Hi All,
New to baking sourdough. Just finished my second bake but I am not getting the rise so the bread ends flatter and slightly more doughy or heavier than expected. Not putting it down though, it's still tasty.
My issue seems to be with the starter. Question is where am I going wrong. I've looked at youtube for examples and my mixture seems runny. At first I tried with 70g water and 70g flour, and reduced to 50g water and 70g flour , feeding daily but I get the same results with a liquidy starter. After a couple of days I get bubbles on the top and it develops the sour smell but I don't seem to get it to rise or get bubbles visible within the starter even after two weeks. This leads to the issue of my bread rising I feel.
The flip side is I find my starter makes excellent pancakes.
Any tips to help get a better starter or correct where I am going wrong?
Regards
Adrian
Hi Adrian :-)
You don't say how long your starter has been going, but often they need a few weeks to settle down and develop the full range of microbes.
Your instinct to thicken the starter up by adding more flour is understandable but is probably not the right answer... most people keep their starter at "100% hydration" (i.e. with an equal weight of water and flour in it) and the level of hydration is important because that differentially favours the different types of microbes colonising it. So I'd go back to feeding with equal quantities of flour and water if I were you... but maybe introduce a bit of stoneground organic whole wheat flour just to keep introducing new species of yeasts and LAB.
Incidentally, you say you're feeding 70g + 70g but are you also doing discards (throwing away some of the old starter) before you do that? There are lots of different approaches to maintaining a starter, but during ones early life it probably best that the total amount of feed (water + flour) is about double the weight of old starter. It's not critical though.
You're dead right that discarded starter makes truly excellent pancakes though...
One good trick to get to understand the response of your starter to feeding is to make a time-lapse video of it - very easy to do using your mobile phone or tablet. Put a couple of spoonfuls in a straight sided glass, feed it, then put a rubber band around it at the initial level. Tuck a ruler under the rubber band, put a wristwatch on the counter and put your phone camera into 'time-lapse' mode. Lights, camera, action!
If you haven't read it by the way, I strongly recommend reading this article on the forum about what's really going on inside a starter written by someone properly qualified to talk about it (as opposed to some of the incorrect myth and legend floating around).
Happy baking!
What is your feeding regimen? I find my starter will do as yours does if I only feed every 24 hours. Try feeding every 12 hours to see if that helps.