Suddenly sluggish starter
My starter has suddenly become sluggish. It bubbles after feeding and smells pleasantly fruity, but it does not rise and fall in the aggressive way it used to. It is much more liquid than before and although it does pass the float test, it spreads out like foam on the top of the water rather than a nice chewy blob.
Changes I made recently:
I had been maintaing a 2:1:1 regime (e.g. 100 grams starter, 50 grams flour, 50 grams water) amd been feeding it 50:50 rye and white bread flour before I realised I didn't need to use bread flour in the starter! So I changed to plain white flour and one day, for some reason (possibly lockdown boredom), I decided to up the feed by a half. But then I changed back to the usual ratios. Maybe I upset my starter?
Today is the first time I try it in bread and the dough seems to be rising well during bulk fermentation but it has yet to proof and bake.
How can I get it back to how it was, or do I need to?
A more liquid starter will tend to rise less because the bubbles make their way to the surface and pop faster, rather than being trapped in the starter. The switch from bread flour to "plain white flour" (which I'm assuming is AP flour) could definitely result in your starter becoming more liquidy.
If you are happy with the results when you bake with it, you don't need to change anything. However, feeding 2:1:1 is a quite small ratio. How often do you feed it? Is it kept in the fridge or at room temp? An underfed starter can turn liquidy because the gluten dissolves, and this can also result in the gluten dissolving when you are trying to bake.
Thanks for this. So far into the preparation the dough seems to be relatively strong. I started with a levain for this bake so maybe that helped. I hope it doesn't all dissolve overnight!
Yes by plain I mean all-purpose. I only feed it once a day and it is at relatively cold room temperature here in northern Europe in a badly insulated kitchen. The strange thing is that I have some similar mix going in the fridge and that seems to be rising more...
Your fridge starter may be better fed thus more active because the yeast is sleepier and eating less. If you keep feeding 2:1 starter to flour eventually your starter will starve. When a starter is young you only feed it a little so as to preserve acidity and keep increasing the population of bacteria and yeast. As it matures, that denser population needs more food to stay healthy. You must gradually shift to a 1:1. Eventually many starters are maintained at between 1:2 and 1:5. Hydration varies depending on the style (desem is very dry for example).
I would not maintain a starter at 2:1:1. Where did you get this advice I wonder?
I would feed at 1:1:1 at the least! 1:2:2 or higher would be preferable to really get it strong and active (eventually)
Feeding a young starter so aggressively is a bit counter-intuitive, it dilutes the acidity required for the wild yeast and lacto- bacteria to propagate, as well as culling the still-weak cultures. Certainly once a starter is strong and mature a more aggressive feeding is good, but young starters benefit from less dilution.
The poster said that their starter had become sluggish after maintaining this feeding schedule. Would you recommend they continue with a 2:1:1 ratio?
I have also never heard a 1:1:1 ratio called aggressive. Anyway, the poster is free to feed their starter however they’d like
I was referring to "1:2:2 or higher" as aggressive for a young starter. It is probably time to switch to 1:1:1, I do agree with that. Of course the OP is free to do as they wish, and I was not trying to shoot you down!
Thank you for your advice! A simple feeding of 1:1:1 this morning and the starter seems to be doing its thing again. Normally I just feed it once a day, mostly because I can't handle much more maintenance. Do you recommend more often?
As an aside, the bread I baked with the floating scum starter has turned out to be my best bake yet (I am a novice) so glad it wasn't a deal breaker!
2:1:1 was the recommendation from the place I procured the starter originally. I'll stick to 1:1:1 for now. I only got it about six weeks ago. I hate throwing out all the discard so higher ratios would either need a much more regular baking routine or a lot down the drain.
Glad your starter seems happier and that your bake went well!
I'm worried that feeding only 1:1:1 1x/day will still not be enough to keep your starter healthy over an extended period. You might end up in the same place in a few more weeks. You can feed a bigger ratio, but keeping a smaller amount of your starter, and not have any more discard. For example, if your 1:1:1 feeding was 50g:50g:50g, you could do 5g:50g:50g and that would be a 1:10:10 ratio, which should be more than plenty. It would result in exactly the same amount of discard.
Just to be clear, I'm just using an example, not recommending doing that. If you switched directly to such a big feeding ratio your starter might not be able to process that much food that quickly and you'd end up diluting and weakening it over several feedings. As your starter matures, you might eventually find that's a good ratio for 1x/day feeding, though.
If you don't bake often and don't want discard to use in other recipes such as pancakes, you might be better off keeping your starter in the fridge. It will process the food much slower, and be able to last much longer between feedings.
Couldn’t have said it better than LittleGirlBlue!
