

L_M, I think you should mix up a small batch of dough and give OJ a try. I'll bet you will be surprised that your loaf will rise just fine. I have baked many a fine loaf with starter that didn't double in the proofing stage. What do you have to lose but a few cups of flour?

Well at least I hope it will turn out ok. You are right SourdoLady, enough playing around - time for business! During the day I saved all of my experiments, and when each seemed ready I put it in the fridge. When I had enough I put them all together added flour (with a bit of gluten and ascorbic acid), water and salt. Now it is rising and so far the dough feels good, but that's all I can say at this point.

This is still all quite a mystery to me. The only sign I get constantly is a change of smell after a few hours. First it is just flour and water and then it starts to aquire this banana smell which is probably yeast, but doesn't smell like dough with instant yeast. Other than that it's pretty hard for me to tell what's going on. No big bubbles, no great rise, no frothing, just foamy which is pretty hard to see until it's mixed. I also tried using 125% hydration and that does seem to slow down the formation of hooch, but the other signs still missing. With the 100% hydration the medium - big bubbles do appear but it takes a long time and if your theory is correct bwraith, then I shouldn't be waiting that long. So, I'll see how the bread turns out and that may add a few pieces to the puzzle.

L_M 

Hi L_M,

I hope your bread experiment goes well. For what it's worth, I've been out at a cabin in Montana for one of my kid's school breaks, and I only had some yeast and some very nice flours from "Wheat Montana". I made some ciabattas for sandwiches, a miche-like bread and what turned out to be a favorite, a focaccia with about 3 cups of pears in it. I made all the breads starting with a poolish I expanded a few times during the week, and it did not smell anything like my sourdough culture after it bubbled up. To me the poolish had almost a wet paint smell after it started bubbling and was even more that way after being in the refrigerator for a while. So, whatever the smell is that I refer to as "yeasty" in the first 3-6 hours of my culture's life cycle is not at all the same smell I got from a poolish made with regular yeast in 3-6 hours. I have no idea what all contributes to the smell, but in my case there is a definite change in character in my sourdough culture after about 6 hours, when it begins to smell "tangy" and tastes more and more sour. However, I don't think it matters too much if yours has different characteristics. As long as you can identify changes in smells, tastes, bubbles, or whatever else you notice that allow you to estimate how ripe the culture is, you're pretty much in business. Or, if you simply arrive at certain amounts of time that work, especially if the temperature is reasonably constant, then you should be fine. The main thing is to find a convenient and repeatable process that allows you to bring the culture to a consistent bread-making ready state when you need it.

I'll be curious to hear how the bread turns out.

Bill

As a matter of fact the dough is still rising...after 6 hours yesterday, spending the night in the fridge, and about 9 hours on the counter again today - so it looks like it just isn't going to happen. The good thing is that the dough seemed to hold out for about a full 24 hours before it started to rip.

There has been a slight change in the starter that might be a good sign. Last night I fed both the 125% and 100% at a ratio of 1:10 and after 11 hours they both had quite a few bubbles, so in the morning they got fed again the same ratio. Today both of them got bubbles at least an hour or 2 before they started getting the 'smell', so this is the exact opposite of what had happened until now. As a matter of fact the 125% culture looked ready after only 8 hours so I split it and part I just left, and the other part I fed 1: 1: .7.5 to test it for time. 

This morning I also made another 2 small batches of dough from the starters of last night but they are not moving any faster than yesterday's.

More if/when something new happens.

L_M

SourdoLady, I will certainly try your suggestion to keep the dough in a cozy spot. In the meantime I've been relying on room temperature which at the moment is about 20C - 21C during the day. The water, starter, flour have all been at room temp and since I didn't use the mixer, the dough also ended up around the same temp. My oven is electric and very well insulated, so the automatic proofing setting will reach at least 40C. If I only keep the light on in the oven it will get to about 30C -32C. If I turn the oven on only for about 30 sec - 1 min, it would probably get to around 26C -28C. What temp would you consider optimal for yeast growth? I remember the discusssions with jm_chng about the effect temp has on the different rates of growth concerning yeast and sourness, but this data is not available anymore. 

Bwraith, I hope you are having a good time at the cabin. It sounds like you are doing more baking then skiing! It is very interesting the way we interpret smell in relation to something else familiar to us - I've never thought of poolish smelling like wet paint and of course I detect this unknown not very ripe banana smell!

I feel that with 'oj' it's either almost there, or it's just not going to get there. If it doesn't work out within the next few days I will try to order some (I believe it was mij.mac that suggested it) and hopefully I'll be able to keep a well established starter alive...

L_M

Hi L_M,

For the dough, I've always found 23-25C seems to work well for me. I get doughs to rise in about 5 hours duration of total bulk fermentation and final proof combined. I'd be curious what SourdoLady's favorite rising temperature is. 

