July 10, 2021 - 8:49am
Mature starter gone flat - how do I get it sour?
Greets! I have a starter that is fairly healthy but has been sleeping in the fridge for a few months. I revived it once, and the bread was flat (ie not sour!) as a board. I had been feeding it with AP/Bread flour and I've learned this will not be sour.
It will take several feedings to get back - I'm thinking I should use rye to get the "juice" back in it. Wondering what percentage of the total flour should be rye (or would HW be better?
Tks!
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Alan, I am a fan of rye. Either 100% rye or a high percentage of rye should work. Whole rye is best. It is good practice to take some of your original starter and build the rye starter. That way if there is a problem you still have your original.
As far as sour taste, you can ferment your dough long and warm (78 or higher) with a small percentage of Starter to get the sour flavor from any starter.
No starter should be left “sleeping for a few months.” Yeast are still active and need food, even when retarded in a fridge. You need to feed the levain at least once a week to keep it active and in good shape under refrigeration.
I agree with Dan. I’ve converted my starter to 100% whole rye last year and it has been going strong ever since. On two or three occasions it had become sluggish and made sluggish levains when it was being fed whole red fife. It was upon Dan’s suggestion to strengthen it through several days of whole rye feedings that I was able to get it strong again. I then made the decision to switch to whole rye altogether and haven’t looked back since. I feed my starter only once per week and it lives in the fridge after it is fed and peaks.
Benny
Benny, another idea. Since you retard your starter after it matures, you could add a little extra flour and stir it in before refrigerating. The idea is to give the starter a little fresh fed for the week’s retardation. Not much flour, just enough to thicken it a bit.
I starter doing this about 8 months ago and have had good success.
Dan, what advantages have you found by giving your starter this “snack” prior to refrigeration compared with when you didn’t?
Benny
No data. But this is what I can see as a result of adding a bite more flour.
The idea is that that new flour that is added after maturity is able to provide more food during the week spent in retardation. Many bakers don’t fully mature their starters before retarding. I imagine this is because they want available food during retardation.
It is possible that the extra flour is for naught, but until I learn different the concept appeals to me.
What do you think?
I’m thinking I might need to collect some pH data first. Perhaps after my next starter feed I’ll start checking pH at peak, then also after one week. I’m thinking that the pH might be a surrogate marker of microbe activity while in the fridge?
Because my starter is a rye starter, I’ve never found it to be soupy even after more than a week of refrigeration and so far it still makes really active levains which risk 2.5-4 times without refreshing the starter. I guess also, I’m working from Doc’s data that showed so long as your starter is less than 2 weeks in the fridge that you don’t need to refresh it before making a levain. After 2 weeks or more than you’ll need to refresh it. I think this was based on his CO2 data of the refrigerated starter.
Benito - thanks for that very correct and detailed info. However - I'm NOT that serious of a bread maker - just wanna get some simple loaves for sandwich bread that is a bit sour. Collecting pH data is WAAAY out of my league. Nice of you to present it - perhaps other views will be able to use it. :-)
I used to keep my starter on all wholemeal rye. It got to making dough too acidic, if I let it go until appreciable rise had occurred the dough would be over proofed.
50:50 wholemeal:white wheat flour as feed is working for me at the moment.
You could just make a levain with white flour btw, should help a lot if you had this problem.
Thanks to all for the many and varied ideas. Will def look into working with rye flour.