Day 4.
Had to dump my faithful old starter when I moved, and was afraid the new one wouldn't "take" because the only rye flour I had on hand was two years old (though still in unopened bag, no weevils) non organic, plus the pineapple juice had been left over from a really crappy can of the crushed. The house getting kinda chilly this time of year, I incubated the mess in a mason jar atop a shelf in the water heater closet, where the temperature probably stays around 70°, and hoped for the best.
Any way, morning of day four, the mixture already seems extremely active, not just with the tiny bubbles one generally sees early on from bacterial activity — this looks like a full fledged yeasty beastie to me. Smells pungent of ethyl alcohol, though there is no separate hooch.
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Normally this would be the time to discard half the mixture and replenish with just flour and water rather than continuing with more pineapple juice, IIRC. Next day or so the mixture would most likely to appear dead, only to come back to life in another day or two. Am wondering though if it might be active enough right now to use, in which case after feeding I could take half and build a levain. Or at this early stage would I just be wasting time and flour? Thanks for any advice.
and tomorrow use most of it in a recipe. no discarding
Thanks Mini. Appearance to the contrary, it actually was pretty thick, felt almost elastic like dough when stired and didn't pour. Just fed it again, first adding orange pineapple juice on the suspicion that it is the fruit sugars which are stimulating the yeast so early. Responded immediately, bubbling away like it was freshly proofed. Blended in more rye until the consistency of a heavy batter, and it continued to gas. As you suggested took out most for use tomorrow (keeping that in a pint mason jar inside the oven with the light on for warmth.)
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Question now is, can I safely refrigerate the little remaining starter and leave it unfed until needed again or should it be left inside the ~70° closet for the remainder of the week and fed daily to mature further?
Hamelman's standard dark pumpernickel recipe has no pineaple juice in the mix, just rye and water for 2 days, then toss half and feed again. I take the tossed half and feed it and then use it in rye bread all the time.on day 4.
Lucy Combines 2 Dark Ways On A Dark Day – Westphalian Pumpernickel
I have done this several times now and it works every time and started anoither one yesterday for this Friday's bake
Happy baking
So that pumpernickel is made from its own starter in only five days? Interesting!
I was just using the pineapple juice method to create an all purpose starter, though it will be used for a lot of rye-wheat breads.
It is very active, gassing and expanding rapidly even though the batter is quite thick, so guess the juices worked their magic somehow.
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Might just build this into a levain tonight, as it's already quadrupled in size once and doubled again since then. Don't care if it's not all that sour yet, as long as it can raise a coupla loaves I'm happy. :)
is warmer than 70°F. Wow! upside-down starter. Pretty thick stuff :)
the upside-down starter I incubated in the oven with the light on after feeding it yesterday morning, so yeah that one was kept closer to 80°. But even the remainder that I had kept in the 70° closet pulled off the same trick soon after feeding, so I threw it in the fridge to calm it down.
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Already have more of this pineapple upside-down starter than I know what to do with. If only there were some kind of pineapple upside-down recipe... ;-)