I'm back now, but actually we did ski much more than bake everyday, but that's because during the day I would put everything in the "dough retarder", a little half-size wine cooler/refrigerator that happens to be in the cabin. I just removed a few bottles of wine for a few hours. It did the job nicely. It was fairly easy to get in some baking in the afternoon.

Bill

I am a farenheit person so I have no idea what the centigrade temps you mentioned are without finding a conversion chart. I think that 85 degrees F. is probably about perfect for optimal yeast growth. The other day I took my starter out of the fridge and wanted to get it going so I ran some hot tap water into a bowl and then placed my starter container in the middle of it. Boy did it start rising like crazy.

Bill, where abouts in Montana was the cabin where you were? I am in Billings. Since you mentioned skiing I know it wasn't here. We have been pretty warm lately. Today it was 75 degrees!

Hi SourdoLady,

25C is 77F degrees. I have a cabinet just above my coffee machine at home that sits around that temperature when it's on. I use this as my proofer, and I haven't gone to much trouble to try higher temperatures, although you're comment now makes me curious to see what I can do. However, like L_M, I've had my troubles with too much heat in my oven, even with just a light on. When I read about temperatures in "The Bread Builders", I see that up in the 80s, the "doubling times" for yeast and lactobacillus are closer to 1 hour, as opposed to more like 75 minutes at 75F. If you go much above 85F or much below 70F, it looks like the lactobacillus begin to be heavily favored, but from about 70-85 both yeast and lactobacillus should be happy, if I understand the graphs in the book. The peak for the yeast itself was around 82F, and it says that gas production is fastest at 86 for the yeast. However, at 90F, it looks like the yeast slows way down. Using 85F therefore sounds perfect for the yeast, just as you say. However, it looks like it's not good for the yeast if the dough gets much up toward 90F, if these graphs are right. Of course, then there's retarding the dough in the refrigerator and all the complex effects of that process, so there are a million variations, as usual.

I was near Philipsburg, MT near the Anaconda Pintler range this week. The skiing was lots of fun but not as good as we hoped, as it was in the 40s during the day and we only had a couple of inches of snow all week. I used Wheat Montana flours, as you and mountaindog I think had mentioned along the way, which worked very well for our afternoon baking experiments.

Bill

I'm on the lookout for the perfect cozy spot that will keep the temp of the dough within the range you mentioned in "The Bread Builders". It sounds easy enough because there is quite a large range that seems suitable. The cable box on top of the tv is good for a while but after too long the dough gets too hot even when I buffer the bowl with a layer or 2 of towels. SourdoLady, I like your idea using a hot water bath, so I'm sure I'll find something that works, and soon our long, hot and humid summer will send me looking for a cool spot!

L_M

Hi bwraith,

I have concluded that the 125% hyrdation works faster so I'm sticking with that for now. Last night I fed it 1:10:12.5 and took about 8 hours to get where I think it is ready, and it didn't even taste as sour as before, so I was very happy and hoped to be on the right road...so I made some dough and kept it between 24C - 31C (while I was looking for the perfect spot) and it still took 9 hours for the first rise. I decided not to continue because it would be too sour for sure but at least it did finally get to double in size. Yesterday's bread (which I discretly didn't mention, went straight to the cows - and they loved it!). So as you see there really is no change. The culture seems to go through it's cycle on a regular schedule and it is happier with large meals but it doesn't seem to be able to raise the dough in a reasonable amount of time - where are those yeast when I need them????

L_M

P.S. I noticed that you've started on a new venture helping out - it really sounds just like all of the symptoms I experienced as well. I admire YOUR patience!

Hi bwraith,

Going by the info you mentioned my starter is on track, but for some reason it really isn't. I still think I should have more visual signs than I do at the moment letting me know when it is ripe. I've been searching on the net for any other info and I found this :

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/food/sourdough/starters/  

 As you can imagine I'm ready to try just about anything, so I've started experimenting with the remedies mentioned to fix a new starter (I think it is in paragraph V and I would classify 'oj' at the moment being 'barely alive'). I've started  the 24 hour, 1 tablespoon method, and I've managed to set up a table lamp on a pile of books that so far keeps the starter temp at about 75F. This evening I'm going to try to set up an arrangement that will keep the temp at 85F - which might not be that easy - and if so I'll also try the 12 hour 1 cup method. I can't quite figure out why after each of the methods the instructions say to put it in the fridge for at least 12 hours before trying again. Any ideas why this is necessary? 

I used half of this recipe to make 1 small loaf and I made it up in a way that it would keep the math simple for me (so I wouldn't have to get hubby to help me with the calculations), so I hope I've worked it out to being reasonable. My idea was to get the dough to be 65% hydration, using the starter wihich was 125% hydration:

- 225 grams starter

- 265 grams water

- 500 grams flour

- 12 grams salt

 Maybe it was too much or too little starter, but I've seen such a range in recipes that I thought it would be ok. What do you think? Could this have been part of the problem?

