November 24, 2020 - 3:52am
Doves Farm organic wholemeal rye
my starter is made from rye flour. I was using Shipton Mill wholegrain rye.
It was so predictable, Id add 50g of water and 50g rye to the scrapings and then 5 hours later it would be doubled and ready to use.
Id use this method all the time without fail.
Id even use spelt a few times without issues.
Ive now switched to the Doves organic wholegrain Rye and the starter has not move a millimetre.
im now concerned my starter that ive had since before UK lockdown is wasted.
Anyone else had issues with Doves?
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I use it often and it's never given me any trouble. Rye is rye at the end of the day. Perhaps it could be something else. But whatever the case may be the golden rule is to just stop! Don't try and encourage it by over feeding as it'll have the opposite effect. It's had a good feed and until it bubbles up it doesn't need more food. Just keep it warm and stir every now and again. How long has it been since the feed?
Since I've been unable to source Bacheldre Rye, I've been using Doves Farm organic wholemeal Rye for my sourdough culture and my bread. I've had no issues at all
My starter lives on it. No worries.
still no movement from the sleeping starter. Its been 9 hours now. Gave it s stir a few hours ago.
I normally keep it in the fridge after use and the morning im going to use it, feed it and put it in the brod proofer. 5 hours later its raring to go. This has been the method for 6 months.
It has been in the fridge a few days more than usual so im just hoping its super sleepy.
There are a few bubbles forming in it so I guess will just keep watching and waiting.
Could you have by accident set it too high?
Give it at least 24 hours. My starter is fine being fed with all flour except brown rice flour. It's like a shock to the system. It goes completely quiet. However after 24 hours it wakes up and starts behaving as normal again.
However your starter is fine with rye and that's what you fed it. So either something else has happened or for some other unknown reason it needs time to adjust. Once it snaps out of it then it should be fine with subsequent feedings. As long as you haven't cooked it by mistake.
Abe's got a good point on processes... the culprit could have been temperature or the shock of a new kind of food.
There are two other inputs that are suspects: 1) the carry-over starter, 2) the added water.
You might _think_ that neither of those changed, but then ....
As commented above, Dove's Farm rye flour is great, but is it possible you got a very old bag? It's often said whole rye flour spoils easily. I don't know whether that would affect the starter so much...
Im thinking the water I used this morning was a touch too warm. As the starter keeps in the fridge I normally use tepid water to kickstart it. Maybe it was a little warm for its liking.
I've used 50°C water with great results, was advised by someone to use 60°C even!
Yeasts die at 58.8°C.
https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/bread/yeast_temp.html
CLAS is fermented at 40°C to discourage yeast fermentation.
Yeah, I was scared of that and never wagered that high! But it was actually a professional French bakery, so... 50 works great, but obviously it comes down to lower temperatures quickly.
By Emmanuel Hadjiandreou which has the starter covered by fresh flour, then boiling water is poured over the top and quickly mixed. I'm thinking it cools quickly enough to not completely kill the yeasts but shocks it into slowing down and getting a scald in. Something similar perhaps. But 60°C does kill yeasts and over 40°C for any length of time I think inhibits them.
It'll heat shock them for sure, but I don't know, maybe that would actually give something positive to their growth afterwards... Maybe LABs are more inhibited by a short blast of heat than yeast? No idea. But temperatures a little over 50C definitely work well (even at high ratios starter:water 1:10, and then adding flour afterwards, so it's not just cooled down due to colder starter/flour that much).
Be held at 40°C? It's done to only encourage lab and keep yeasts at bay.
Perhaps it's different when making a starter to maintaining a starter.
Short-term heat shock and continuous maintenance at 40C are very different things. As an example, human bodies are OK for a short time at 40C, but having that sort of fever for a long time would be really bad for you.
Heat shock causes such a huge variety of responses, it's a whole field of study. It changes metabolism, cell signalling, gene expression. I don't know much that, and just looking at a review - it's a lot to read through to see if anything could be relevant!
The raisin rye is such a lovely recipe and while I know it works and the reasoning behind it I still dislike the idea of pouring the boiling water over it. Always hesitate a bit there and allow it to cool down a bit and instead of a steady rise my dough rises so fast it almost jumps out the loaf pan.
Could be interesting to compare two jars at some point, one with some hot water, then diluted with colder water to 30C, and one with 30C directly. So the final temperature is the same, but one gets a hot treatment.
well after 24 hours in the proofer at 82f and stirring occasionally ive had a tiny amount of rise and some bubbles so im just treating it like a new starter, ive removed 50g and then added to that the same again of water and rye then will repeat until igloo (dont blame me, my son named him that) is back to his best.