Greetings
I'm in the process of developing a new starter. Its been 13 days now, yet when testing it to make a dough there was no yeast power yet, though it added a nice tangy sour taste.
My question is: since I still have to use IDY in my dough (for rising power) in addition to the starter (for the sour nice taste), should I make separate preferments with each? or add both starter and IDY in the same preferment? My target is to keep the sour taste.
If both were added in one preferment, does the IDY diminishes the sour taste of the starter ? or does the starter make the IDY lose some of its rising power?
Starter will be too acidic for the yeast anyway.
Another way would be to follow a sourdough recipe as normal but when making the final dough add a little IDY.
This would be a hybrid.
That's what I thought. Thanks for confirming it.
I'm trying separate preferments today. Last time I added IDY in the final dough, it hardly made any rise. Perhaps an IDY preferment would make it stronger.
How do I build yeast in a 100% hydration starter over-powered by sour/acid? should I put it in the fridge? or perhaps make it stiffer? I tried feeding it with more flour and less inoculation, with no luck! the yeast is almost gone in my starter!
If you are making two preferments, one sourdough and the other IDY, then after making the dough watch the dough and not the clock. Leave till doubled then proceed. I'm not sure on the health of your starter nor how much IDY preferment you are using so watching the clock after making these changes wouldn't be a good idea. If your starter has very little strength then I'd make a sourdough preferment and then add a normal amount of IDY and follow a yeasted recipe. The sourdough would be just for flavour.
Now for your starter can you explain how you have made it and what's been going on till now?
Perhaps start a new thread. If you experienced a bubbling up then quiet this is normal. If you tried to wake it up by overfeeding it then this would be counterproductive. Trick would be to stop feeding it till it wakes up again then carry on.
Good idea. I'll start a new thread.
edit: the thread is here:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51897/what-went-wrong-my-starter
In my opinion, if your starter sours, and has no rising power whatsoever, you should just add yeast to the final dough. You are not going to get any discernible taste/flavor out of yeasted preferment anyway, so why bother. But. It's not going to be a pinch - I would start with a gram of IDY.
Oh, and by day 13 a viable starter should be fully stabilized.
This is a common thing - that a newish starter has good bacteria content but not a strong colony of yeast. Mini Oven is the expert on these kinds of things, and I recommend you have a read through her advice on this post.
Meanwhile, if a fairly large percentage of the final dough is pre-fermented (in the sourdough starter), then adding the IDY at final dough stage will probably not interfere with the nice sour taste from the starter, and will boost the rise of the dough enough.