Over the past year or so, I've been having issues mixing panettone dough . After a lot of research and talking to a few different people. I've concluded that my LM is not healthy. If I am reading the signs correctly, it's too weak.
After feeding and leaving at 30C for 3-4 hours, the LM doubles but does not quite triple. A cross-section of the LM after fermentation shows very tiny alveoli. The starter tastes mild and fruity, but there's really not much acidity to it and the pH seems stuck in the 4.4 - 4.55 range after fermentation. If I understand correctly, after about 12 hours bound at 16-19C, the starter should register a pH of 3.8-3.9, yet mine is still sitting in the 4.4 - 4.5 range.
The issue I'm having now is correcting the balance of microorganisms in the dough, and while there seems to be a lot of information out there on how to create and maintain a LM, there's surprisingly little information on what to do when something goes wrong.
I initially created this LM maybe 1.5 years ago from my 100% sourdough starter and I suspect that something went wrong with this process as my LM has never really behaved correctly. The typical schedule for my starter is to refresh 1/1/0.5 and leave for 3-4 hours at 30 C. I'll do this 2 or 3 times in a day, after which I will bind it and put it in the refrigerator for about a week. If I'm going to bake with it, I'll take it out of the fridge about 3 days before and begin the typical cycle of 3 short warm refreshments followed by 1 long cold one. The starter is maintained exclusively with KA Sir Lancelot flour.
I've been doing things a bit differently lately in order to try and correct the issues I've noticed. I've been taking some suggestions from https://www.dissapore.com/ricette/lievito-madre-di-iginio-massari/ and https://biancolievito.com/how-to-fix-your-sourdough/ on how to strengthen a weak LM.
Over the past week I have been tracking refreshments and have gathered some interesting (and frustrating) data points:
- I have done many 1/0.8 refreshments (starter/flour) at 45% - 50% hydration per Massari's recommendation, yet the starter still seems weak and is not acidifying below 4.4, even after as much as 5 hours at 30 C.
- I have done 2 rather lengthy "long" refreshments. One of these was a submerged refreshment with 19C water left at room temp (about 71F) for 17.5 hours, the other was a bound refreshment at 17-19C for about 35 hours. Both of these resulted in some decent acidification down to about 4.1-4.2. I followed both of these up with 1/0.8 warm refreshments which, in both cases, brought the pH right back up to about 4.4 after 3.5 hours.
- I'm tracking the difference in pH before and after fermentation. The two very long refreshments I mentioned acidified the most, resulting in a pH change of about 0.8 - 0.9. The refreshments immediately following these long ones, however, resulted in the least acidification of all 15 or so refreshments I've tracked so far, decreasing the pH by only 0.29 (oddly, exactly 0.29 in both cases)
- I've tried a longer warm refreshment where I mixed and laminated the dough, rolled it in a ball, and left it at 28C for about 9.5 hours (neither bound nor in water). This only acidified down to about 4.38 and was right back to about 4.5 after the subsequent 3.5 hour warm refreshment
- Out of desperation, I've begun using bottled water instead of filtered tap water. This hasn't seemed to make any difference at all
I'm tempted to create a new LM either from my 100% starter once again, or perhaps from scratch, but I really want to figure this out. If I were to create a new starter that behaved perfectly, I feel I will have lost out on what seems like a valuable learning experience. I am kind of running out of ideas though, which is the purpose of this post.
At this point, I feel like I could leave my LM out in the yard for a week and still effortlessly bring it back to 4.4 pH 🤣. I thought maybe my LM is just happy at 4.4 - 4.5, but given all of my issues mixing panettone dough, I do think it's an issue.
Have you tried refreshing with a lower protein flour? The combination of Lancelot with 45% hydration may be what's stifling the bacterial component. It's a similar effect as Benny's sweet stiff levain, where the water content is already low, and then there is something -- in this case the very absorbent high-protein flour -- pulling it away from the microbes. Try the KA Bread flour, or their AP and see if that moves things in the right direction. Or, if you'd rather stick with Lancelot, at least increase the hydration until you get the results you're looking for.
Interesting. I had read that high protein flour might be an issue (while also reading that a LM should be refreshed with very high protein flour 🙄) , so I did try one refreshment with 75% lancelot and 25% KA bread flour at 48% hydration. The pH after almost 5 hours at 30 C was alarmingly high at 4.54, which is actually the highest post fermentation pH I've recorded since tracking this. I guess that kind of scared me away from using a lower protein flour, but perhaps if I continue to use the bread flour for a few refreshments or maybe increase the percentage of it or increase the hydration, I will eventually see a drop.
In terms of hydration, most of my refreshments are actually 50%. I do go a bit lower at times like when I refreshed with bread flour, or when I'm following instructions that specifically mention a hydration percentage. Are you suggesting going higher than 50%? The highest percentage I've seen mentioned for LM maintenance is 50%, but desperate times call for desperate measures, so I'm definitely open to it.
50% is more in line with the ones I've looked at, and I think KA Bread Flour is more similar to Italian panettone flour than Lancelot. Try bread flour at 50% hydration for at least 3 consecutive feeds before drawing any conclusions. Rebalancing takes more than one refreshment, and if bread flour has more buffering capacity, the first cycle may seem like it's going in the wrong direction, but you need to give it a fair chance. And if that doesn't do it, try AP. The worst that can happen is you learn how these parameters influence the result and you gain some insight that will serve you in the future :)
Great advice, thank you 😁. I will definitely try it.
Actually, can I ask why you say that KA bread flour is closer to panettone flour than lancelot?
I also have some Caputo Americana which might work, but it's sometimes hard to find and/or expensive, so I've been avoiding feeding it to my LM in the event I won't be able to find it at some point.
I came by it secondhand in correspondence with a professional baker who is familiar with the flour specs. Besides, you should be able to feed your LM a flour that you don't have to mail-order. And if I remember right, Lancelot is more expensive too.
Interesting, thanks!
Funnily enough, I was in the same boat as you. Nearly all LM troubleshooting seems to centre on too much acidity, but like you, I had too little.
Unfortunately though, I'm afraid I don't have an answer and my panettone making is parked for now.
Try what Debra suggests - it might work; some say high gluten flours don't have enough nutrients. And I did think about a big increase in hydration to see what that would do, eg 70% for a few refreshes? But I never tried it.
Other options I've read about are a feed with 5% honey in the water and (as a separate option) the addition of some egg yolk.
Lance
I've come across a few posts around the web and have talked to someone with the exact same problem and somehow the threads are always abandoned and the OP never found a solution. So frustrating!
