March 21, 2015 - 5:07pm
Every dough turns to goo
I've been using the same starter for about three years, and it seems healthy. I feed it, it doubles and falls, it smells the same as ever.
Lately, however, whatever dough I make with it turns into goo. English muffins, a plain old load of bread, a plain old loaf of bread using a different recipe.
Any ideas what's going on?
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http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/121566#comment-121566
Also be sure to run a site search on: pesky thiol compounds
That describes it exactly -- thank you!
(I was feeling a little down about not getting to travel for my kids' spring break, but now I feel better -- must stay home and nurse the starter back to health!)
I did a little science experiment months ago on methods for keeping and storing starters. Turns out the 65 percent hydration one could be left for weeks in the fridge and it popped back to bubbly healthiness very quickly. You can even go on vacation.
I have developed the same problem: after years of happily making bread from a nice, resilient rye starter, I now get a bowl of glop by the end of the bulk fermentation. It feels like the dough version of the invasion of the body snatchers. Various posts have suggested that the dough is over-fermenting (all of a sudden), which is unlikely because this dough isn't actually expanding much anyway, or that the starter has become contaminated with 1) "thiols" or 2) alien microbes producing flesh - (ie.gluten) eating invasive enzymes, which seems more probable, I guess. Any information on the science behind this? Besides being frustrated, I am intrigued. I recently started fermenting lots of other things in my kitchen - facto fermented pickles, kombucha, kefir. I have a friend whose house is a literally a museum of food fermentation, and his sourdough starter is wildly vigorous, so I doubt that all the microbial cross currents are responsible, but you never know....
the fat seemed a bit goey looking into the refrigerated open package so I dumped it directly into a hot fry pan. Decided not to try and separate any strips and took the scissors to it just to break up into "bits." No need to. It all fell apart in the pan, hardly browned, still smelled like bacon and tasted like bacon but the fat never did separate and it all looks sort of shredded. Interesting stuff. I let it cool and bagged it. That was this morning and now around 2 pm, I feel no ill effects from my tasting. Wonder what made it fall apart.