Question about acidity
Ok, so just a brief intro before I get to my question: I am Mr Immortal, and it’s nice to meet you all! I have been baking bread for several years, although mostly just for special occasions, but sourdough is a whole new monkey to me. I’ve been working on my starter now for several weeks. My first attempt failed due to my impatience and ignorance (from what I’ve learned here, it would have been fine had I just kept on chugging along and following the plan). My second attempt failed when I woke up on day 5 to find my starter growing a nice thick fuzzy gray coat. My third (and current) attempt seems to have a few issues, primarily that the starter keeps liquefying. I started with AP flour, but switched to bread flour (Sadly, neither of these are unbleached. Gotta stick with what I can find these days at the local post-apocalypse Walmart) on day 3, having read that the higher protein content would help. It hasn’t. I do get bubbles, but I get no rise-and-fall. As of this morning, I have a nice sweet yeasty smell. I have, during a couple of my daily feedings, added more flour to decrease the hydration level, but still wake up in the morning to starter that has the consistency of a melted milkshake. Thicker than heavy cream, but easier to pour than shampoo.
All of that is neither here nor there, as I am now starting to change things a bit, thanks to info I’ve learned here. But this brings me to my question:
I don’t have any pineapple juice. But I do have some citric acid. Can I use citric acid to reduce the pH of the water I’m using for my feedings? Or am I already beyond the point where that would be helpful?
I guess that’s two questions...
Hiya. Can you provide more details about your starter attempts (process, amount of ingredients, times of feedings, etc)? It would help in answering your questions. Also, after trying multiple methods a few years ago (unsuccessfully), I was finally able to quite easily get a starter going with organic rye flour, which I then morphed into AP and WW versions. It is still going strong!
Here is what I’ve done so far. I have a kitchen scale, with which I’ve measured everything as accurately as it would allow. My kitchen stays at right around 72degF. My water is room temperature RO/DI water.
One odd thing that I’ve done, which I’ve never seen mentioned in anything I’ve read here: when I started this current attempt, I had not yet read Debra Wink’s excellent articles on using pineapple juice, but I had read about how my starter would benefit from some type of whole grain flour. Unfortunately, our weekly shopping trip to the local Walmart found almost-bare shelves, and nothing that was unbleached or whole grain. Mrs Immortal shot down the suggestion of paying $9 for a small package of the tree-hugging hippie stuff... So, back at the house I decided to have a quick look through the pantry. No Rye. No whole wheat. But I did find something that I thought might fit the bill, and I gave it a try: Farina. Or, more specifically, Cream of Wheat.
Sourdough Starter
Day 1: 5/31. 2:30pm 25g water 10g AP flour 15g Cream o’ Wheat (farina) Day 2: 6/1. 8:00am 30g AP flour 30g water Day 3: 6/2. 1:00am 28g starter carryover 28g AP flour 28g water 2:30pm 35g farina 35g AP flour 70g water Day 4: 6/3. 9:30am 50g starter carryover 50g Bread flour (King Arthur) 50g water 9:30pm Skipped, starter had not peaked yet Day 5: 6/4. 12:00 pm 100g starter carryover 110g Bread flour 90g water 12:00am Skipped, not peaked Day 6: 6/5. 1:30pm Reverted to 1/day feedings (advice from fresh loaf.com) 100g starter carryover 110g Bread flour 90g water Day 7: 6/6. 3:30pm. 100g starter Carryovers 100g Bread flour 100g Water Day 8: 6/7. 10:30pm 100g Starter Carryover 100g Bread flour 100g Water Day 9: 6/8. Skipped, in order to promote Lactic acidosis production (I hope) Day 10: 6/9 1:00pm Added 50g farina, to stiffen starter and see if we get any rise. Put in oven w/ light on to raise temp. (Average 84degF) 6:00pm Roughly 20% rise, small bubbles visible on sides of containerSo, looking back on that, I see that I apparently way over-hydrated it on day 3, and I don’t remember why I did that. But wouldn’t the discard/feed cycles since then have evened that out by now? Plus, it looks as though adding some Cream of Wheat this afternoon has helped a good bit.
A00E7351-49B0-45EB-8381-7EE15827B8EF.jpeg
583C2E56-898F-47B6-9B42-1C91040B78B3.jpeg
Sorry for the weird formatting in that post... It was a copy/paste from my phone’s notepad...
I've never heard of using cream of wheat for creating a starter. I understand is it a semolina product, but it is highly processed and likely bleached, so I don't think it would be a great ingredient to introduce into your starter. But, who knows...others here on this site might have some additional wisdom on that.
