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Got to toughen up my starter, looking for suggestions.

koloatree's picture
koloatree

Got to toughen up my starter, looking for suggestions.

Greetings TFL,

Over the past few months, my starter has been taking longer and longer to raise dough. I have a feeling it is due to my lack of properly caring for the refrigerated starter. I would like toughen up this starter so when it is fully prepped, it doubles in ~4 hours. How can I go about this?

I keep my starter refrigerated and feed it weekly with 1 cup flour and 3/4 cup water. When the container gets near full, I throw away 'whatever' amount of culture. I believe the starter is 125% hydration. Is this correct? If so, I plan on throwing out all the starter except for 200g worth. Afterwards, give an initial feeding of 125g water and 75g of flour. Second feeding 12 hours later, which would then give me 400g of starter, feed it 250g of water and 150g of flour; for a total of 800g starter. 3rd feeding at 12 hours later, remove 400g of starter and replace that with another 250g of water and 150g of flour...continue until the desired doubling in volume within 4hrs is reached. Does this sound like a plan?

Any help greatly appreciated!

SourdoLady's picture
SourdoLady

I think that your problem lies in the fact that you are not discarding any old starter before feeding. Your starter will be much healthier if you discard all but a few spoonfuls before starting your feeding cycle. As it is now, it is sort of like feeding a cesspool of waste and that is not a healthy environment.

Yumarama's picture
Yumarama

You say you add 1 c of flour and 3/4c water. Since a cup of water weighs close to 236 g, we therefore know that this 3/4c of water weighs ~177g. However, we can't tell you how much that cup of flour weighs because that can vary greatly and easily. It could be as little as 110g or as much as 170g, maybe more, depending on how you got the flour in there (sifted, spooned, scooped, etc.) how humid it is, how densely or loosely packed the flour in the bag or bin is... Too many variable.

You really should be weighing it. HOWEVER, let's assume that you diligently measure your "cup" of flour each and every time and it is consistently 127.3 grams (4.5 oz) then you have 127 g of flour to 177 g of water which would be ~139% hydration.

You then talk about volumes of starter in the 400- 800g range. Now unless you're really rich, I can't see the point of using and tossing out so much starter,  even if you keep if for Discard Pancakes or the like. 800 grams of starter is about a quart of starter. There's no reason to keep and mix that big a quantity unless you're going to actually use most of it in baking every day or two.

As Sourdo Lady says, cut it right back to a couple of tablespoons or, since it seems you DO have a scale, let's say 25g of "old" starter. Now if you want to maintain a starter at about 125% hydration (100 would be easier but this is your baby) then add 50 g of flour and 62 g of water. You'll now have a total of 132 g of fresh starter and feeding better than twice the amount of original starter. Your ratio in this case is 1:2:2.2. If you want to make it 100% hydration, make the flour and water the same weight so to 25g old starter, you might add 50g flour, 50g water. Now your ratio is 1:2:2, you know that no matter how much or little of the starter you use, it will be half flour and half water. If you add 40g, it's 20g flour, 20g water; if you use 72 g, it's 36g flour and 36g water.

A smaller batch of starter will double just as fast or slow as a larger batch so again, there's no reason to keep huge amounts that you'll mostly discard. It has more to do with temperature and yeast activity than total amount.

Lastly, you note that your starter is taking longer and longer "over the past few months". This could simply be because the temperature in the kitchen has been cooling down. If the starter was doing great when the kitchen was warm in summer and fall, the cooler winter weather may be keeping it below optimum temperature, like less than 70ºF. If it's 68º, then that will cause slower starter activity. If it's even cooler, then the starter slows down considerably. You may simply be seeing a seasonal temperature change and need to adjust for it.

Keep the starter (and the dough when you're proofing) in a warmer spot in your kitchen and it may pick up speed again. Somewhere like the top of the fridge is usually warm as the coils in back release heat. Next to a table lamp, the computer if it's always on, by the TV... get creative and look around the house, it doesn't HAVE to be in the kitchen. Someone here keeps their starter or proofing dough on their water heater because that's handy and stays about 75-80ºF.

koloatree's picture
koloatree

Rainbowz, Thank you and I appreciate the help. I am starting to understand this sourdough process much better now.

Last year I purchased a sourdough book written by Ed Wood and followed 'loosely' his directions. I had many questions regarding certain sections of the book but I figured I may have been overcomplicating things (how much to discard, what % hydration, how to feed properly, how to scale, etc...). There were no weights or ratios used in his directions. Therefore, for the past year, I would follow his directions and feed my storage culture 1c flour and 3/4c water, rest at 70 degrees for 1hr, and then return the culture back to the fridge. To prep the culture, I would use 1/2c culture, 1/2c water, and 1c flour, let sit for 12hrs at 70 degrees, and then feed again and let sit for 8hrs at 70 degrees(or 86 degrees for ½ the time). I would use a wine cooler/heater machine to prep the culture at a particular temperature. A few months ago, my culture would double within a few hours when inside the wine machine. Now, when I prep my culture, it takes much longer. I figured I have a culture that is referred to as ‘sluggish' as I have been reading in other forums/blogs. Is this the case? Now that I am baking more, I would like to get the starter strong, minimize waste (save money!), and to be able to scale accordingly.

I will revise my plan and use the 1:2:2 ratio and feed every 12 hours at 70 degrees for a few days to see if my culture can return to good working condition. Since I am not sure what exactly my culture's hydration is, will the culture balance itself out after a few feedings if I start with 25g of old starter?

Is this process below ok?

1. Mix 25g culture, 50g water, and 50g flour at 70 degrees and wait 12 hours. This will give me 125g starter.
2. Remove 100g from the mix and give another feeding of 50g water and 50g flour and wait 12 hours.
3. Repeat step 2 until starter is ‘strong'. (How can this be measured? Wait for starter to double in 3-4 hrs?)
4. Give a final feeding to the culture, let sit for 1 hour, and return the culture to the refrigerator.

 

Thank you,

Yumarama's picture
Yumarama

Yes, the starter culture will even out to "close enough" to 100% hydration after a few feeds. 

Step 4: I'd give it until it is nearly peaking, just a bit before, whether that's 1, 2 or 4 hours before you pop it back in the fridge. This gives the starter a good run at the fresh food, it's pretty active and strong right at that point, before it goes into the ffridge to slooowwww rrriiiggghhttt dooowwwnn.

And now that you're feeding it 1:2:2, it actually has more food to chow through before it runs out so the peaking time will go up somewhat. When it had less food, it would peak faster since, well, there was less food before it ran out and collapsed.

If you have a temperature controlled environment (that handy wine thingy) then the issue isn't as likely to be house temp. 

You can give your starter a little boost now and then if it seems sluggish by adding a little rye or whole wheat to it's feed. So instead of using all AP or bread flour, give it about 1/3 of that 50g as rye (obviously not an exact science here) when it seems to be getting slow. This can help perk things up now and again.

hutchndi's picture
hutchndi

This might be over simple, but your post was made in January, and your first sentence is:

"Over the past few months, my starter has been taking longer and longer to raise dough."

Might your house be cooler?

I prefer to do my sourdough baking in the winter BECAUSE the house is cooler and my starter proofs slower, resulting in having to feed it less. In the summer I freeze flakes of starter for next winter. This is because I don't keep starter in the fridge anymore. I believe the flavor is better, and the starter is much healthier and vigorous. But leaving it at room temp in the warm months results in too freqeunt feeding and discards.