I'll report on my lab tests

L_M

L_M,

Mike Avery's site also has a good section on starting a starter. Note the discussion of leuconostoc bacteria at the bottom, which is exactly what was happening to me when I first tried to start a starter (I used whole wheat, not rye, just as he mentions). This is the reason for the pineapple juice or other acid addition in the early stages of starting a starter in many recipes. Peter Reinhart suggested using ascorbic acid, pointing out that acetic acid is a strong inhibitor of yeast. That's why I ended up trying ascorbic acid (250mg/6oz of water in the culture) instead of vinegar or citrus when I was starting a starter. It seemed to work very well, at least several times I started starters this way without a problem. Anyway, you are hopefully past that point - just mentioning this additional site, which is yet another example of the process used by someone who does this a lot. The suggestion to stir periodically is there, too.

Bill

The 12 hour, 1 cup method results are in, and in 1 word  - WOW - Major difference from before in many ways! Right now I don't have time but later I'll give details.

* happy * happy * happy * happy * happy * happy * happy * happy * happy *

L_M

Hi bwraith,

You can imagine how excited I was to see all those nice bubbles!

Even though the instructions were in volume I converted them into weight and with just a little bit of adjustment they both worked out to be 100% hydration.

Here we go : the 1 tablespoon, 24 hour method which worked out to be about 1:15:15 produced something very familiar to what I've been getting all along but it did have more noticable bubbles suspended throughout. After about 20 hours it started to recede (from it's 50% increase) so there really isn't too much to news to report on that one. The smell was stronger and the taste was a bit sourer but that's about it.

 The 1 cup, 12 hour method was essentially 1:1:1 and when this was done there was absolutely nothing similar to what I've been getting up til now.

- It doubled and kept the height throughout.

- The bubbles were of all sizes with the biggest on top.

- The smell had now another dimension - apples - think 'granny smith' sour, tangy, and when I first mixed it there was also a bit of yeast smell.

- The taste also had the extra tang besides being just sour.

- The consistancy was much looser after stirring it down, whereas before if I tried to pour, it would pour in a glob like poolish, now it seems that the gluten has been severely weakened.

I hope these are all good signs but I'm going to do a re-run of both the methods after their 12 hour rest in the fridge just to make sure.

After it was ripe I took a bit of this (1 cup, 12 hr.) starter and made a 1:1:1 test at room temp to see how long it would take. It has now been almost 8 hours and it has just doubled but doesn't have the apple smell yet. Either the temperature is making a huge difference or it isn't quite healthy enough yet. I'll try again tomorrow after the re-run.

Thanks for the head up on Mike Avery's site. I did check it out before but I didn't think his method for 'revival' was very different from what I had been doing.

I guess I was lucky both times (with 'slow poke' and 'oj') that I never had the problem of leuconostoc bacteria - that probably would have really thrown me off.

To tell you the truth, I still have no idea if I was feeding too early or too late in the cycle, or if it was something else that was wrong, but hopefully NOW I'm really on my way...

L_M

Hi bwraith,

 This was again in the 1 cup, 12 hr method. I'm not sure I'll go ahead with another re- run of the 1 TBSP 24 hr test as it is clearly far behind in progress than the other.

So, at the end of the 12 hours there was froth (which I only had before in the first few days when starting 'oj'), and from the high mark it was evident that it had risen to more than double but by the 12 hours it had fallen quite a bit and there was also much less froth  then a few hours before when I checked it.

The smell today was - red wine and yeast -

The consistancy after stirring was again loose but not runny or watery and no signs of hooch.

Using some of this starter, I've started another 1:1:1 test at room temp . So far it has been about 2 hours and there is no rise yet but there are bubbles and it is starting to smell a bit like yeast. We'll see how long it takes. I imagine that according to those charts it should take about 3 - 4 hours at the very most and probably even less. 

I'll let you know how it goes

L_M 

Hi bwraith,

I was very lucky and borrowed a small incubator that is actually a water bath with a metal plate in it connected to a thermostat. If I didn't have that then I imagine I'd have used the oven with the light on and set the starter far away from the light and possibly kept the oven door propped open a bit if necessary.

I'll probably do a re-run tonight as well after it's rest in the fridge, because I want to really make sure it's ready before I try to make bread. I was a bit concerned that it had collapsed a few hours before the time was up. In the instructions it says that it will probably be quite puffed up before it is stirred. Besides that, it seems that 'oj' fits all the descriptions of being fresh, but again the time it is taking to raise a 1:1:1 still seems a bit long considering that it mentions that it should take 2 1/2 hours to rise bread. Just so you understand - I really couldn't care less if 'oj' is the world's fastest or slowest starter - I just want to know that it is healthy and properly balanced.

So far the 1:1:1 at room temp is at 5 hours, risen about 75% and still going, lots of bubbles but no froth.