I will definitely try increasing the hydration. While I thought about using honey or sugar or something, I hadn't seen that mentioned anywhere and so wasn't too keen on trying it. Now that you mention it and it's no longer my own random idea, I might give it a shot lol. I also thought of maybe working in some whole wheat flour or something to see if that helps boost activity.
Good suggestions here!
How does you LM look after the 4hr refreshes ?
My LM is similar, it only gets down to 4.1 or so but conversely my primo tends to be around 4.8 right after mixing, whilst I see most persons have primo 5.3 or more. So I tend to assume it is an issue with the inferior flour which I use.
My LM doesnt have the big alveoli and layers that I see other persons get with a fully refreshed LM but I think I get decent panettone results, but of course I am curious how others get the LM to look like that and also get the crazy lift.
I will take a picture at my next refreshment. It's...underwhelming. I notice that with most LMs I see around the web, they easily triple and when scored with a cross, the middle of the cross rises significantly. With mine the cross opens but the middle doesn't really push through.
Most LMs I've seen before and after fermentation feel like they defy physics and make me wonder how such a small dough round got so massive. Mine has never given me that feeling haha.
I would literally pay money to see my LM at 4.1
I use Gold Medal All Trumps (the green bag) for feeding. It is about 14% protein, and it is important to use a high protein flour for feeding. My LM is about a year old, came from a regular sourdough starter. I tried making a different one from fruit but it was unstable.
I feed at 1:1:.45 and mix for 7 minutes, rest for 10 minutes, then either roll in the usual way or knead while rolling it back toward the center with my hands, forming a smooth ball. Then I store at 27-27C for 7 to 8 hours. Then repeat this, feed again and store at 18C for 16 to 18 hours.
Doing this has given me the best results of the techniques I've tried so far. I've seen advice to increase the flour to 1:2:45 in the Italian LlM facebook group, but it was not an improvement for me. I don't go to 30C except for the 3 refreshments prior to mixing.
I see you've looked at Massari's recommendations. Have you looked at Montanari?
In Omnia Fermenta, Montanari suggests a maintenance starter:flour:water ratio of 1:1.5:.45. This is to provide enough food for the LM to fully develop before it reaches its depletion stage. (4 phases - initialization, exponential growth, stationary and decline). The logarithmic phase under maintenance conditions reaches its peak around hour 7 or 8, at which point the pH should be 4.1. The maintenance cycles prior to mix day allow the LM to develop balance, stability, and strength sufficient to respond to the higher temperature, higher moisture level and shorter timeframe of the mix day refreshments.
Chambelland points out that L. sanfranciscensis gains the competitive edge over yeast flora when the pH descends to around 4.5. My observation is that if the food is depleted at that point, insufficient LAB development will occur, which means you might not get to pH 4.1.
I have had this happen when running maintenance refreshments at too high a temperature, and when not permitting a warm/cool cycle to the refreshments.
So, I would maintain using 1:1.5:.45 feedings, warm cycle no higher than 27C, cool cycle around 18C. Production refreshes according to the particular recipe you are using, but probably a 1:1:.47 ratio would be common.
Just my 2 cents..... ;-)
This is all awesome information, thank you so much! This is what I will try next. I have the SPV book, but I feel like I need to read it a few dozen more times for all the heavy science to sink in 😅
I've seen your posts. I will take as many cents as you'll give me!
Aw thank you @joegranz! I have been "driven" to this point of investigation by the kind of experiences we all have with LM and panettone-making. At this point I have read so many panettone recipes and websites that I can somewhat read Italian, 😂.
There is nothing like it though, and IMHO nothing is even close.
So when that day comes when all of our LMs are perfect and stable, then we will have to address the (literally hundreds of) points about panettone recipes, their mixing, fermentation, handling and baking. Onward! 😀
Yeah, I'm a bit "driven" myself. It's more of an obsession. I am like this with a lot of things, but nothing in recent memory has humbled me as much as panettone 🤣. People like you, Michael, and others on this site and around the web are invaluable to people like me trying to perfect this craft. It worked out well for Roy, but we can't all show up on Iginio Massari's doorstep asking to apprentice with him (though in moments of desperation, which lately are pretty much all moments, I do consider it haha).
I have actually begun learning Italian recently and I would be lying if I said that it wasn't in part to better understand whatever content is out there on lievito madre and panettone.
And I agree, nothing comes close. The difficulty and the process are certainly a draw for me, but it's more than that and for reasons that might not be very logical or make sense to anyone, it's important that I get this right.
For now, I just want a somewhat passable panettone to come out of my oven at some point this year.
If you use rolled-in-water maintenance, or if you are doing a bagnetto due to a too-low finishing pH, then the water ratio on the next feeding should of course be lower because of residual water left in the LM.
I have always liked the Autumn kitchen video, but the .30-.38 water percentages didn't work out well for me except under the above conditions.
Yeast requires oxygen, moisture and warmth to flourish. LAB ferments anaerobically and operates well at a slightly cooler temp. So in the growth phase, yeast has ideal conditions, and LAB slightly less. This switches over when alcohol production and oxygen depletion occur.
Although yours includes further annotation. Out of interest does Montanari credit Dottoressa Federica Racinelli in that book? Still, I might just have to pick up a copy of Omnia, looks very interesting!
I do wonder if that is another mistake in SPV. He makes the conclusion based on the negative effects of acetic acid on yeast at a low pH which unfortunately he explains erroneously, although I have spoken with Thomas about that! While the point is true I can't help but wonder if he misread this:
"We observed that the growth of lactobacilli is favored over yeast growth at pH values of >4.5, corresponding to the first stage of dough fermentation. L. sanfranciscensis does not grow below pH 3.8, indicating that the pH is a decisive growth-limiting factor for this organism in sourdough." (Gänzle, M. G., Ehmann, M., & Hammes, W. P., 1998)
The opposite conclusion at pH 4.5!
Regarding sugar depletion, I think that is rare in practice. Recently I was reading a paper that demonstrated free maltose even after 24 hours of fermentation at 30C IIRC! As above LAB is ultimately controlled pH and we can utilise lactic acid to influence pH.
this book does not present as an academic research work; rather than footnotes, there are thanks and acknowledgements in the back of the book, He doesn't mention Racinelli that I can see, but he thanks professor Carlo Rizzello of the universita di Bari and profeessore Franco Antoniazzi, technical consultant for their contributions.
I think it's a very interesting book and well worth owning, particularly if you can read Italian!!
Okay thanks Sue, sure of course I didn't expect that. I more was curious as to whether Racinelli is the original source of the data.
I have Omnia Fermenta in the cart... I see very good reviews, one saying how it corrects upon some of the concepts found in pH4.1...
