Hi everyone! I have a starter that is about a week old, it's my first time trying to make my own starter. Been following Tartine's recipe for making leaven, and doing daily feedings of 50g warm water and 50g of a whole wheat / white flour blend. So far getting some nice bubble action, fragrant and almost a parmesan smell some days.
My question is-- how do I know my starter is ready to use? I'm eager to try it out on a loaf but I don't want to be too eager, as I know good bread takes time.
Any advice? I've read so many different answers- from a week to a month, and I wonder what the Fresh Loaf folks have to say. Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Hi, novels!
If your starter doubles in volume in 12 hours or less, you can bake with it. Catch it at peak or even shortly before or after and you're golden.
Murph
"fragrant and almost a parmesan smell some days." Debra Wink[1] discovered this was due to a strain of bacteria called leuconostoc that seems to be more prevalent in flour now than it was formerly. This bacterium is self-destructive as it produces acid that inhibits its growth. Wink developed the "pineapple solution" to prevent this from occurring. However since it is self destructive keep feeding and it will go away. Your starter will mature in about four weeks, but you can probably start using it in about two weeks.
Keep going and I wish you happy baking. Remember that sourdough is slower than commercial yeast, so allow an extra hour for each rising. Patience is the key!
Ford
[1] Bread Lines, a publication of The Bread Bakers Guild of America. Vol. 16, Issue 1, March 2008
also -- http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1
Oh, this is very helpful. The parmesan smell has died down quit a bit and now it just smells yeasty and bread like, so I think that's probably a good sign.
This pineapple info is very useful, thank you!
I've successfully made starter from just using whole wheat flour and water, allowing the natural wild yeasts in the flour to do their thing while feeding it faithfully. As I remember it took 8 to 10 days before I felt it was ready to leaven bread.
It sounds like you are seeing and smelling fermentation, so I'd agree with BXMurphy, if it's doubling in 12 hours after an equal part feeding, you're probably ready to use some to make bread.
My starter is pretty healthy and doubles in 4 to 6 hours after feedings sometimes less. I also let my bread proof the first time for about 9 hours before folding and proofing again for 1 hour before baking in a preheated vessel.
Good Luck
Thank you Pete! I will definitely be allowing extra time to proof now that I know these tips. And folding into a preheated dutch oven and proofing some more. Thanks again!
Go ahead and use it! You may be pleasantly surprised! You may already have some potent stuff in your possession.
Show your results here so these guys can help you tweak and give you advice as needed. :)
Happy SD baking! :D
/Mark
I'm soooo excited! Thanks and will do!
novels,
Here's a link to managing starter and here's another link that will help you make some great sourdough bread. This a great learning site with instructional videos and they sell lots of nice bread making tools and supplies. Good Luck
Well, the first attempt did not go as planned. Which I think is likely, this seems to be a complicated art!
I had some sticking to my basket liner, making my loaf a bit odd shaped, and I think my starter feeding schedule needs to be altered. We'll see how next week goes with these adjustments.
Thanks everyone!
Are you able to upload photos of the crust and crumb? I'm sure some of these pros here can help "diagnose" your bread and process.
I made a video of how I make my SD bread -- maybe it'll help? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXpRKoehv_U
Good luck!
Mark, excellent video! I followed a very similar process, except I bulk fermented for about an hour shorter and rose overnight in a fridge.
Here's the crust
And here's the inside
For my first attempt it turned out okay, at least it's really flavorful and made nice french toast.
Going to try to beef up my starter by starting to feed using rye flour later this week I get bubbles and aroma but not a lot of size increase. Any other ideas? I might try the pineapple juice tip but I'm concerned about that impacting flavor.
you don't need the pineapple juice. The pineapple juice is just for the first 3 or so days to get it started by making sure the environment is acidic enough so you skip the weird stinky stage. Using whole grain rye flour is a great idea to make your starter nice and active. Keep it warm, feed it as soon as it doubles and it will be happy and make you awesome bread!
ETA: Try feeding it 1:2:2 which means one part of starter to two parts of water and two parts rye. That will give it enough food so it doesn't go into starvation mode so quickly (means that the acid won't overtake the good beasties in your starter and kill it).
Most excellent advice. I'll start on the rye feedings tomorrow morning, 50g starter, 100g water and 100 g rye and see where that gets me by the end of the week.
Truly appreciate the guidance!
it needed to ferment more before a final shape and proofing. Try adding more folds and get them in sooner, during the bulk rise. Don't worry, you can judge the rising needed by the gas build up inside the dough. You will notice that as you fold the dough after a period of expansion, that it will feel more spongy and build in volume. Folding encourages the fermentation and helps the gluten matrix trap more gas as it is being produced.
Maybe it helps to think of sourdough bulk rise as one continuous rise with a lot of interruptions folding so that the dough can maintain its shape and build gas. If you shape the loaf after every folding tucking in corners and such, when it is ready to bake you can skip the banneton rise. I would encourage you to do this just once so that you can feel when the dough is ready for a final rise upside down in a fermenting basket.
Hi, Mini Oven!
I like the way you explained the bulk rise as building strength to maintain shape while trapping gas. That's probably as concise as it gets.
The way I look at it is if you can bounce that dough on the counter like a basketball player dribbles the ball, you're ready to shoot for three points.
The dough can really feel that lively when handled as you suggest.
Murph
baker makes for a starter that doesn't seem to rise well. The reason is usually because white flour was used and it was too wet. Rather than trapping the CO2 produced, the gas just rises through the starter, comes to the surface as bubbles. Then they break releasing the gas to the ari rather than trapping it to make the starter rise. Sometimes people use voulume instead iof weight wich really makes the starter too liquid
Using the the 1,2,3 ( starter, water and flour by weight) method will solve this problem and the starter will rise nicely.
Happy SD baking
This seems likely, as I followed the Tartine recipe for creating starter, which uses a blend of whole wheat and white flours. Will switch to rye for feeding starter, and try a 1-2-3 recipe next time, as the country bread recipe I followed only used 200g leaven which I thought wasn't quite enough.
Anyway, thanks for the tips, I'll keep on trying!
Going to mix my first loaf tonight after switching to feeding rye flour. Will bake probably tomorrow morning or evening and post results. I'm excited to see how these changes affect the overall end product. Thank you all for your guidance!
better to use at least half wheat and not shock your young starter completely. You have several colonies of yeast growing and it is important not to do too many extreme changes. Ease into the changes so the colonies can adjust accordingly. The colonies in wheat are slightly to different to those in rye. If you have already fed the starter only rye, give it some wheat to chew on too and enough water to blend nicely.
Another point, if you want to build yeast let the starter reach peak expansion before feeding again. Don't get hung up or limit the starter with the "doubling" way to measure activity. Feed it after it has reached maximum expansion or height, no matter what height that may be. Let the rising dome indent in the middle and start to level off before reducing and feeding or building. (with rye starters, let it start to fall <poke it> to ensure there is enough acid in the starter to help the next build.) Use a tall glass as opposed to a bowl to watch the process and take notes on the size of bubbles, aroma, and volume as the starter ferments over time.
I followed this last night and my starter actually overflew it's container, so I think that's probably a good sign. Will start doing a blend of rye and wheat flour so as not to shock the system at first, but it seems like it's going good so far. Thanks again for all the excellent advice.
Getting closer to where I want to be with every attempt. Thanks again everyone!
:)