More when it happens...

L_M

Hi bwraith,

The 1:1:1 starter at room temp took 6 hours to double and just started to dip in the center so I put it in the fridge (you can just imagine how many of those containers I have by now!).  The only reason I'm using that low ratio feed is for testing the timing, and I intend to keep 'oj' in the fridge in 'storage mode' as soon as I'm sure it's healthy, with maybe just a few more on the counter feeds with a higher ratio for good luck.

I'm wondering whether the 85F doesn't slightly change the characteristics slightly because when it is at room temp it doesn't get frothy, just very bubbly like a poolish. There is also no alcohol smell (today's red wine), but is that is because I haven't let it get so far into the cycle?

I'm getting ready to set up the re-run test again for tonight so I'll report tomorrow.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

Tonight's test is almost done and by now I can see what the results will be. At 8 hours it had risen by about 60% and there was a layer of froth just in the center on the surface and there was also a slight smell of alcohol. At 10 hours there was very little change in appearance, maybe started to drop a bit and the smell was slightly stronger. Now it's 11 hours and is receding a bit more, the froth is slightly less than before and I'm really not sure but I think the smell is a little stronger and maybe yeasty as well. When the time is up I'll do another 1:1:1 at room temp to test the timing. After that I'm going to decide which one of those (all labeled containers) to use from now on. 

The first try (all using the 1 cup, 12 hour method) I'll call #1.

The 1:1:1 at room temp taken from the above without the 12 rest in the fridge is #1a

The next is the second night's try ( same as #1) I'll call it #2

Next is taken from #2 (the same as #1a) and it is #2a

Third night is #3

Room temp from that will be #3a

When I have all of the data to compare I'll use the one that seemed most active in the least amount of time and had the most bubbles. So far it looks like #2a is the winner but I'll see how #3a does.

 Your explanation as to why it doesn't froth at room temp in a 1:1 certainly makes sense, so now I won't be waiting for something that's not going to happen - and of course worrying why it didn't! 

The timing I got with #2a seems to almost correspond with the timings you get as well with your 1:2:2 (a bit slower maybe) and I think with the differences in our flour I should take in to account that when mine reaches about 75% rise it is just about in the same stage as when yours is doubled, since we are taking into account all of the other signs as well. When mine gets to double - yours triples, and shortly after that they both start to fall. This is easy now... if it continues this way.

As for the taste in bread - I will be trying to start out with the absolutely mildest flavour I can get. So far all of my attempts have been so sour and dense that by now my sourdough fan club is down to "0" members (including me)!!

One thing that is still not clear to me. If the graphs show the doubling time for yeast is 120 min at 68F, then why does  a 1:1:1 at that temp take much longer to rise? Does that mean the yeast actually doubles before we see it starting to rise? Or is reality not quite the same as theory?

More later

L_M

Hi bwraith,

Very interesting results as a matter of fact - #3 ended up looking like the loser if we only consider volume, but the smell was different than before and it had a very defined beery yeasty aroma. #3a took only 4 hours to get to it's ready looking stage at 75% rise and this time I didn't let it go on to double, but instead I used some of that to make #3b and put the rest in the fridge. When I smelled #3a it was yeasty but when I mixed it, the beery smell came through loud and clear so there was a very balanced smell of both and the end. Clearly #3a is the winner, and maybe #3b will be even better because as you pointed out it will be starting from a different stage in the life cycle. I won't be doing any more 1 cup 12 hour tests as I feel 'oj' is now completely on track, so I'll do a few more feeds on the counter, try some bread, and then if all goes well it will go in the fridge in 'storage mode'.

I will have to read your explanation on doubling time a few times over to really grasp it all but I also have to go now, so that will be later, but I wanted to let you know  how it all turned out.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

I don't know what happened but again I had something all written out and when I clicked 'post comment' it said I had to register, so everything I wrote dissappeared, so here I go again...

The #3b has slowed down quite a bit compared to #3a and I really hope it's not going down hill again, but maybe it's because the mixture was slightly cooler as #3a had part of #3 at 85F in it, and maybe because I fed it when it was as the 75% rise stage (in all respects) and that was too early. For serial refreshment at room temp should I feed when it just starts to dip - the same as you suggest that is the time to use it for bread? If so, I guess I just wasn't thinking because I fed when actually at that time you would have put it in the fridge allowing for it to continue ripening in there. Anyhow this time I'll wait til it dips and also I'll give it a higher ratio for the night - I hope a 1:4:4 is about right for now as I don't want to do anything too drastic. 

Your explanation about the doubling time was very clear even though the subject really can get quite complicated, and I think I understand but I don't think I'm up to figuring out doubling times by myself, like for a night feed - I'll just have to rely on my past experience to get as accurate as possible.

I really hope 'oj' is stong enough to bounce back.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

Just wanted to let you know - more later. Dough has just finished autolyse...