This is my understanding as well, but have seen some notes about using lower-strength flours (https://allyoukneadisbread.com/troubleshooting-my-lievito-madre/ and https://www.lievitonaturale.org/lievito_madre_rinfresco.php). I have started feeding it KA Bread Flour and haven't noticed much of a difference, but I'm going to do it a few more times to make sure.
This is somewhat encouraging. I was beginning to feel like starting the LM from an existing starter was a bad idea and that I should start over from scratch.
I feel like I've maintained a similar routine for a long time, the main difference being the warm refresh temp and fermentation times (typically 30C for 4 hours, but lately have been trying all kinds of different things). Of course, I don't maintain my LM exactly like this and perhaps the slightly different maintenance routine might be what's leading to a different outcome. I've tried just pushing forward with the typical maintenance routine, hoping this LM would sort itself out, but it hasn't for a very long time now, which is why I feel like a more aggressive adjustment might be necessary.
I basically follow the refreshment cycle from Sourdough Panettone & Viennoiserie, extending the fermentation from 3:15 to 4:00 because my LM is never where it needs to be after 3:15 (or 4:00 for that matter lol).
I think I've seen similar refreshments to correct a LM that's too strong. Was this feeding ratio suggested for that issue or was it for correcting a weak LM? Anecdotally, I've noticed with my 100% starter that when it's a little sluggish and I feed it 1:2, 1:3 or even 1:5 ratio of starter to flour, it of course takes much longer to rise but it ultimately rises higher than with a 1:1 feeding (thereafter I can do a 1:1 refreshment and it will rise just as well). Because of this, I've been considering refreshing the LM at 1:2
I haven't come across anything by Montenari on this issue, but I can look around and see what I find.
Not sure if you made a mistake here. A single feed 1:1 left at 27C for 7-8 hours? Not 2 feeds?
Also interesting choice of flour. All Trumps is bleached, bromated and enriched. I don't think bleached flour is particularly suitable for sourdough. Bromation does reduce mixing times and provide more fermentation tolerance (I think) but I don't think it's worth the cancer risk and/or introducing another variable (since it's a pretty strong oxidizing agent).
well, since that post, I have started feeding at 1:1.5:.45, because I have a concern about providing enough but not too much food.
The green bag version of All Trumps is unbleached and unbromated. That is the one I use. I buy it from foodservicedirect dot com
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Sue is your 7 minutes mix in a mixer? I get the impression that gluten development is an important part of refreshment. Am I right?
The trouble with using a mixer is that you need quite a large minimum dough weight for it to work, which leads to a lot of waste. Also in my 15C winter kitchen, the dough ends up stone cold, even with prewarming.
I wonder if a mini food processor would work?
Lance
yes, I run the KA for 7 minutes, with an aftermarket spiral hook. I agree totally that the process is wasteful!
As for the mini food processor, why not try it? Seems like if the blade were plastic, it would be less destructive to the gluten mesh in the LM. Worth a try anyway, good idea!
I forgot to also mention that I used this 4 day guide which helped to stabilize mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0fM3EZFHiA
I use a wine chiller to achieve the 16-18c temps, I live in the tropics so 28c is ambient temps for me.
I keep in fridge bound long term and when planning to use will take out the day before and put in wine chiller then bagnetto the next dat and the 3 refreshments
I have seen this video so. many. times. Maybe it's time I try it lol.
I guess I've never followed it because I don't really understand it. It's different from everything I've read, particularly in that she does three 20hr cold refreshments at 16 C before doing a single warm refreshment. I also don't understand all of the different fermentation methods - I think the first time the LM is left scored, the second one is submerged, the third is scored, and then for long-term storage it's bound.
She obviously knows what she's doing because she's getting great results, and to be honest I have not tried successive cold refreshments over the course of a few days. I am trying literally anything I can think of so am definitely not ruling this out, I just wish I understood a bit more why this maintenance routine is so different than everything else I've read.
A hot topic of discussion here, mind if I join in...
@joegranz, I propose a trade you can have my LM and I'll take yours hahaha. Mine leans the other way and will acidify with great ease.
In all seriousness though I do find it quite odd that even with the steps you have taken, the pH seems reluctant to dip below pH 4. Very interesting, and quite hard to accept... but let's see if we can get to the bottom of this...
First thing though, what pH meter do you have?
Michael
Do I mind if you join in!? I was debating whether to create a post about this or just message you directly 🤣. I know you're kidding about the trade, but as stubborn as this LM is, I feel I will have gained a wealth of knowledge if I can fix it. As much as I want to throw it out and borrow a piece of someone's healthy starter, this could be a very valuable experience.
As for the pH meter, I'm using this popular guy https://www.hannainst.com/bread-and-dough-ph-tester.html
Honestly, I'm reluctant to believe the readings myself, so I calibrate the tester every few days. Obviously I am no expert on how pH correlates to how the starter presents itself, but it's definitely not rising enough and really doesn't taste all that acidic. And of course, my panettone dough is turning into soup, as you probably know haha.
The ideal flour for LM and panettone would be something that closely matches the following:
low ash: (type 00 - <0.55% dmb) / <0.47% 14% mb)
strong: W>300
balanced: P/L .55 - .65
farinograph stability: >13 minutes
unmalted - falling number >300
I often see the recommendation for strong flour, while of course this is true, if you are in North America (NA) note that the call for strong flour is from an Italian perspective where historically common wheat grown there has always been relatively weak.
Bread flour from wheat grown in NA is rich in gluten but unfortunately these flours are imbalanced with too much tenacity and too little extensibility. The routine addition of malt may be problematic too.
KA Sir Lancelot flour has over 16% protein on a dry matter basis, which is more than the most common strongest Italian flours at about 15-15.5%.
Concerningly NA bread flours do not demonstrate exemplary stability values... Italian panettone flour would be closer to 20 minutes. This value indicates fermentation tolerance.
Perhaps KA Sir Lancelot blended 50/50 with a good quality NA soft wheat flour might work better in terms of dough consistency.
FYI:
Just an update on this -
I did one refreshment with 50% Lancelot and 50% bread flour, followed by 3 refreshments of 100% bread flour.
My LM is still happily sitting at a pH of over 4.4.
A note about the common terminology from the maestros...
I've seen some interpret these terms with respect to leavening power, I want to make it clear that too weak or too strong refers just to the acidity, leaving power is not the focus, that is assumed, probably because feeding consistently 1:1 at tripling point ensures the yeast are in good shape, at least it should do...
The problem you have doesn't quite fit into any of those definitions but certainly it leans to the "Too weak" (troppo debole) side.
I think perhaps you should try leaving it at 28-30C until it reaches pH3.8, however long it takes. I do wonder if the microbes that currently dominate your starter are not suited to this task. In any case the pH will get that low given enough time...
