Converted starter is not floating but making good bread.

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bakingbuddies on 1 Aug 2019 at 14:04

Hi all,

Hope summer (in northern hemisphere) is treating you well!

Over the last few months I've converted a two year old starter that was APF into a rye one using a very good local rye.  I feed it in the fridge once a week and use it approximately that much; when I use it I make a leaven just like I always did by taking out a third of my desired starter and adding equal amounts [rye] flour and water (eg for 120g starter sourdoughs I take 40g starter direct from fridge, add 40g water and flour).  I then, as before with APF, leave it for anywhere from the working day, so say I make the leaven in the AM and then use it in the PM, or even overnight up to 20 hours sometime.

The issue I'm having is that my bread has been turning out pretty great  - sometimes better than other times, including some real stinkers - but the leaven has *never* passed the float test. Its always sinking. Can someone help me out with this? Is the grainer, rougher nature of the dark rye just not conducive to floating and all is good? Am I letting it sit too long and therefore yeast has started to weaken? Any other tips? I'm curious if the mistake breads I've made have to do with something about the starter or a different variable. Thanks for reading and any tips!

Whole rye will make a starter extremely active. In my experience an active starter fed 1:1: will easily mature in 4-6 hours @ 75F. I would think that an active 1 to 1 whole rye starter would grossly over ferment in 12 hours or more. 

I hope others respond and share their opinions and experience. I have no idea experience with starter fermentation at 75 and below.

To see the affects of temperature on a starter... The starter above is 90% APF and 10% Whole Rye @ 100% hydration. At 84F it rose ~2 1/2 times in 3 hours.

You wrote, “... leave it for anywhere from the working day, so say I make the leaven in the AM and then use it in the PM, or even overnight up to 20 hours sometime.” Once a starter begins to grossly over ferment the yeast begin to decrease and the bacteria (LAB) begin to increase.

The above is a guess on my part. But do you think this could be causing your dense (non rising) breads?

Dan

Thanks for this detail. I definitely think that this could be an issue - it was one of my suspicions; I'm new(ish) to baking but have heard how much more active and quick rye could be. So maybe I've been leaving it way too long. The thing is since I'm doing 120g and using the metal mixing bowl I then use to make the whole bread, so I can't study the rise in the intense way you've done above...

...but I’ve had a crash course in starters and sourdough over the last 12 weeks ;-) One of the “duh” lessons I just learned here is that the more feed, the longer it takes the starter to eat it. So If you want to leave your starter to ferment for a long time, you need to give it a big meal. That means that instead of 1:1:1 feed, give it a bigger feed. Like 1:8:8. That’s an overnight sort of feed. So, instead of 40g starter to “start” use 10g. So, now you give it 80g flour and 80g water. That’s a total of 170g—pour out 120 of floaty starter into that metal bowl, and 50g are left to go back into the refrigerator for next time.

Now your starter will ferments slower and you can leave it be for 12-14if not 20 hours. 

And don’t be afraid to do this in a good glass jar—or a plastic peanut butter jar if you like—with a rubber band to measure where it starts and where it foams up to. Check out this video: 

https://youtu.be/Uj6YpNCUYYQ 

...if you’re worried about having to wash out the jar each time. The video will show you how economical that jar can be. All you need do is put the bowl on your scale to make sure you pour in that 120g. You get to see how your starter is doing, yet not have to do any more cleaning up than before. Win-Win.  

Why you are concerned about floating when it makes good bread. Float test is good for starters fed with wheat as they trap more gasses and would float. I stopped doing float test years ago because it tells nothing. If your starter has risen in a few hours that is the best sign of its activity. Some people say that the starter needs to float in order that it will leaven the dough. The fact is that floating starter is a bit more developed means that the whole process will be a bit shorter or better say the overall time will be the same. If you would like to do a float test add 30-50% of wheat flour to your starter and it will float.

Joc is correct. I misread your initial post. When I read “sinking” my mind went to collapsing or non-rising flat bread.

The float test. Most experienced bakers don’t use the float test. A well fermented active starter is very light and airy. If you take a fork and pull away the surface of the starter you should see beautiful gluten strands. AND if it raises bread it is good.

The information I wrote about the temperature and timings is accurate. Try not to grossly over ferment your starter, so that your bread will get maximum rise.

Sorry for any confusion...

Danny

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Mini Oven on 2 Aug 2019 at 05:20

pure rye starters break down fast.  A rye starter fed 1:2:3 (starter: water: flour) at 24°C will have broken down enough after 8 hours that it can no longer trap gas, but it smells great and can raise bread.  Mine tends to sink too, if I test it.  (If it does float too easily, a pure rye starter may need more fermentation.). The act of removing a spoonful to test is enough to deflate it, especially at 100% hydration (equal amounts of water and flour.). Peeking under the surface skin is the best way to look at the matrix strings and check that aroma!  Ah the aroma!  That is my favourite test and should I need to, tasting to see if flavours have built enough for me..  

A see-thru jar is also a big help, looking straight at the gas cells.  

OK, now this is starting to make a lot of sense :-) I had thought rye was going to be totally different and I was seeing those great strands (and smelling it) but yeah, since I do the "all-in-one-bowl" method and dont want to do the leaven in a jar, it was tough going for a while. I'll just focus on other potential variables that may have given me misses (overproofing, underproofing, etc) and one day I can maybe get to that 76% hydration that I can never work with!!

EDIT: if i keep the pure rye starter in the fridge - should I do something different with the leaven (eg 1:2:3 but with APF) for a better rise? Or just keep pure rye?

it will last longer.   Remove some for building the levain and use whatever flours you want as long as they contain carbohydrates.  Adding flour or grains you wish to soak into the levain can be a step saver.  I love just taking a large bowl especially a beautiful one, and just add ingredients to it to build up a dough playing around and feeling the texture as it changes.  Zenning out in what used to be called day dreaming.  :)

Are you after a pure rye loaf with more than 76% hydration?  That's easy to do. Really. 

No, the 76% in question refers to using the rye starter and leaven, then using white bread flour and spelt. Anything above 70% and I get a soupy mess. Is 76% whole wheat or rye easier because it absorbs much more water?

BTW I love your attitude toward the dough :-) I am trying to get there to have the 'intimacy' with it but not yet.

Adding flour or grain to soak into the levain...what do you mean there? Do you create the levain in a bowl, then add in the flours and literally "soak them" before adding water for the autolyse? Or do you start with levain, add flour, add water, and just keep going till it's where you want it to be? 

And doesn't rye flour make a dough sticky? I'd think a high-hydration, 100rye loaf would be particularly difficult...for newbies like me and bakingbuddies, I mean. I've been baking bread for over two months now, and I still find dough over 72% tricky to manage.

is fermenting after it is mixed up, one can toss in some of the whole berries and seeds to hydrate as well, even the whole flour if there is room for it.  Depends on your recipe but it is more like the second part of the Q.  Levain can also be chilled to slow down the yeast while whole flours are hydrating in that levain.  There are so many ways to combine flour, water and yeast.  I like to add a slice or two of day old crumbled bread (Altus) to the levain also.  Pretoast for even more flavonoids and add back the estimated water lost in the toasting process. 

Rye can make dough sticky (so can oat flour) and there are ways to deal with it, one way is to use wet or moist tools and hands.  I tend to make high rye doughs with more than 50% rye flour.  A favourite being over 80% and 100% with about 83% hydration.  The higher the amount of rye, the less handling to be done.  Keep the tools to a minimum and use them wet, that includes hands. Rinse well in tepid water when cleaning up, don't let the dough dry on equipment.  Seeds stick nicely to sticky doughs after shaping.