L_M

Hi bwraith,

This certainly was a day to remember - my first successful sourdough boule. 'oj' bounced back very nicely after a 1:5:5 feed for the night and took about 11 hours to double but not quite dip. The dough took 8 hours from mix to bake, and 6 of those hours were in bulk fermentation and even so I cut it a bit short because I was getting  worried. Next time I'll just let it rise more as I can see that everything turned out very well in the end. The taste was really wonderful - complex but not sour - perfect!

'oj' is feasting on another meal getting ready for another bread re-run in the morning.

I'll have to continue tomorrow cause it's already 01:20 and way past my bedtime...zzzzz

L_M

Val thank you for those kind words, and I hope everything is still ok.

 Well bwraith, I just don't know what to say. I've been feeding twice a day 1:5:5 and that seems to hold as a schedule at room temp which is still around 20C. I've been letting it go until it almost or just dips, and it rises to about double - sometimes more sometimes less but it is always full of bubbles and really looks just like a poolish. Now all of that sounds great, I think, but here comes the catch: today's dough took 9 hours for bulk fermentation. Most of the time the dough was at about 25C sitting on the cable box on top of the tv wrapped in a towel - nice and cozy. Every hour or so I folded and that seemed to keep the temp quite stable. For the last few hours I just got fed up and stopped folding and when the dough had finally risen enough I took it's temp and it had risen to just over 30C. I shaped it and now it is rising again but soon I'll put it in the fridge and I'll have to bake it in the morning. The amazing thing is that the dough still feels springy and alive although there seem to be quite a few hours before I'll know the outcome. Yesterdays bread didn't keep well at all. By the morning it was already getting too hard and I believe that has to do with not fully fermenting the dough during the bulk  fermentation (at least that's what I've read)

The only thing I can think of is maybe I'm waiting a bit too long before using the starter for bread, and it is actually already over ripe at this stage (I noticed a comment from mij.mac about this on another thread), so I'll try to catch it earlier for the feeding schedule as well.

The recipe is pretty well the same as before but now the starter is at 100% hyrdation :

- 200 grams starter

- 500 grams flour

- 290 grams water

- 12 grams salt

Many recipes calling for all different amounts of starters say each rise should take about 2 1/2 hours so 9 hours is really not reasonable  considering the temperature.

I've checked the temp in my fridge where I used to keep the starter and it is a little below 4C, so just to make sure I'll keep it in a slightly warmer spot when I finally do put 'oj' in the fridge. It's been a loooong time since my kids were babies but I sure have been doing a lot of babysitting 'oj' lately! 

Luckily my son is 1/2 geek so he showed me how to copy even when I'm in the middle of writing ( ctrl c ) because I never even touched the " disable rich-text " before, so that was fine, but since usually everything is ok I just figured  'this' time is also going to be ok and I forgot to copy...lesson learned!

I am looking forward to a very ho-hum routine and not a roller coaster ride - maybe soon.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

I see you are on line and have just posted a long list of suggestions. I'll go over them and get my thoughts organized before I repy, but in the meantime you won't believe the results of this bread! It is a bit too sour but other than that it is excellent. I've taken a picture as well, so...stay tuned.

L_M

Patience

 Hi bwraith,

I don't know where to start, but the first 2 things that come to mind are : 'oj' is fine, and the flour held up amazingly well.

Here is a shortened version of what went on during the 24 hours from mix to bake, and some of the things you have pointed out are on my list to try out next.

Mix dough, autolyse for an hour, add 1 tablespoon olive oil (it was a last minute thought and I forgot to mention it before) and salt. Knead for only about 2 -3 min in mixer, start bulk fermentation, stretch and fold every hour for about 5 hours then just let it rise til it was fully risen (by the poke test) which was about 9 hours after the initial mix, and it was on the cable box for most of the time. Divided the dough into 2 pieces, preshaped, rest for 15 min, shape (next time I think I'll be more gentle), and placed in 2 pyrex bowls that were prepared with a good spritz of Pam. Set to rise on counter (as the dough was over 30C at this point) for a good 2 hours, then they went in the fridge overnight and had about 3 1/2 hours on the counter in the morning before they were ready to bake (again poke test). I had a bunch of knives sitting waiting to slash but in the bowl the only thing I could use was a pair of kitchen shears snipping consecutively to get a 'slash'. Wet the surface of the dough, covered one with the pyrex cover, and the other with aluminum foil and tried to seal it against the sides of the bowl. Put them in the cold oven, turned the heat to 215C, set the timer for 1 hour. After 30 min they had risen all they were going to and had just started to show signs of colour so I removed the covers. After another 20 min I removed them from the bowls and continued to bake on the rack. Internal temp was 210F. Waited for about 1/12 - 2 hours before I cut the bread and the texture was very delicate and light, but as I said before the taste was a bit too sour. The colour of the crumb isn't quite as white as in the picture.