I have also been wondering if the microbes aren't suited to this task. I am ok with that conclusion, but would like to understand how I got here.
When the starter does reach pH 3.8, what is the next course of action? I am thinking maybe a purification refreshment to get rid of unwanted strains that accumulated given the starter sat at a higher pH for an extended period of time?
I will try that. I just refreshed with SueVT's suggestion of 1:1.5:0.45. I can leave that one as long as it takes to get to 3.8.
While I've never seen 3.8, I did recently leave it submerged in 19C water at room temp (about 21.6C) for 17.5 hours and got the pH down to 4.09, which is the lowest pH I've seen in the last 20 or so refreshments. The following 1:1:0.45 refreshment resulted in a pre-fermentation pH of 4.7 which after 3.5 hours only acidified back down to 4.41.
This isn't to say I'm not willing to try your suggestion, only noting that I've been down a similar road to no avail, in case it changes your suggestion on what to do next.
I'm glad you said that because many things are linking together in my brain.
This is to be expected, I have noticed that too, not to that extreme, but indeed I have noticed where the starting pH is lower than 4.8, which indicates a higher acid load, it can require more time for the pH to fall again. The answer is to work through it, let it keep on fermenting until it gets to the critical pH. I have in fact recently been experimenting with the same approach to condition the yeast and LAB through high levels of acid stress. At the beginning I did manage to obtain a starting pH of 4.5. I am now the point now where my LM is both acidifying and leavening very fast indeed - It doubles in 60-90 minutes! I think I am now officially in the too strong zone!
Too strong = It acidifies to below pH4.0 in 4 hours, mine is now doing that!
This difficultly in reaching a pH lower than 4 also made me think of SF sourdough. Somewhere in the depths of this forum exists a post about attempting to replicate the traditional SF sourdough process which required a target pH of 3.8. I distinctly recall reports of the same issue, whereby many were unable to get their starter to register at that low pH. Not only that, I have long considered a high acid load to be the only marked difference between a SFSD starter and LM.
I'm not going to join in giving advice. I'm not qualified to do so regarding LM and there is already some great. However I have just come across this dried LM. Two questions...
1: Is it genuine?
2: While their instructions don't recommend this would there be a problem in keeping it on-going?
If yes to the first and no to the second this might be a good way of starting ones own LM while being able to bake with it straight away.
Abe, looking at the ingredients, it seems to suggest it is a mix of 70% natural yeast and 30% dried yeast (S. cerevisiae), which I presume is standard bakers' yeast.
So not suitable. But I fully agree with your chain of thought - why isn't LM available ready made so we could just refresh it a few times and off we go? Without all the growing pains!
Panettone makers do put their LM in long term storage, either dried or frozen, so I'm sure it could be made available in one of those forms.
Freeze dried is another option; I bought a freeze dried SD starter from Freshly Fermented and it was ready to go in about three refreshes.
https://freshlyfermented.co.uk/product/organic-freeze-dried-white-sourdough-starter/
In fact I plan to ask them about LM. There is one from Bongu, https://bongu.de/#/Artikel/11/eva but it doesn't sound like it has been "panettone trained".
Obviously, there may be some protectionism from the maestros - I think if you attend one of their courses they give you some LM to take away - but there is no copyright on the concept!
Lance
However Lance, truth is that the drying (and freezing) of any starter poorly preserves the microflora. In most cases rehydrating is almost equivalent to starting a new starter.
Some organisms just cant be preserved!
Upon rehydrating and refreshing; if firm, you can expect L. plantarum to show up and if loose you can expect Ln. citreum to take hold.
Something was off when they advised to simply rehydrate it and use. Dried starters don't work like that. Hate it when they sell it as a natural ferment when in reality it's IDY with added flavour.
Abe, I encourage you to look at this from another angle.
I can imagine what one of my wine lecturers would say about your conclusion of that product... He would forthrightly and scornfully ask something like "so packet yeast isn't natural then?!"
Of course he would be right to do so as baker's yeast is in the grand scheme of things, natural and the added flavour which comprises of most of the product is derived from an active starter that has been dried.
This is not an uncommon product and is on par with CLAS, just all packaged up into one dried product.
Perhaps I should have used the term "wild yeast" but terms like "levain naturel" are used to describe sourdough starters and not IDY.
CLAS is understood to not be the leavening agent and just the added flavour. Wine isn't sold as wild or commerical yeast fermented.
But Lievito Madre has a meaning. When one is buying something being sold as Lievito Madre it should be the real thing. If they had said on this product - "IDY with LM flavouring" then i'd have no issue with that.
This is more akin to a beer being sold as Lambic when it was made with Ale yeast and had some flavouring added.
Don't have any issue with the product itself. I think it's a bit of false advertising.
Indeed CLAS is not a leavening agent, it is a flavouring agent as is this product but with IDY included. When making bread with CLAS you would have to add a leaving agent such as IDY but with this IDY is already included.
It is the real thing, Lievito Madre dried plus IDY. There is no false advertising that I can see, it clearly states on the box exactly what the product is.
IT - "Lievito Madre essiccato, lievito naturale + lievito secco"
ENG - "Dried mother yeast, natural yeast + dry yeast"
"lievito secco" is understood to be baker's IDY and ADY.
If it was sold without the IDY you would have to add it anyway or another leaving agent. Dried starters are intended to be used as flavouring agents but if you wish you can use them as a base for culturing a new starter, but that takes time, and will in effect just be a new stater with quite possibly a different microflora and therefore defeat the intended purpose of the product.
Do you follow?
That culturing a starter from dried starter is making a new one.
Perhaps it was the smaller writing at the bottom of the box and with it being at an angle I didn't notice the + IDY or ADY. Just the big bold letters of Lievito Madre at the top.
Quick update - after a 1:1.5:0.45 refreshment and 8 hours at 27C, the starter is registering a pH of 4.47.
I am disappointed, but not surprised.
Onward we go to 3.8.
How did your LM do in terms of rising??
I am following along with my starter. I did the same refreshment yesterday. At 8:30 PM, after almost 8 hours, it was pH 4.23. It did rise quite well.
This is not ideal, but for me it is closer to what I want, and it is moving in the right direction. I have found that the balance in a LM moves at its own pace. No instant results, but improvement over time.
The rise was quite pathetic. It might have just barely doubled.
I checked the starter at the 10ish hour mark and it was 4.42. It has been 18 hours now and the pH is 4.32. Really taking its time but moving along.
Considering what you've said about your LM, it seems to show low activity in all respects. So one question is, do you think any other foreign organisms have out-competed the desired LM yeasts and LABs? Perhaps.
Maintaining at a high temp consistently with excessive water *could* contribute to other things dominating.