I would recommend getting it on a 2 a day feeding schedule and then fridge it.
Thanks for this. I have sourdough maths issues but I can't see how I will get to 5 grams of starter without discarding some. So in theory if I was to follow the 1:10:10 ration and my starter is now 150g, to get to 5g I have to chuck away 145g and then add the 50g and 50g, Then I would have 105g of starter and would have to throw out some more to do another 1:10:10 feed without ending up with a beast of a starter. Or have I missed something?
I'll try the two times a day 1:1:1 for now and then fridge it.
Another thing now. My starter, which although slightly limp, had a nice fruity smell before, is now as a result of the prescription above more active but smelling a bit like paint-stripper.
In its previous life, when I was happily feeding it bread flour, it was not only quite lively but also had a nice banana like smell.
Anyone know what is going on?
Unless you bake daily, you will always have some discard while keeping at room temperature. Because if you don't discard at each feeding, you will absolutely end up with a beast of a starter. But the discard doesn't have to go in the trash: there are lots of yummy recipes you can make from discard. One of my favorites is pancakes. Waffles are even better but I don't own a waffle iron.
Here's one source of a lot of discard recipes:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/collections/sourdough-discard-recipes
Once your starter is strong & stable you can keep it in the fridge, that will reduce how often you feed it, thus reducing discard. For most people who don't bake multiple times a week, this is the best choice. If you want to eliminate discard, it is not too hard to get into a routine with a fridged starter that does not produce discard. Google or search on this forum for the "scrapings" method or the NMNF (no muss no fuss) which are some examples.
I forgot to reply to the paint stripper smell. That is likely the acetone smell that most people refer to as a nail polish remover smell. That is obviously undesireable. I believe it is usually a result of underfeeding. I've seen people suggest a pretty aggressive feeding routine to get rid of the issue. It is not something I have experience with but if you use the word acetone as a search term on this forum you should get some results that will be helpful. Hopefully someone with more expertise will pop in and give more info.
Thanks for all the helpful advice. This is a sharp learning curve!
Hi again,
So I have been doing a 1:1:1 feed twice a day and the starter has certainly gotten less gloopy, but still smells of acetone. I tried upping to a 1:2:2 feed yesterday and now it seems to have collapsed again and still doesn't smell as lovely as it did before! Hopefully it will get there.
Anyway, the main point of this post is that I am trying out some pain au levain with the starter. See https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/pain-au-levain-recipe. The levain smelt quite acidic this morning. After I added the other ingredients it was ultra sticky. It hasn't improved much after resting although there is some gluten formation. It certainly isn't close to any consistency that will allow for shaping. I am wondering if it was the acidity that caused this? I read a post about too much acid inhibiting gluten formation, although like I said I am seeing some strength when it comes to stretching and folding. Just reallly rather formless altogether though. Can I do anything? Leave it longer? Add more flour? Overnight fridge proof before shaping?
Ayuda!
If the acidity is dissolving the gluten, leaving it longer will only make it worse. I've seen a few posts where people end up baking in a loaf pan if it is too loose to hold its own shape. Another alternative for failed dough is to use it in pancakes or other discard recipes. Just remember your dough already has salt added and discard does not.
This is beyond my level of experience, but my understanding from what I've read is that you need to feed the starter more to get rid of that acetone smell. If it were me, I'd be feeding the highest ratio I thought it could tolerate without getting too diluted. You'll have to determine what that is for your starter by observing it closely. Your starter isn't used to big feedings (quite the opposite) so maybe it can't tolerate a very big feeding, in which case it'll probably take longer to get rid of the acetone. I'm not sure what causes the acetone: I've read conflicting info where one person says it's an unwanted organism but another person says it's just a byproduct of the acetic acid that happens when there's too much of it/too low of a pH. But everyone seems to agree you need to feed aggressively to dilute it out.
Once your starter is healthy, you'll have more success with baking.
it's going to take a week or two of feedings 2x a day at the 1/2/2 to get your starter back to healthy most likly and if you do bake with it it probably won't turn out well. odds are you're going to end up with hard gummy areas in the center of your bake. you've conditioned your beasties to eat the protein instead of the carbs. I had this problem. I resusitated some of my earlier starter from when it was healthy that I had dried out, along side my bad starter and it was starting to get back to normal about 2 weeks in but still wasn't as healthy as my resusciated starter (and I'd put a little of that starter into the bad starter to try and help) I ended up tossing the starter that had gone down a starvation path and just using my newer starter.
the 2/1/1 is just for like the first week. after that 1/1/1 and then 1/2/2 2x a day. I was definitely making a very similar mistake to the one you made.
good luck with it but it needs intensive care from my experience.