I want to try baking sourdough bread so I started making a starter.
Started with 100g Whole grain dark rye flour and 100g water on Sat evening.
Sun evening took 50g of Saturdays starter and added 100g Rye and 100g water
Mon evening took 50g of Sun starter and added 100g Rye and 100g water
Tue evening took 50g of Mon starter and added 100g Rye and 100g water
It is now Wed and I am not noticing any activity with the starter. Do I start feeding it 50g Flour and 50g Water every 12hrs starting tonight or do I need to wait until I see activity with the 100g + 100g every 24hrs?
The starter is very stiff and paste like. Not liquid at all. Should I add more water than I am using?
Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions.
You've done some quite big feeds too much too soon. What I would have done is mixed up 50g whole rye + 50g water then not do anything for 48 hours. By which time it should bubble up or have some activity. Then i'd go onto daily feeds of 50g starter + 25g water + 25g flour, once every 24 hours, until it bubbles up with predictability. After which i'd slowly start increasing the feeds.
Your starter is trying to ferment. The pH should drop and it'll become acidic. But discarding so much and feeding a high percentage of fresh flour and water will slow this process down especially if not kept warm enough.
The best course of action now is to not feed it, keep it warm and give it a good stir once, or twice, a day. Once it begins to show signs of activity then start with the feeds again.
Edit: If the starter is very thick then slowly add in a little water at a time till you get a thick batter consistency. Give it a good stir, put it in a warm place and don't feed again till it shows signs of fermentation.
To make something, it is helpful to know what you are making ;o)
The secret is in the name "sour"dough. The reason a sourdough starter doesn't get moldy or go bad with nasty bacteria is the SOUR part. What makes the dough get sour is Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB). In order to get your starter off to a good start, you need the LAB to be happy and producing plenty of lactic acids.
When you start out with just water and flour, the PH of your dough is very close to neutral (7, the PH of water). The longer you let the flour and water sit, the more acidic it becomes. When you add additional flour and water, you are diluting the acidity putting it at risk of infection by microbial bad guys, so you want to make sure that it has as much activity as possible before diluting it with additional flour and water. This is extra important in the beginning when you are trying to get the symbiotic relationship between the yeast and LAB working.
It's easy to get impatient and over feed your starter thinking you are speeding things up, when you are actually slowing things down by diluting your already weak starter.
These days I tell anyone who'll listen to use Debra Wink's method using pineapple juice instead of water for the first stages of the build untill the ferment is going along swimmingly.
In short it protects from a luconstat infection and there seems more of that these days.
But as for your method.
It's water in some form (Just not chlorinated or brominated water) and any kind of starch.
That's it. the bacteria and yeast you need are already in the flour. And it really matters not one whit what kind of flour. I've known people to use corn and others who used potato. The yeast and bacteria will work with pretty much any starch.
EXCEPT for BLEACHED FLOUR never use that.
Ratios of water and flour? Doesn't matter. I prefer a wet culture like a batter. I've known folks who do a stiffer starter. I think wetter makes it easier for Oxygen and the yeasts and bacteria to move around.
I have never calculated the ratios never weighed or measured. I've been doing this since the early 1980s when I got hooked after going to San Fran and tasting the SD there.
Lots of people follow a formula, they measure and weigh and have timing X number of days between this and that. If that turns a person on then great. I have never done anything like that.
So to get to your point I think you are golden. I'd suggest a wetter culture than you described. Like a batter I think might be better. That way you will see the bubbles of the ferment easier.
Give it some time. Don't feel as if you have to mess with it. keep a couple layers of cheese cloth tightly over it to keep the fruit flies out. The life in that mix wants to live and thrive.
Thanks for the answers.
I was forced to start over. I put my little starter in the oven to be in a warmer environment. I came home and my wife had decided to bake something for dinner and had the oven on at 400 deg. Well my starter and the plastic container in was in were still in the oven. Needless to say that did not end well. I started a new starter and it looks like I have decent activity on day 4/5.
Appreciate the help.