If it were my LM, and I'm not recommending that you do this, I would (as an experiment), split off a piece of the LM and feed it separately, adding a spoonful of organic whole wheat flour to the first 2 or 3 feedings. Remembering that the desired yeasts live on the exterior of the wheat kernel. I would be hoping to re-seed those back into the LM, and I'd be looking for increased rise over a 5 to 7-day period.
I'd continue to refresh the main LM using a warm/cool cycle as a benchmark.
I have certainly considered that.
Im going to see where the starter is at the 24 hour mark. I wasn't planning on letting it ferment this long when I refreshed it so I'm starting to get concerned that I won't have enough yield after removing the skin that's forming. Had I planned to leave it for 24+ hours, I would have made it larger.
So, if I do have to end this experiment prematurely, I will start it again with a larger starter and can hopefully harvest enough to begin this side experiment as well.
How's it going? Where is the pH now?
I think it's clear the microbes that dominated in your original loose consistency starter are not suited to a LM type starter, which of course makes sense since research studies have shown the how the environmental factors, such as temperature and culture consistency determine which microbes will become dominant.
For instance F. sanfranciscensis is better suited to firm cultures.
After 23 hours, pH is 4.16. It's beginning to shrivel up so I might have to pull it soon. I will give it a few more hours.
Interesting what you said about the loose starter. I took my 100% starter out of the fridge yesterday after it had been in there for a week and left it at room temp for maybe 6 or so hours. I've never tested the pH of the starter so I didn't know what to expect, but I guess I figured it would be quite acidic. It was only registering around 4.2 if I remember correctly. I guess I expected it to be lower, so maybe this supports your hypothesis.
Do you think the LM can be corrected, or should I just start a new one? If the latter, is there any tried and tested guide out there for doing so? There seems to be enough information on how to do it, but every single one seems to be different and clearly I don't understand the science enough to wing it (or to decide which of the methods I've seen is best). Obviously I would not seed this with my liquid starter.
Of course I would like to fix the one I have, but perhaps I can start another in parallel. A colomba by Easter would be nice haha.
This question highlights a conundrum about how we users see and put attachments on our starters. The thing is, there isn't much difference between starting a fresh and continuing with the existing one.
In both cases we need to obtain a particular set of microorganisms and that is achievable either way because the process determines that.
If a persistent change in the process occurs which results in a shift of microflora then the starter has changed but without knowing what is going on at that level, the user may believe it to be the the same starter simply because they kept it going, even though the original dominant microbes are gone, out competed because they are no longer suited to the new environment.
Feeling one way or the other about starting over or persisting is actually a distraction from the aim. That being the case, however if a new set of microbes is needed then introducing other sources such as Sue's suggestion of whole wheat, or I might suggest freshly obtained fruit juice, will increase the diversity and opportunities to select for the right microorganisms, just as would be the case in starting over.
I'm not sure how reputable this site is, but the following statement from https://www.lievitonaturale.org/lievito_madre_trasformazione_in_licoli_e_viceversa.php has been haunting me for quite some time lol. When speaking about creating LM from liquid starter, the author says:
The site is in Italian so perhaps something is getting lost in translation, but I take that to mean that if you want the best results, it's best not to create a PM from a liquid starter (and vice versa, I guess)
yes and there is a corresponding FB page that you can join, it is pretty interesting. He sells a package of PDFs with his approach to LM, baking various things etc., on the website.
My LM has had 3 feedings at 1:1.4:.45 after coming out of two weeks' cold bound storage (and my cold fridge is very cold):
Last night it had risen well and was at pH 4.23 at the end of the 27C warm cycle, and I fed it and put it in for16 hours on the cool cycle (18C). Good result:
Image
Looks good!
I'm thinking of doing the same. I'll get this one as low as I can and then will refresh it and ferment at 16C for, I don't know, maybe 16 hours or so unless you all have a better idea. I might break some off for the refreshments with some whole wheat flour after the cool fermentation.
Hi sue,
can you give a schedule of how you do this long refreshment? I would like to try it and see how my lm responds.
thanks
This is fun.
Originally refreshed at 1:1.5:0.45 and left at 27 - 28C for 29.5 hours. Initial pH was 5.27 and final pH was 4.13. I couldn't wait until the dough reached 3.8 because too much of the dough started to get hard. I did notice that the starter didn't acidify much towards the end. 23hrs into fermentation, it was 4.16 and at the end after 29.5 hours it was 4.13.
I refreshed 1:1 and left at 16 C for about 20 hours. Initial pH was 4.74 and the final pH...drumroll please...was 4.63 😭 haha.
Made a bigger starter this time. Will see how low I can get the pH at 27 - 30C this time, though this is starting to feel impossible to fix
You might have already thought of it but I recall having issues with balancing my LM and it was because my ph reader needed to be calibrated. Once I did that the smell and taste of the LM started to match with the expected PH readings.
apologies if you already went through it but I thought I’d chip on just in case.
Yes, I actually calibrate the pH meter frequently (every few days) because I began starting to distrust the readings throughout this process. Unless there is an issue with my calibration buffers, I have to assume it's working properly.
I think I might be making progress.
I've decided to treat this like I'm starting a new LM from a sourdough starter. I've seen a lot of guides that involve warm refreshments every 12 - 24 hours until the starter is nearly tripling in 3-4 hours. My LM does seem to be rising pretty well, so I think 24 hours is a bit long. I've settled on refreshments every 8-10 hours at 27-30C. I'm also using a 1:0.8 refreshment ratio per Massari's recommendation for correcting a weak LM from the link in my original post.
So far, it's moving in the right direction. I've done three of these refreshments, yielding post-fermentation pH values of 4.41, 4.25, and 4.17. While these are very long refreshments, I am noticing that I'm hitting these lower pH values in less time with each refreshment. My plan is to get to a point where the LM acidifies below 4.1 in 3-4 hours, at which point I will start working back up to a 1:1 refreshment. I want to wait until the pH is getting below 4.1 because I expect the extra flour used when working up to 1:1 will raise the starting and ending pH a bit.
I've also observed a lot of changes in the LM. I can actually see some alveoli now. It smells and tastes more acidic and when mixing the refreshment, I notice a faint alcoholic smell. The LM also seems a bit sticker after fermentation than it did in the past. Finally, I'm beginning to see the LM "tear" through the cross.
I don't plan on doing any 16C refreshments until the LM is behaving as expected.
Let's see how this goes.
are all those long (8-10 hr) refreshments with it floating in water or all balled and cross cut ?
in the second link in your first post they recommend 3 long refreshments but all in water.
Balled and cross-cut.