You can get a small bag of organic rye berries for a reasonable price online (I think I used Bob's Red Mill back in the day). After trying many methods (including pineapple juice), the rye starter was the one that worked for me. If there is one thing I've learned along my bread making and baking journey, your starter is REALLY important to good bakes, so I don't think it is a good place to cut corners. You want to create the right kind of environment for the yeast and bacteria to grow in. Here's a great resource: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredible-sourdough-starter-scratch/
It looks like you are getting a bit of rise, but it might not be from the right critters. You might try discarding more and trying to build back up with only using flours, not the semolina. That might slowly wean the percentage of of the cream of wheat out. Or, it might be best to just start over.
That’s definitely food for thought, Nat. I may have to try again once I’m able to get some better ingredients on hand. In the meantime, I think I’m going to try to ride this one out, and see where it takes me. Who knows? Maybe I inadvertently discovered something new? ?
I successfully created a starter with nothing but water and bleached white all-purpose flour. It took several weeks to become active. I had better success when I stopped trying to "read" the starter and adjust things and instead just rigidly fed it at a 2:1:1 ratio every twelve hours, no matter what it was doing. It was very liquidy for a while, but it ended up eventually stiffening up on its own. It also was bubbly but without rise for weeks, but then one day it just kind of magically had rise, and more the next. But the process took a lot longer than 5 days. I don't remember precisely, but it was at least 3 weeks, maybe as many as 6.
Hi, Sabina!
Thanks for your reply. I think the whole “it’s VERY liquidy” thing is what had me freaking out. I’m glad to hear that once it becomes more active, it actually thickens itself up. I hadn’t seen that mentioned before (ok, I’ll be honest: I probably HAD seen that mentioned before, and just forgotten it with the mountain of other stuff I’ve been reading about).
If nothing else, I’m learning a whole new level of patience. Mrs Immortal would tell you that I have the patience of a saint. But that was before I caught the sourdough bug. Lol
On the up-side of things, I think I finally have my consistency to a better place, and will be going back to a 1:1:1 ratio tomorrow. I had a bit of rise (about 20%) both yesterday and today, and I’m pleased to announce that I found at my local Walmart today, King Arthur Unbleached AP flour!
so all things considered, I think I’m on the right track. I just have to hurry up and finish waiting! ?
i'm having similar luck with AP/white flour. little to no activity and then it liquefies. zero structure at all. when i take a bit of the culture and do a whole rye it bubbles like crazy and doubles in < 12 hrs. if i do it with KA White whole wheat, it gets a little bit of bubbles and little to no rise. i'm planning on testing with using less water. but please as you're testing through this... don't feed it 100g flour. that's a lot going to waste. i keep 20g of culture and feed it 50g/50g.
after over a week, finally my whole rye culture is looking pretty good. i'm going try to mix half rye with half AP tonight and maybe reduce hydration.
This was a culture that was liquefying with unbleached AP flour. I switched to rye got bubbles and after a few days, good rise. I put some back in AP and also separately in whole wheat. Very little activity. But I stuck to it for few more days of feeding. Last night since the whole rye one was doing well. I Tried this:
40g AP flour 40g water. Autolyse it for 20 mins. Flip it around for a minute or two to build some gluten. Add in 10g whole rye. Mix. Add in 20g whole rye culture and 20g water. Mix. This morning it has tripled!
Hi, Ciabatta!
Thanks for your replies! I’m thinking that I’m finally on the right track. This morning I was finally about doubled, although it’s taken about 24 hours to get there. Now I’m just watching for it to start falling to do my next feed.
As for the 100g feedings... partly, this was wishful thinking, hoping that “any minute now” It was going to be ready for me to whip together a test loaf. The other part of it is that I had bought a nice clear-plastic straight-sided container with a lid that I can either leave loose or sealed, but because of it’s size I wouldn’t be able to see any amount of rise in a smaller sample. My thought with the larger container was that I would be able to make enough starter to make several loaves a week, and only have to pull it from the refrigerator and feed it once it got low. Also, I thought that mixing, keeping the sides clean, and scooping out what I needed for baking, would be easier to do in the larger container.
I think I will dig around in the cabinets to see if I can find a smaller container in which I can keep a smaller starter, at least until I have a starter mature enough to bake with. This will have the added benefit of allowing me to switch over to the new unbleached flour in smaller increments (I literally only have 75g of the original bread flour I started with). So win-win!