Hi All,
I"m brand new here, but please don't hold it against me. I recently started a third attempt to create a starter, this time using the pineapple juice (substituted with apple cider) from Debra Wink. I've been feeding it 1:2:2 for about four weeks with 100% organic whole wheat flour, and last week it really took off. The picture below is with a 1:5:5 feed, still WW, which is doubling after 8 hours and peaking at 11 hours. I've been refrigerating it overnight after peak for about 10 days.
The activity seems great and I think it's ready for a first loaf, but the smell is a bit odd. It's not necessarily yeasty and/or sour - it hardly smells at all, maybe slightly like cheese if I had to put a scent to it. Does anyone have any guesses about what might be going on? I
Best,
Scott
Yet another starter had been brought into this world. That's it!
Haha, thank you!
That might be the smell of over-fermentation. You might want to refrigerate for more than you are currently doing. I don’t think you ruined it, or anything. It looks great, actually!
Thanks very much for the encouragement!
Scott, the sour smell develops when starter starves, and you have to let it another 12 hours after it peaked. This will not make your starter weaker, the bacteria and yeast are much more resilient than we think. It will readily peak again within 12 hours after 1:5:5 feed (which in itself is quite a big feed ratio, turning it from acid into regular neutral thing), and will only smell sour in another 12 hours. If you feed it at 1:1:1 it will peak sooner and will turn sour sooner.
Hi Uzbek, thank you for the quick reply. To confirm, your advice would be to just feed 1:5:5 every 24 hours to develop the acidity/sourness (and not refrigerate at all at this point)? I was only using the fridge because my first two attempts during this quarantine period developed a strong acetone smell, and the Sourdough Lady had suggested a salt/fridge trick in a similar thread.
Best,
Scott
You can check yourself. Smell the starter freshly fed (it smells like dough), smell at peak, and then smell at 24 hours. It will be sour. Actually, there is no point in feeding every 12 hours. Starter is not done munching in 12 hours even if it finished growing and started deflating.
Better even, keep doing what you are doing and just experiment with 10 grams of it, feeding 1:1:1 to see result quicker
the subject of my nightmares. I found the reason! I revived my acetone starter with a SINGLE 2:1:1 feed! Additional longread here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/63151/very-active-starter-three-feedings-and-5-days
Oh nice! I was following your advice inadvertently - for the first week with this current starter I did 2:1:1 feeds, then moved to 1:1:1 for a week and 1:2;2 for two-ish weeks.
Actually, "fixing" the acetone starter works too good ))) It has everything it needs, just needs a small kick. And once you give it that kick by NOT diluting it too much once or twice, it becomes a beast. It outgrows my Debra Wink starter all conditions being the same, grows faster and higher.