The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Pineapple Juice Starter

suzi's picture
suzi

Pineapple Juice Starter

How much pineapple juice and flour do I use to start my sourdough starter?

newchapter's picture
newchapter
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newchapter
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newchapter

Let me know if you also want the rest of the instructions on the Barm.

suzi's picture
suzi

Thank you so much for your help....I am so excited to try this.  So, the Barm is what you call the "Starter", correct?  I suppose I will need the rest of the instructions on this.....Again, I thank you for your help.

newchapter's picture
newchapter

Yes, it goes by a few names (starter/barm/mother).  I find it helpful, here on the board

, to be flexible with the lexicon.
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newchapter

I don’t know why the picture got stuck in the middle. ?‍♀️ Oh, well.
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newchapter
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newchapter

There is also a lengthy, very interesting two part blog post, on here, called The Pineapple Solution, that is absolutely worth the read.  Just plug the words “pineapple solution” into the search engine, here on the board.

Meat5000's picture
Meat5000 (not verified)

On the topic of varying starters, discovered Raisin Water. Worth a look...

suzi's picture
suzi

I have done the 3 day starter and for the past two days, I have stirred the dough every 12 hours by putting it in a clean bowl, stirring and then transferring again to a clean beaker and covering with saran.  For two days it acted like it wanted to bubble a little but did not grow hardly at all.  Now this morning, it is flat as a pancake with no bubbles or anything that might indicate it is activating.  Is there something I should do now?

LittleGirlBlue's picture
LittleGirlBlue

Usually when a starter is bubbling in the first few days and then that dies down, it's because the early activity is caused by the "wrong" organisms.  There is nothing actually wrong; it's part of the process.  Some of the "wrong" organisms would be the right ones if you were going for something other than sourdough.  As time goes on, your culture should be getting more acidic, which kills of the "wrong" organisms (explaining why you've stopped seeing bubbles), and then the organisms we want for sourdough will take over.  LAB will move in first, and the yeast will come last.  Once the yeast move in you'll see a lot of bubbling activity.

Starting your starter with pineapple juice instead of water is supposed to help you bypass that stage, but maybe yours was not quite acidic enough.  I would guess that's why you saw very little bubbling while others report quite a lot when in those early stages.

If you read the following articles, you should get a much deeper understanding of what's going on in your starter:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2