I have to go now so I'll post this now and continue later on.

L_M

Thank you  Susan - I'm very proud of  'oj'!

bwraith, are the 2 votes, the negative ratings you refer to, or are you getting negative vibes from somewhere else? If it's the votes then I wouldn't worry, but if it's vibes - email sounds like a good idea.

L_M 

Floydm it sounds like a good idea to move it aside if you think we are bombarding the front page. I have no idea how many people are interested or following this thread but there have been times when others have joined in. It has been a fantastic learning experience for me so I am very grateful to have been able to participate here, so whatever way you think is best.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

I think it's best if we just continue here so that anyone following this can keep up and I also feel that now it's really a just matter of fine tuning with the dough, so we are probably nearing the end anyhow (that sounds terrible).

For what it's worth, it seems that after a feed it takes at least 2/3 of the entire time between the feeds for any noticeable action to start taking place. During the remaining 1/3 is when it all happens, and low ratio feeds seem to really slow things down. I'm now making sure to feed before it dips and it probably doesn't matter that much for maintenance but that is the routine now and soon it'll go into 'storage mode' in the fridge.

Before I started on this sourdough spree, I used to add some old starter to all of my yeasted doughs so that is really almost the same as spiking a sourdough with yeast (maybe the proportions are different), so if all fails - and it won't fail - then I'll go back to my old method but for now I'd like to stick to working entirely with the sourdough starter, so I'll finally be experienced enough and arrive at a method that works for me and then I'll be able to choose when to bake with or without yeast.

I think you are right about getting the fermentation done quickly and that should be my main target at this point. I like your idea about using a larger quantity of active but not very ripe starter, and I'll use your recipe suggestion for my next batch but without the yeast. I've looked back at some of the recipes and it is really confusing to figure out at a glance how much of the total flour is used in the preferment. In Hamelman's "Bread" he does specify and it is usually only 15 -20 % and still the first and second rise are suggested at about 2 1/2 hours each. One thing you mentioned is for me not to let the dough rise too long even if it isn't ready. That may get me bread that isn't sour, but in my experience it will certainly be a brick - been there, done that :-) It does sound hopeful though that with a large amount of starter that isn't too sour, it will get the job done quickly.

The directions on the gluten package say to add a ratio of 1% of the flour in weight and that was about 2 teasp for my recipe. The amount of ascorbic acid was just a smidgen - somewhere in between 1/16 - 1/32 of a teasp so as always I don't know whether it was enough or too much or it didn't make a difference at all, but next time I'll leave it out.

The other site you mentioned certainly has a lot of info and I had added it to my 'favourites' quite a while ago, but lately I had forgotten to check back to reread, and as always different parts seem more relevent now than before, so it's always good to go back. - thanks for reminding me!

I hope I haven't forgotten anything and tomorrow I'll be mixing up a new batch so we'll see what happens. Oh yes, one more thing - on pg 168 ?? 'French bread' of the BBA there is a note on blistered crusts - that it is a result of overnight proofing in the fridge.

Let you know how it goes

L_M

Hi bwraith,

We did it! 7 hours from mix to bake! It doesn't smell sour at all but I have to wait for it to cool somewhat to find out. From the outside it looks very similar to the other one and maybe this one kept it's height even better, so I hope the texture is just as good. I used your recipe with a bit of olive oil and no ascorbic acid. The autolyse and the 2 folds all were spread out longer than I had intended, but life just got in the way of baking today. Anyhow since the bulk fermentation started taking a long time again I figured that maybe I'm not so smart, and like you said sourdough may be a bit different, so I went on to shaping even before it felt really ready. Same with the final proof - I cut it shorter than I normally would have, but in the end it seems that it was the right thing to do.

I can't believe that finally I've been able to mix and bake a sourdough bread in one day - and in time for supper!!!

Well bwraith, this has been a fantastic learning experience for me and I really can't thank you enough for your time, knowledge and support.

Taste results after supper...

L_M

Hi bwraith,

After supper now, and the results are in:

Taste - still a bit too sour, but only a tiny bit. I think if it was bland I'd be able work with all of those suggestions, but for now I still have to push it to be milder. It is actually just the aftertaste that is sour, but for all I know it just might be the nature of the cultures here, considering that the very few times I have bought sourdough from a bakery it was horribly sour.

Texture - not as delicate as before, but still lots of holes and I think next time the proof should go on a bit long before putting it in the oven. It didn't look anything like Mountaindog's puffed up loaves in the bannetons.

The crust - crisp, chewy and a bit too hard, so maybe I'll use a bit more oil next time. Strangely enough there were blisters again today, so there goes the theory about overnight retarding in the fridge... 

I forgot to mention that the dough was 22C - 25C the whole time.

