Sourdough Starter Gone Bad - Dough Became Soupy after Rising?
My starter was pretty sour. I keep it on the counter and it's been in the upper 70's (F) here.
I used the starter yesterday to make a loaf, 50 grams starter, 520 grams flour, 385 grams water, and 12 grams salt. The dough was pliable and looked normal. After two folds spaced 15-30 minutes apart, I covered the bowl and let it rise.
I watched it gain volume throughout the night into this afternoon. The ambient temperature is now 78F. It was about 12 hours since inception.
Ready to fold one last time in preparation of baking, the once doughy ball was now a wet & very loose mix. It didn't smell bad, but it tasted horrible. Very sour. It went soupy on me. Down the drain it went.
What could have caused it to go from a dough ball to soupy? Did I merely leave it rise too long? Is 78F too warm?
The starter on the counter was soupy too (I leave on on the counter & 1 in the refrigerator). I dumped it. It tasted very sour.
The starter in the fridge was sour too, perhaps not as bad.
I took 50 grams of each + 50 grams water & flour and 'started' another starter.
Looking for guidance to root cause why my dough went soupy and sour.
Hi,
From my experience I've only had dough go soupy from over-fermentation. 12 hours at 78 degrees sounds like a very long time to me. You didn't use that much starter, but I would still expect your bulk ferment to more likely be in the 6 hour range. It's also possible that there wasn't enough gluten development as 2 folds isn't very many and you don't mention doing an autolyse. Many on this site do autolyse + slap and fold + 3-4 rounds of stretch and fold/coil fold/lamination etc.
This could also be a contributing factor. If you are leaving your starter on the counter, you probably need to feed it at least 1x/day, otherwise it will starve and get very sour. I only bake about once a week so I leave mine in the fridge and then take it out 2 days before I want to bake to get a few feedings in.
I took 50 grams from each starter and added new flour and water (50 grams each) into two new jars. These are from two different starters.
Is an overly sour starter salvageable this way? I'll put them in the fridge for storage.
Some on here know much more about the science of yeast than I do so I hope they chime in, but I certainly think it is salvageable. If I were you, I'd probably do something like 7g starter, 15g flour, 15g water and feed every 12 hours (discarding the rest) until you get to a point where your starter is healthy and not quite so sour (maybe 3 or 4 feedings?). Then I'd stick it in the fridge until you next want to use it and then feed it 2-3 times before mixing your levain.
When feeding a starter you usually want to add a large proportion of fresh flour and water to what you are 'seeding' with (the amount of starter you take to feed).
Feeding 50 grams of flour to 50 grams of starter is a 1:1 proportion. I would consider this low.
If you continue to do this, and leaving it at that warm of a temperature for that long (24hrs) not only will the starter begin to starve (it is difficult for 50 grams of mature starter to stay healthy off of 50 grams of flour at that temp for a whole day) and it will accumulate lots of acid, which is why it is tasting so sour.
In short, you are feeding the starter too little and leaving it too long.
But fear not, it is not dead!
Try feeding it a larger proportion of fresh flour, more like 4:1 or 5:1 (so 4 or 5 grams of fresh flour to every 1 gram of starter), and leaving it for less time. Doing this a few times will gradually bring it back to a healthy, mildly acidic tasty starter.
To give you an idea, when I feed my starter I only leave behind the amount that is stuck to the walls of my jar (~10g) and feed it 150 grams flour and 150 water, and only leave it for 8-10 hours.
Yes I would agree. 12 hour fermentation is verryyy long at that temperature. By this time enzymes in the dough completely breakdown any molecule chains that hold it together. The same thing happens to a very mature starter.
I'd say the reason is to long a fermentation. 12 hours at 78 degrees is a bit long from my (somewhat limited) experience. as far as the starter I say its probably fine, I'd put it on a twice a day feeding schedule and see what happens. I would probably do 4 grams of starter to 20 grams of flour and 20 grams water every 12 hours. I haven't ever kept my starter in the fridge so I can't help you there. however, some bakeries make a new starter every couple months to keep their starters from getting to sour.
Hope this helps!