Hi all
I’m relatively new to baking but seems like there’s lots of knowledgeable folks on here so I thought I’d ask some advice.
I’ve been nurturing a starter for about 4 weeks now. The starter shows a good amount of activity (bubbles throughout, smells yeasty) but not a ton of rise throughout the day. I’ve attached a photo to show what I mean. This was fed 1:1:1 this morning and this photo is from about 10 hrs later so you can see it’s only risen about 25 percent or so.
I started the starter with 50/50 whole wheat and all purpose flour and fed it that way for about 3 weeks. About a week ago the activity decreased and I did somewhat of a “reboot” with the pineapple juice method (I used orange juice instead). That seemed to work quite well and I’ve been feeding it that way (2 oz starter, 1 oz water 1 oz whole wheat flour) for the last week until yesterday when I fed 1:1:1.
Any my ideas about how I can see more rise or improve the activity of the starter?
If it's very thin, you can reduce the water amount a little and get more rise. In general, the more white flour used, the less rise you usually get. If it's bubbly and smells good, use it, don't worry to much about the rise.
It’s not really thin. It’s thinner than 100 percent hydration dough but not by much. I tried baking a couple loaves last week and got pretty mediocre results (see photo).
I let this proof for 4 hrs and then 24 hrs in the fridge. Crumb is pretty tight so I’m concerned that the starter isn’t potent enough.
That's a stumper. What does your recipe look like?
800 g flour (80/20 all purpose/whole wheat)
460 ml water
10 g salt
320g starter
It’s just the recipe from the sourdough masterclass video on YouTube
Another recipe option is to follow what alex does here. It's super simple and he explains it well. The 1-2-3. I had five failed attempts before I came across alex and followed his video for my first success. Made many after with no more fails (at least with sourdough hehe)
https://youtu.be/APEavQg8rMw
His "wake up" recipe is "two tablespoons" starter then 100g bread and 100g water. It always confuses me when bakers mix and match measurements, especially when they're so precise about some ingredients (flour/water in this case) and so relaxed about others (the starter). Besides which, I think in grams when it comes to bread and I can't help thinking "how much is 2T in grams...."
2T is about 40-50 grams. :-)
I know this because another recipe told me to use 1T starter and I weighed it to see...got 20g. Of course, that's my starter. Weight differs starter to starter, but probably 40g-50g will be about 2T.
:-D
Yeah that's a little befuddling when people do that. Good clarification there!
Try feeding 1:1:1 with whole wheat for a few days
I've been feeding 2:1:1 with whole wheat exclusively for a week (usually 2 times a day).
At the 10 hour mark after you feed it, when you pull out what you need, is the starter more like a pancake batter? Or is it webbed and stringy under the top?
You want the starter to be webby when you go into it. If it's batter- like, it's not going to bake good bread imo.
It’s pretty stringy. Lots of bubbles when I stir it down.
It’s pretty stringy. Lots of bubbles when I stir it down.
Another option just to get the nice crumb you seek is to add a little commercial yeast to your final dough mix. There are recipes out there that mix both starter and yeast. Imho sometimes it helps to just get a nice loaf under your belt. Then start adjusting. You're basically just ensuring that you have success with that crumb. I'd start with just 1 tsp though.
Here's an example recipe:
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/rustic-sourdough-bread-recipe
it makes a big difference how it should be maintained. I see no mention of temps.
It’s around 20-21c in my kitchen. Been keeping it there almost exclusively. I tried a couple days in the oven with the light on but thought it was wasteful to keep the light on all the time.
Perhaps the 24 hour stint in the fridge could be replaced with a slow cool rise in a cooler part of the house instead, just a few degrees cooler and not as cold as the fridge.
Another thing to try is use part of your starter to make a wet starter, closer to 200% hydration. Use more of the effervescent starter and way less water (or exclusively starter) in the recipe to speed up the rises, especially when using AP flour.
My take is that the starter is plenty active, but it is underfed, meaning the colony of microbes is not concentrated enough. The goal is to increase the amount of flour in feedings over time. If you don't do this, it will be harder to succeed in baking because the amount of flour will overwhelm weak starter.
Check out the Yumarama link below. 1-1-1 is the feeding at the outset. Once it starts getting active, you go back to 2-1-1. Then 1-1-1, and finally 1-2-2. This should happen over a period of two weeks or less. Once it is doubling reliably at 1-2-2 every, say, 4-8 hours, it is ready to use to make levain. So I would take your 1-1-1 or 2-1-1 fed starter and proceed to get it to 1-2-2 and then bake.
Your bread looks badly underfermented, and it is, because it would take much longer to eat all that flour. Good experiment, because now you know what happens in that case. I look forward to seeing the next bake. Happy baking.
http://yumarama.com/968/starter-from-scratch-intro/
I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but trying to learn from it, but can someone tell me what this jargon means 2:1:1, 1:1:1 and the like? I'm assuming - 2 starter:1 water:1 flour? or something like that?
Yes you are correct. s:w:f
Read that yumarama link. Some juicy nuggets in there imho.
You baking anything today?
I'm not myself. My dang oven broke. Grrrr. When the parts come in I'm going after bernard clayton's Vollkornbrot.