A few more tweaks should do it but it might take a few days before I get around to it.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

I am still not sure of 'oj's schedule. It has been on the counter all this time and only occasionally I put it in the fridge for a while if I think I'm going to miss the right time for the next feed. Again, I've been feeding when it is full of bubbles but not yet dipped and yes it is really sour at that time. It is already sour a few hours before that, so that means there is a sour taste long before it is very active looking. As I've mentioned before it seems to do much better with high ratio feedings. Maybe is is still just too sour as you say, and that helps to clean it out but for some reason even after that it doesn't pick up it's activity more quickly. 

I've now moved onto your feeding ratio and time schedule. This morning I fed 1:2:2 and left it for 6 hours. It was sour but there were only 2 bubbles on the surface and some tiny ones throughout, had risen by about 1-2 mm. Fed it again 1:2:2 and I'll leave it for 5.5 hours and then put it in the fridge overnight. Tomorrow I'll do another round like that and we'll see if there is more visual activity. If you have any more/other suggestions then just throw them at me! The 1 cup 12 hour method seemed to change the smells and visual appearance (alcohol and frothing) but by now everything is back to the way it was before. I'm very interested to see if 'vin' will perform any differently.

L_M 

Hi bwraith,

Just more of the same - well maybe a bit, cause now there are 4 bubbles instead of 2... but really it's the same. Today's schedule is the same as yesterday's.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

A day or 2 later I cut the feeding ratio down to 1:1:1  and there was still no change, so I decided to just let it be. When it rises, it rises, and only then to feed it. It started to rise a little higher but by that time I was already getting much better results with 'oj - jr' so I sort of neglected 'oj' and just put it in the fridge, but I may pull it out again and continue. Incidently, when any of the starters go in the fridge the activity halts, and the next day they are always at exactly the same level as before they went in. The spot in the fridge is about 10C.

If I now look back on 'oj' from the beginning I think what happened was the same as with 'oj - jr', a light case of leuconostoc bacteria. At the time I had no idea that the liquid layer in the middle was a tell tale sign, and since it never smelled bad, I just imagined it was hooch. It kept on coming back so I kept on feeding it and I probably raised the feed ratios too quickly for a young starter, and the activity slowed down.

Possibly if I had continued with the '1 cup, 12 hour' method for a few more rounds it would have brought it completely back to where it should be, but at the time it did look much different than before the treatment, and I hadn't had any previous experience with a good healthy starter so there was no way I could compare, especially with us being unsure about the flour and how much it could actually rise.

It's probably time to make some bread with 'oj -jr' by now, and I know I'm putting it off because I don't want another disappointment, but I might just give it a try tomorrow. How much starter do you think I should use this time? The same as I did before or your new adjusted version (with more starter)?

I certainly hope that anyone who wants to join in will feel free, but since this thread is so long, if something is posted in the middle it unfortunatley may go unoticed, so please don't take that as a sign of being unwelcome.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

 Are you back from your trip yet? How are the remaining jars doing?

Over here I've been busy with other things lately but I did manage 2 sourdough attempts. The first one took a long time again - about 10 hrs from mix to bake and during the whole time the dough was at 22C - 24C . I used my original recipe with 200 gr starter added to 500 grams flour. The taste was only very slightly sour so that was a big improvement and the texture was quite the same as in the picture I posted of 'patience', so all together I was quite pleased, except for the fact that still means I can't mix, bake and eat in the same day. The second attempt was the recipe for NKB from :  www.breadtopia.com  and this was also quite mild but I wasn't happy with the texture. This may have something to do with general dough handling or not - I'm not sure, but I know that I'm always cutting my rise times short because I'm worried that it's just getting more and more sour all the time, since it takes so long.

At this point I think I have to zero in on the exact stage when I have the most yeast activity in the starter, and use it right on time for starting the dough. But, I'm not really sure when that is... I've been using it when it has tripled but still before the dip. I have a feeling that maybe that is too late and possibly it would be better somewhere between doubled and tripled (going also by how active it looked and not only volume). I guess I'll have to play around some more with the timing until I figure out how to get it moving more quickly.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

Thanks for your suggestions - I guess the small amount of starter just isn't enough to get it moving as fast as I'd like it to. The 'feeding of the starter' step is easily done the night before with a large feed or put in the fridge when it has doubled the day before, and I don't consider that as part of the 1 day process, so it's really just a matter of getting it all mixed, prooved, baked and cooled in time for dinner with a good texture and not sour taste. Maybe I'm expecting the impossible, but I will try what you suggested  again and this time I'll use the large amount of starter when it has reached the 'somewhere between double and triple stage', hoping that will give me lots of active yeast without being sour. 

Good luck with your last little jar!

L_M 

Hi bwraith,

I think that is what I'll try next. We particularly enjoy the Italian bread from the BBA made into hoagies and I find a poolish more convenient than the biga it calls for, so I have previously made notes for the changes in hydration at each step, and I will try that out with my starter instead of the poolish. I have to check to see if it works out that 30% of the flour is in the preferment but I'll keep it in mind before I start for the final adjustments.