I tried what that second link recommends which is 2 short refreshments lasting 3 hours followed by a long one lasting 24 hours, all submerged. This got the pH down to 4.09, which is the lowest I've ever seen it.
I followed that process with a 1:1 warm refreshment for 3.5 hours and got a pH reading of 4.41. The refreshment after that was another warm one at 1:0.8 for 3.5 hours, which gave a pH reading of 4.52. I couldn't seem to get below 4.4 after that.
This might be worth trying again though and then following it up with refreshments where I wait for the pH to get down rather than just sticking to 3.5 - 4 hours.
these are somewhat similar to the Autumn video where its a series of very long and some in water and some not
A sound plan, and the preliminary results are promising.
I've been pushing my LM to the max in recent times with the intention to fully solve the problem of acidification in the Primo Impasto.
I'm amazed just how far I've managed to push this, leavening is very fast despite a generally high acid load at times. I've worked through high levels of acetic acid while lactic acid has seemingly remained high at all stages.
Specifically in terms of organoleptics, initially I got back the "rye bread" aroma in the LM but that has now given way to some very fruity aromas which are persisting. For what is just a mix of flour and water this is smelling very sweet, like cake but also "confected-sweet", like a type of sweet (candy) we have in the UK called "Fruit Salad". This I can explain as the production of a high level of several ester compounds.
Interesting stuff!
Very interesting.
You obviously have a good handle on how to effect change in your LM. I'd love to know how you are pushing your LM.
I am a bit worried about hitting a plateau with this plan I'm following. I am still seeing decreasing times to reach the ~4.2 range (down from about 8.5-9 hours to about 7), but I don't imagine this will progress nicely all the way down to 3-4 hours.
Would bound and/or submerged fermentation be appropriate at some point? I guess, outside of the regular maintenance cycle where these techniques are used to extend fermentation while keeping acidity at bay, how and when are they appropriate to use?
While I mentioned that I wouldn't do any 16C bound fermentation until the LM was behaving as expected, I have been kicking around the idea as it has the benefit of purification as well as dropping the pH to levels that I'm having difficulty reaching with warm refreshments.
I also wonder if I'm overlooking submerged refreshments as a tool to correct my LM. I've always assumed it was more or less interchangeable with bound storage, but I'm sure the two cause different changes in the LM, which might be important when trying to use them as tools for rebalancing.
Temperature is another tool I'm considering, especially how it affects the bound and submerged storage. For example, I've seen recommendations to bind or submerge at room temp for 24 hours. Why would you do this when the typical recommendation specifies a much lower temp for a much shorter time? Surely fermentation will occur faster at room temp than at 16C, so I would think you'd let it ferment for a much shorter amount of time.
So the reason I opted to push the LM was because I was convinced that yeast / leavening wasn't up to par, signified by diminishing leavening activity over the typical three refreshes.
To ensure the yeast was maximised I extended the length of the warm refreshes, initially to 12 hours, then to 8 hours before settling upon 6 hours in repetition. I found 6 hours to give consistent pH values, landing at around 4.6 as a starting pH each time, always with a 1:1 feed. I kept this going for several warm refreshes over several days.
A while back I demonstrated to myself that low pH and high acidity isn't as detrimental to yeast as some might believe. Clearly, high acidity slows everything down, but it doesn't stop yeast from growing if food is available and it doesn't stop LAB until the critical pH is reached.
For the overnight fermentation stage I have been using the bound method exclusively for quite some time now. Done for 12-16 hours at 16C.
I was hoping to see the bound package lose the tension and soften, which indicates a cessation of CO2 production, within a 24 hour period, but at no point in recent times have I seen that, even after 36 hours. Only once in the past did I witness such an occurrence. I know from experience tying too tight will delay that happening also.
If I were to detail what I have done so far as a easy to follow instruction I guess I would instruct to hold at 28-30C and feed 1:1 every time the pH reaches 3.8-3.9. Once that is established and occurs within 4 hours then it is ready to be fed every 3-4 hours.
I haven't used the Piemonte (in bagno d'acqua) method for a while but I know what to look for as good signs... Chiefly, it should float in about 1 hour at 18-20C.
Ah, no wonder you said my plan is sound - it is very similar to what you're doing! The main difference of course is that your LM is healthy and mine is not. Funny enough, one thing I've noticed while following this process is that my LM is rising much better, which seems to be what you're after.
Regarding the process you explained, how long did it take for you to reach a point where the pH was reaching 3.8-3.9 within 4 hours? I understand that there are a lot of variables to account for and there is no simple answer, but in your experience, was it days, weeks, months? Were you seeing a significant decline in fermentation time with each refreshment or was it just a few minutes less each time? What do you do if you keep feeding 1:1 and the time it takes to reach 3.8 - 3.9 isn't decreasing?
The reason I'm asking is that I've fed my LM 1:0.8 (starter:flour) for about 8 refreshments now, all held at about 27-30C. Very similar to your process of refreshing after you hit a target pH value, except I am using a different ratio and waiting until pH 4.1 - 4.25. I noticed that my last 4 refreshments were all nearly identical - feed 1:0.8 resulting in a starting pH of about 4.75, followed by fermentation at 27-30C lasting 7-8 hours, yielding a final pH of 4.15 - 4.25. There is extremely little variation in my last 4 or so refreshments. Again, I am using pH as a signal to refresh rather than sticking to an arbitrary number of hours (I think this was my main hang-up for so long - I was blindly adhering to the 3-4 hour "rule". It seems now that it is less of a rule and more of a target).
I just haven't really seen the fermentation time decrease over these last refreshments. At this rate, it will take months to reach the target pH in 3-4 hours, if it happens at all. I'm wondering if you ever hit a wall like this and if so, whether you stayed the course and continued following your process or if you used some other technique to break through the plateau.
One thing to mention first is that getting an accurate pH reading, even with a spear tip probe can be difficult with these low hydration doughs. I suspect with much larger masses it's easier to get a more immediately accurate reading. So could I ask you to dissolve a sample of the leavened dough in some distilled or deionised water and compare the reading just to be sure the pH measurements are accurate.
Some things I can think of that should in theory help with acidification.
Increase hydration
Add malt syrup
use lower ash flour
use lower protein flour (protein contributes to buffering capacity)
A target yes, in the initial stage but once achieved it will then be ready to lock into the typical feeding routine.
Working on it. Need to get some distilled water. Might take a little while before I get the chance. Will report back once I've tested it
Condense a bit of steam off a kettle?
You won't need much after all.
Lance
Mission accomplished, however in doing so, I realized that I might not have fully understood the assignment.
Does the quantity of dough and water used not matter or did you assume that I know what I'm doing 😅?
