Hi all,
I've made a few attempts with making my own sourdough starter in the past several months. I've found that my starters are very fragile and unpredictable. I typically aim for a 100% hydration starter fed with 2 T KA AP flour and 1 T rye flour. Our kitchen stays mostly between 70 and 80 degrees. However, sometime my starter rises and falls in 6 hours. Sometimes it rises steadily over 12-18 hours. And sometimes it doesn't seem to rise at all and has a slightly off smell (more soured yogurt than fruity vinegar). I can't find any kind of predictable rhythm to it. Also, I've never been able to revive it well after being in the refrigerator. It will smell off for 4-5 days and need 3 feedings a day to get it back to good functioning.
Does anyone have any suggestions or wisdom on this delicate process?
Thanks!
The 2 T of wheat and 1 T of rye would only weigh out to a few grams - is that all you feed it? Or are you increasing the amount with each feeding? A good rule of thumb is to roughly double the volume of the starter with each feeding. Also, if that's all you're adding to your dough it might not be enough to rise the bread unless you're going for a good l-o-n-g bulk ferment.
Mini Oven gave some awesome advice to another poster about improving the strength of their culture a while ago. You can check it out here. Scroll down to her comments throughout the thread.
--Mike
Hi Mike,
The 2T + 1T feeding is a maintenance feeding. Most advice I've seen says to feed once a day, but at least sometimes my starter rises and falls too fast for that and then it seems to take another day or two to get it rising well again. I've also seen everything from 2T of flour to 3/4 c. flour for a maintenance feeding. Just going on the low side to not use up so much flour. How much starter do you discard before you feed? I usually aim for about half, but I'm not precisely measuring it.
Bart
Saying your feed is 3T of flour plus water lacks context. While the specific numbers that follow are just examples, that's a decent feeding if you are mixing it into say 3T, but stingy if it's being added to 20T.
How how much starter is there to begin with? At those temps, I'd expect a starter to be pretty hungry. Lack of food would explain the erratic behavior. How are you measuring the flour and water added (measuring spoons, or a regular spoon?
I only keep about 3/4 c. of active starter going at a time. I only have time to bake bread once or twice a week. I discard about about 1/4 - 1/3c. of the starter and then add my 3 T flour and 3 T of water to refresh. I do use measuring spoons for the flour and water.
And yeah, over the summer the kitchen has tended toward the warm side over the summer, so I've been surprised too.
It needs more food. Keep tossing half and feed double the amount for a few days (with less water C below). It needs to build up again. Also, it must be a watery starter at those ratios. Thicken it up by reducing the water by half, at least. Try something like 5 flour and 2 water. It'll be back in shape in a few days. Once it's good and consistent again, adjust feeding schedule so it doesn't run out of food too quick.
Thanks. This seems to have done the trick. The yeast growth really picked up after two feedings at this ratio. I read a couple places that the higher hydration was friendly to the yeast but adding more food than water seemed to give them what they needed. Yay for yeast!
It just needed more food. Now it's a matter of giving it enough food to last between feedings. That 5 to 2 ratio may not last 24 hrs, you may have to adjust it a bit, or toss 3/4 instead of half and feed the 5/2 ratio. A little more food is better than less. Enjoy!
but I use the it anyway -- and I'm happy to say that the bread loaves have been sufficiently consistent.
I'm preparing a batch right now, actually, with 2-week old refrigerated starter. I'm using it straight out of the refrigerator. No refreshing, no extra fluff... just "Wake up and get to work!"
IT'S ALIVE!!!! When I use my starter, there's always some of it left along the walls of the container. That's all I need to replenish the starter. Once I see metabolism occur (bubbles + expansion) I'm confident that's still alive. When it reaches the mouth of the container, I refrigerate it. Boom. Ready for the next batch. Easy peasy.
Like you, I also use 25% Bread Flour, 25% Rye flour, and 50% [filtered] water, for a total hydration of 100%. I usually keep 200g of starter.
TEMPERATURE: The ambient temperature has a significant effect on the biological activity of your starter culture. 70-80 is a wide range when you're talking about microbiological activity. SD starter cultures are relatively simple organisms -- they need nutrients and water to survive, but they're also hardy enough that refrigeration simply slows their metabolism, or reasonable levels of warmth speeds things up.
How temperature and time impacts my bread-making was a HUGE realization for me because this influenced how I bulk ferment (e.g., 2-3 hours in the summer...3-4 hours in the winter) as well as how I shaped and proofed (because the dough continues to ferment.)
WASTE. Metabolism results in waste products, so expect strong sour taste and odors or excess liquid later in the process. (I tell my kids the yeast and bacteria in the starter fart and poop all day long!) Professional bakeries renew their starter daily... therefore, they are much more predictable and consistent with their starter.
But enough about me -- here's a helpful FAQ with common problems when managing SD:
https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/sourdough-troubleshooting-faq/
GOOD LUCK!
Reference:
8 years in clinical pathology