My first attempt will be from starter that has risen on the counter overnight, catching it early enough of course, because as I have mentioned before for some reason I'm not sure my starter continues to develop in the fridge like yours does. Even if I put it in as soon as it has just doubled, the rise completely stops and by the next morning it hasn't fallen but there are fewer bubbles than before and it just looks less active. This may be due to the fact that for the meantime while just keeping it on the counter it I've been dealing with only a very small amount of starter - about 50 grams, and it probably cools down very quickly once it's placed in the fridge.

I would really like the dough to perform in the same time span as yours does - it sounds ideal for the schedule I'm looking for. Maybe soon it will work out that way....

Keep you posted

L_M

Hi bwraith,

I chickened out of the Italian bread recipe from the BBA and went with your suggested recipe with the large amount of starter. As it worked out I used the starter that was on the counter all night and was just ready in the morning - it was full of bubbles and looked like it had just finished rising. The whole process took about 10 hours from mix to bake and again I cut the bulk fermentation a bit short just to speed things up a bit, but this time I let the final proof go until I felt it was ready. The texture was much better but the taste was still a bit too sour.

After that I tried SourdoLady's deluxe bread twice, and in short, they were both duds.

To sum it all up, 'oj-jr' seems to be able to double itself and become active within a reasonable period of time, but when it comes to making bread it just isn't doing the job properly - or else I'm expecting too much.

This has been a wonderful learning experience for me, even though I don't feel that I've achieved my goal, and unless I find a major break through, for now I think I'll just go back to using the starter for flavour in my yeasted breads.

Again bwraith, I can't thank you enough for all of your time and patience, and you can be sure that if I do come across something that works out for me - I'll let you know.

L_M

Hi bwraith,

Yes I have read your amazing ciabatta write up!!! You have really gone over all the details that people can stumble on - fantastic work!

My starter goes in and out of the fridge depending on how much time and/or patience I have to play with it, so it is getting time in there to do it's stuff (whatever that is), but I'm not sure that 'oj-jr' really knows what to do in there either...

The time it takes for it to double from a feed of 1:2:2 is usually anywhere between 5 - 7 hours, and the longest it has been in the fridge without a feed after it had just doubled was about 1 1/2 - 2 days so, by the books that is still supposed to be quite fresh.

The only option that I think I really haven't explored fully yet is to give it really high feed ratios for a few days in a row, so that is what I'm trying now.

It is interesting to note from your "little jars" that in the end there is little difference between them. I guess that goes to show us that it certainly is possible to create starters in many different conditions.

Keep you posted...

L_M

I am new to the Soughdough 'thing', but have a Starter already to go, but I have changed my initail liquid starter to a 'stiff' starter as I have heard that it makes a milder sourdough tasting bread.  My question is, I have noticed that quite a few of you use the ratio: 1-4-4 and 1-10-10.  Would you explain to me what that means, I remember seeing the explanation some time ago, but have forgotten.  Thanks.

In reference to maintaining or feeding a starter it's a way of saying there is one part starter to four parts water and four parts flour or (S:W:F) or (Starter:Water:Flour)  or   (1:4:4) in short.  Now the trouble starts when no one explains whether they mean   (starter:water:flour)   or   (starter:flour:water)  so it is best to always be clear on these things unless the water and flour are equal and therefore 100% hydration involved.

It is easy to take 10g of starter and add (4 times 10g) or 40g of water, stir well and add 40g of flour for a (1:4:4) ratio.  

Is that what you're looking for?  Or did you want more explaination into why so little starter is used comparing one-to-four ratios with one-to-ten?

Hi Mini...
I've been refreshing my starter with a 1:.5:.5 ratio (i.e. 100% hydration, but a mix of 1 part starter to 1/2 part water and 1/2 part flour - by weight. Questions...

1)Why do so many people use such low ratios of starter to water/flour - like 1:4:4 to 1:10:10? (To slow down fermentation, especially when starters are left at room temperature - vs more retarded fermentation in refrigerated starters?);

2)I was taught to allow partial fermentation just before refrigeration (an hour or two after feeding, depending on how active - but well before fermentation peaks), to allow continuing (slowed but still active) fermentation to occur in the frig - in part as a way of extending referigeration times between feedings, but also to keep it a bit more active while refrigerated. But... most of the posts I read advise full fermentation before refigeration. What do you do?;

3) Lastly, what's your take on how/when to feed vs. when to use in your recipes: use freshly fed; use some hour(s) after feeding; use at height of fermentation - a bit before it falls; use unfed, etc. - all assuming starter is not refrigerated (i.e. is at room temperature) and is on it's "normal" feeding schedule/protocol?

Hope these questions are clear.