Unfortunately, as I sit here typing this, I realize that I did not weigh the two, so presumably, I will have to re-test this which is not a problem, it will just have to wait until the current fermentation is finished. If I had to guess (which after a few weeks of refreshing my PM multiple times per day might be surprisingly accurate), it was something like 10-15g of dough and 50 - 60g water.
The pH of the distilled water was 5.7, which seems correct. The pH of the dough alone was 4.22 and the pH of the dough dissolved in the water was 3.97.
That's fine, no need to measure the quantities of dough and water used.
So there you go, 3.97 is a more accurate reading and demonstrates the difficulty in getting a good reading with very stiff doughs, especially if the dough mass is relatively small.
You've turned this whole thing on its head for me. I don't doubt you're right, but I'd like to understand what's going on.
The distilled water started with a pH of 5.7. I can understand dissolving dough in a solution with a neutral pH and then measuring the pH of the water after, but in this case do I not have to account for the slightly acidic pH of the water prior to dissolving the dough?
I've done a bit of research since you suggested this technique and what I've seen suggests dissolving a 5g sample of dough into 50g of water (generally a 1:10 ratio is used). To accomplish this, they suggest putting the dough and water into a container with a lid and shaking it up. I've done that, but the dough never completely dissolves. Given that the quantity of water and dough doesn't seem to matter, I'm guessing that it also doesn't matter how well the dough dissolves? I'm sure to an extent it matters, but I imagine at some point the pH stops changing?
Anecdotally, I've tried a few things:
I've seen so many pictures on the web like SueVT's in this very post - a probe sticking out of a PM reading 4.1. Based on my findings, the pH of the dough dissolved in water is never the same as what I get when testing the dough directly. Is it possible the difference between the two readings is more pronounced between different starters or is this solely based on the dough's hydration (so if hydrated to 50%, we can expect the PM in SueVT's picture for example to have a similarly low pH when dissolved in distilled water)?
Possibly a question for Michael to answer, but I will just step in and say that you can't measure the pH of distilled/deionized water water with an ordinary pH meter - there are insufficient ions present for the probe to function properly.
The accepted "solution" is to add a pinch of potassium chloride which will add ions whilst not affecting the pH reading.
Having said that, because there ARE so few ions in the distilled water it won't really play a part in pH calculations.
And this is how people used to measure dough pH before spear tip probes came into existence:
http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/howdoesonemeasurethephofso.html
Lance
Very helpful Lance, thanks for that.
So, I'm now very suspicious of LM pH readings. I'm consistently seeing drastically different readings when testing the dough directly vs in solution. I decided to ask Hanna about this given that most of us are using the same pH meter that was, after all, designed to test dough. I wanted to see if there were any official recommendation for testing low hydration doughs.
I basically explained the situation to them and here was their response (top notch support, btw):
I can't say I'm going to wait the 15-30 minutes, but will probably follow this process in general going forward.
Also, as another data point people might be interested in, I tested the pH of my 100% starter both directly and in solution and got the same exact reading, so this definitely seems to be an issue with low hydration doughs, specifically.
Interesting info, most ppl simply use the distilled water as a mixer to measure.
off topic, but how do you guys clean the ph meter tip when it has been put in oily stuff like panettone dough ?
I know they say it must not be wiped.
Distilling water mostly eliminates the ions but pure water is a bit of unicorn and isn't particularly stable as it is easily influenced by the environment, such that upon exposure to the air it quickly absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere lowering the pH. That is why your distilled water measured a pH of 5.7.
I was mulling over how best to answer this one, I'm not sure I could explain what I know about the nature of acidity in a few sentences, you'd really need to read a book on the subject if you want to wrap your head around it and resolve any questions you may have. It's clear however that pH and acidity is commonly misunderstood. In acid/base reactions water can act as both an acid and a base, being composed of H2O it contains acid and base ions.
(H+) + (OH-) = H2O.
Also pH is a negative base 10 logarithmic scale which describes the presences of H+ ions in aqueous solutions. pH 4.0 is ten times more acidic that pH 5.0.
In practise water will have very little effect on pH when used to dilute acid containing samples, same goes for alkali samples. It's really the molar concentration of the acid substances that affect a change in pH. Look at it this way TTA 6 (dough sample) + TTA 0 (pure water) = TTA 6. Then there is another layer of complexity when you consider we are dealing with weak acids, which don't fully ionise.
I think it's clear that measuring the pH of stiff dough mixtures poses extra difficulties but higher hydration and the presence of salt (which improves conductivity) helps to attain an accurate reading as Lance mentioned. pH is physiochemical not biological so differences between starters in pH measurements are based on physiochemical composition. Where TTA is higher it will be easier to get an accurate reading which in part could account for being able to get a reading of pH 4.1 with the probe in direct contact with the dough. I also suspect the dough mass may have an influence too, I believe the internal humidity exerts a greater pressure and better contact between the liquid phase of the dough and the probe.
Hope that helps,
Michael
That helps.
Interesting point about TTA. I've noticed that the discrepancy in my pH measurements is smaller before fermentation. If I understand correctly, the pre-fermented dough will have a higher pH and lower TTA than the fermented dough. So, it seems I'm getting a more accurate reading with a lower TTA, which is the inverse of what you're saying.
When testing a refreshed, pre-fermented LM, I'll see a difference of a few hundredths, whereas when I test a post-fermented LM, the difference is tenths of a pH.
Maybe something else is affecting the accuracy of the reading here though - for example, the pre-fermented dough is denser, and so theoretically more if it would be in contact with the pH probe, giving a more accurate reading.
So if one does not have a PH meter(as in old days), what do they go on ? Smell, taste only ? plus how much tripling/rise out of the refreshments ?
But if we think about it the other way round then perhaps it went something like how you describe. They used different techniques and homed in on the most effective way to get a non tangy, yeasty, strong stiff starter. They settled on certain ways, that over time became traditional, and the LM was born. Then when pH meters came into being along with more knowledge of what's going on inside a starter they could then measure what they had been doing already. The ancient Egyptians were making sourdough without knowing what yeasts were and the same goes for all fermented food and drinks around the world. One could make alcohol, bread and other ferment foods without having any knowledge what was going on under the microscope. Once it worked the tradition was passed down.
Nowadays we have all the knowledge so that's where we start and then think we can't do it without all the tools. Perhaps you can give a LM a try using traditional methods as a guide only. If your bread is too tangy and/or not quick enough then you're going wrong and adjust.
Indeed very skilled bakers with probably years of experience handling a LM type starter can use their senses alone to judge qualitatively the condition of the LM. Smell and taste for sure but visually too - the colour matters, the way the cross opens as it rises and even just the feel of it.
