Is my starter supposed to look like this, pics attached
I'm doing this recipe...
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10251/starting-starter-sourdough-101-tutorial
day 1 rye...day 2 or second feeding is supposed to be white flour moving fwd but I accidentally did rye again....is this what it's supposed to look like....it's already doubled....and if you read the recipe it states on day 3 to discard half and add in feeding but that it wouldn't have grown ALOT....it's grown probable....3x original size...I'm at 26 hours...so I did day two feeding a few hrs ago.....
should a a skip a step or?....
Edited new question!!!,!,!,!*********************!!!!!!!!
Ok I just read that initially after feeding the starter shortly rises and falls.....how do I know then as I get to day 5/6/7 when its "doubled in size and ready to use/refrigerate"......will it rise and not fall, and how long do I wait after it rises to ensure it doesn't fall down if that's the case..... Orr......?. -does that make sense.....eagerly awaiting ur answer, thanks all
The rye is merely a kickstart for the process, you can freely keep feeding with rye as long as you like, but it's more expensive and moderately less versatile. The extra feeding should not matter, just pick up with the next step and carry on. Don't skip any steps.
Your starter will ALWAYS rise and fall, unless it is frozen or all your yeast are dead. You may not always be there to see it, but that's how it works. The rise and fall is the activity of the yeast doing their fermentation job, the peak rise is how we know that they are alive, well and ready to be used in a dough to build a loaf. You can use temperature to modify their rate of reproduction and control when that rise happens, this is why the refrigerator is handy. Colder means a slower rise, warmer is faster.
The usual way to know if your starter is ready for 'prime time' is if it smells mostly sweet and not rancid or acrid when it is at or very near its peak rise, this usually takes a week or so of regular feelings once you have a reliable rise.
> -does that make sense....
The excessive punctuation and incoherent sentence structure made parsing your question exceptionally difficult but I think I got the gist. I hope it helps.
It's generally the same price or cheaper than wheat in the UK (at least in bulk)
-gordon
The chemical makeup of Rye is different from Wheat, yeasts tend to enjoy the increased sugar and amylase environment and will eat it up a lot faster.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/handbook/rye-flour
The key component you are missing is patience. You can ask as many questions as you like but you are still going to have to wait it out. You don't have to do anything other than what is instructed - assuming you are using a method from a reliable source. You just need to be patient and let the starter carry the load.
can be fairly similar. A rough rule of thumb the 2nd and 3rd day vigorous activity supplied by the wrong and bad LAB and yeast in the flour that are not assimilated to high acid environments. Day 4-5 the mix may look like it is dead - but it isn't the good LAB ab yeast that do live well together in a high acid environment will start to slowly take over. By day 6-7 the culture will start to be ,ore active with the good LAB and yeast further establish a mire stable culture. By 190 days you should have a starter to make bread with but it will be =weak and won't fully mature until about a month,.
Happy Starter Cultivating
Good info about bad/good yeast, it fell a little but still risen at 2x at this point...last night at peak it smelled slightly yeasty and of course rye like....... and...I'll kinda start smelling it at what I believe is peak..that way I can determine a different sweet smell......it's day 3 and so I'll continue with white bread flour, as I had planned ...I just accidentally read the page wrong because I was in a hurry. And yes, I have patience, thank you very much. Just a lot of questions as I'm new to yeast making. So there's nothing wrong with that.
most recipes state around a week or so that your starter is ready and you can use it and put it in the fridge-which I plan to do as I only need to bake once a week and it's possible that may be a lot but we will see.....
point is---with what you said dabrowman ...even though it's not "mature" can I use the discard on day 7?...14....? Etc etc or will the bread not rise well? I was hoping so but after your comment I'm unsure if it's usable until "mature"..... .? thank u all!!
Most real authorities reckon a starter is ready to use after about a week to 10 days. I've heard some say five days but the longest I've ever heard anyone sensible suggest is two weeks. As with many products of fermentation, a mature starter will undoubtedly offer more complex flavours than a young one but that doesn't mean that a young starter can't be used to bake perfectly good bread.