I do at least have a good idea of what it should be like when mature:
Soft dough, pleasant alcohol aroma (slightly sweet / fruity) not sour / acetic inside. Tastes lightly tart (acidic) smooth and balanced not jarring, no raw flour taste. Brightly hued ivory (cream) white colour, not dark or grey. Thin papery skin, the dough inside doesn't dry out / form a crust rapidly and stays moist for a while when exposed to the air.
I made a bunch of panettone in December, 3 times a week, Mon, Wed, Sat
each time I did a bagnetto day before and 3 refresh feeds, third feed split into the primo and continued LM(bound in fridge)
Coming to the end of the month my LM was definitely fading in aroma, it was still tripling though and results were the same(to my non-pro standards). I do wonder if the baths weakened it.
Checking the ph since this thread started I have also decided to work on longer refreshes to see if it can be boosted back up.
Is there a technique to roll the LM and store submerged in water overnight 18c with out most of it unrolling whilst it expands and rises up ?
Don't use flour while roling, make sure your LM is adequately but not over-hydrated,
When rolling it out, just before rolling the coil, brush the surface with a very small amount of water, just enough to get it barely tacky. Then roll, and roll the finished coil gently under your hand.
Don't use flour while roling, make sure your LM is adequately but not over-hydrated,
When rolling it out, just before rolling the coil, brush the surface with a very small amount of water, just enough to get it barely tacky. Then roll, and roll the finished coil gently under your hand.
thanks,
on another note, I have been doing long refreshes 8-12hr, 1:1:42% all dry, not submerged
and after a few days I have noticed the texture has changed, getting larger alveoli
this is just some LM I have taken and decided to do long refreshes to see how it goes.
that sounds promising!
I feel like I cheated my way out of this issue, but I've done enough digging to be sufficiently convinced that the pH readings of my starter in solution are more accurate than testing the dough directly.
I left it bound for 16 hours at 16 - 18C, after which the pH was 4.04. I refreshed 1:1:0.5 and left at 30C for 4 hours. The starter tripled and ended with a pH of 4.14 (all readings of course in solution).
I'm going to try and put it to the test this weekend.
This has been an ongoing issue for me for more than a year. My starter hasn't seen the fridge since Dec 31st when I decided to focus on the problem and try to fix it (I am exhausted lol). Unfortunately, due to the issue reading pH, I'm not really sure what corrected the issue (I have tried A LOT of different things since I started).
The last pH reading I got was 4.14 in solution and 4.36 testing the dough directly. Previously, after 4 hours (or more) I was getting 4.4 - 4.55. Something was definitely off. The starter is now rising better and is noticeably more acidic.
I'm hesitant to call this solved but let's see. Thanks everyone for the help (and thanks Sue for introducing me to Omnia Fermenta, which I am reading now and loving it).
what about the ph of your water ?
I never checked, but at some point throughout this process, I switched to bottled spring water to hopefully rule out any issues with my water. I didn't see a noticeable difference between my tap water and bottled water, but I'm still using bottled water.
Water. I was wondering thru this entire thread about the source water for everything. Still wondering. Do you have a calcium reading for the water?
Also, have you tried raising the acidity of the water (both in and/or around the starter) closer to the target pH first before feeding or floating the LM? This might move the more acid loving bacteria in the right direction at least for one or two initial feedings to push out whatever bacteria is trying to maintain higher pH readings.
Another trick to lower pH is chilling the fermenting culture. Chilling can, in just one day, be used with a new young culture to push pH lower and perhaps synchronize rising.
I've been using bottled water for refreshments, though not for the bagnetto which I honestly don't do all that often anyway. The company might publish the calcium content in the water but I honestly haven't checked.
I have not tried raising the acid in the water. As far as chilling, I've done a bunch of refreshments at 16 C, which is maybe warmer than what you're suggesting, however, my starter has spent a fair amount of time in the refrigerator over the past year or so
The pH variation between direct and in solution is a bit worrying - and it rather defeats the purpose of shelling out on an expensive spear tip probe. Have you tried just wetting the probe and the surface of the LM before insertion? Just wondering what reading that would give?
And what about the flavour and aroma of the LM? I think that is probably the key as to whether your LM is good for use or not. When my LM was good, there was a fermentation smell, some CO2 prickle on the chew and a pleasant acid and slightly spicey flavour. When it went downhill, there wasn't much aroma and the predominant flavour was floury, without the other flavours I mentioned.
Lance
Ugh, I know Lance, hence my hesitation to call this issue solved. I agree that it would be nice if the pH probe handled low-hydration doughs better, but I still think it's a worthwhile investment for higher-hydration doughs. I have not tried wetting the probe before using it - I'll give that a shot and see if my readings get any closer.
There are a few things that made me trust this process a bit more:
My main cause for suspicion is how I generally see spear-tipped probes being used. As I mentioned, I've seen many images around the web, on this site, and even in this thread, with a pH probe sticking out of a LM reading ~4.1. I've seen videos on YouTube of the same - someone jabbing a stiff starter and getting a near-perfect pH reading. If testing a stiff dough in solution is more accurate, then based on my experience, all such pH readings I've seen in these cases would likely be < 4.0, and yet these people are getting great results baking panettone. Something doesn't add up.
Perhaps it has something to do with the flour. Maybe there is some quality about flours that give a more/less accurate reading when testing the dough directly. I don't know.
As for the aroma and flavor - that's kind of what got me into this mess 😬. My LM has always had a "fermentation smell", but was missing the CO2 prickle and acidity. I've always described it as tasting kind of fruity - almost like apples. My LM has never tasted floury, though I see that often described as a symptom of a weak starter.
The taste and aroma have changed throughout this process though. It is definitely more acidic now, but has maintained the pleasant taste and aroma it has always had.
The main problem I'm experiencing is that when making panettone, my second dough turns to soup. If this issue is fixed, I'd feel a lot better about the whole process. That's why I want to put it to the test soon.
I have also had cases where the second dough turned to soup when I used another brand of butter,
I am not sure but it happened 3 times with that brand of butter and it is a cultured butter.
Not sure if that is why.
What butter are you using ?
I've tried a bunch of different butters, both european style and american. For a long time I thought it was the butter or the flour, but recently I decided to face the truth that it is most likely my LM. No change in flour, butter, or other ingredients really made a significant and consistent difference. I think I got lucky a few times with my starter being in good shape (wasn't measuring pH too closely, and definitely wasn't measuring it in solution) and attributed that success to a different flour or some other ingredient, but again, at this point I feel it was most likely the LM.
It does seem to be a little closer.
I just unwrapped my LM from 16.5 hours at 17-18C. Here are the pH readings:
I am in the habit of wetting the probe before taking a reading. I see very little difference between readings of dough and solution. Around a few hundredths of pH.