Sharing my experience with making a Starter
The problem with starter "recipes" is there aren't any. Or the very concept of a recipe is flawed at least. Recipes give exact amounts, times and what to expect at any given time. Starters are living things with so many variables that this is an almost impossibility. All too often there are "failures" and people have given up on their starter because theirs did not perform exactly as described in the recipe they were following. They then throw away a perfectly "soon to be" viable starter. The thing is that unless something has been done very wrong it will always turn into a starter. The concept of making a starter is simple...
Mix flour and water together then wait for it to ferment. This takes patience, warmth and, believe it or not, just a little nurturing.
Here are a few points to remember which almost no recipe tells you about:
1. The initial bubbling up happens quite quickly however it is not the bacteria you want. It looks impressive but its not a starter yet.
2. After feeding your starter for a second time it very often goes quiet. This is NORMAL! Your starter is not dead. You have not killed your starter. Do not throw it away.
3. Many panic when this happens and begin a feeding frenzy which is counter productive. In fact the opposite is better. Your starter needs to become acidic to support the good yeasts and bacteria. Over feeding it with fresh flour and water at this stage slows down this process. When feeding regularly one will need to discard because eventually you'll build too much and if you do so at this stage you'll be whittling down any goodies within the starter eventually ending up where you started. Skip a feed or two, stir and keep it warm. Patience.
4. After a day or two (or three) and your starter is beginning to show a little activity but it's slow (and it might begin to smell a bit) then give it a nudge in the right direction with a couple of teaspoons of fresh flour.
5. Once your starter begins to pick up then start again with normal feeds.
6. From here on it should be going from strength to strength.
You don't have to build gallons of starter (if you find a "recipe" that does then follow another one or scale down). Warmth is of upmost importance as it can mean a difference of a few days to a couple of weeks. If you wish then you can start off with feeding it pineapple juice and switch to water when its ready.
I once made a starter in 3.5 feeds and that's including the initial mix. This doesn't mean to say it will be the case for you as conditions need to be just right but you can see that making a starter does not have to be complicated. whole-grains are very good for starters. It doesn't matter which flour you decide to use but including some whole-grains will benefit greatly. Here is what I did (just so you can see the method I followed as you might need more feedings)...
1. Mixed together 45g durum flour + 45g warm water. Formed paste, covered and left in a warm place. (1st feeding)
2. After it had bubbled up (a day or two later), I took off 60g and fed it 30g warm water + 30g durum flour. (2nd feed)
3. All went quiet! So I stirred every 12 hours and otherwise left well alone.
4. After 2 days still seemed quiet and got a bit smelly so I offset this with 2 or 3 teaspoons of fresh durum flour (no discarding). (0.5 feed)
5. 1-2 days later it had formed a bit of a skin on top so I looked underneath, it seemed healthier, smelled better and spongy.
6. Discarded the skin and fed the healthier stuff underneath and it sprang to life. A starter is born. (3.5 feed).
7. Fed it a few more times for strength but rose perfectly every time.
This won't necessarily happen for you but you catch my drift.
It's so helpful reading and re-reading this stuff, especially because you are a starter guru. It's so helpful. Bookmarking this page. Thanks
hester
It's so helpful reading and re-reading this stuff, especially because you are a starter guru. It's so helpful. Bookmarking this page. Thanks
hester
the double post. got an error message.
I feel a bit of a fraud being called a guru as it wasn't too long ago I was in the very same boat. I remember the frustration and misinformation with recipes galore coming out of my ears. We've all been there. This post was inspired by some recent questions about trouble with making a starter and just thought I'd share with information no recipe tells you. It's like riding a bicycle. When you start you think you'll never learn then once you've learned you couldn't imagine not knowing how. Same with everything I suppose. Nice to make new starters every now and again. Then after using them, instead of keeping so many, add them to your ongoing mother starter for health and complexity.
so often emphasize is waiting. I recall myself using your and MiniOven's expertise when my starter went: 'blah". I was in such distress b/c I didn't know that there's really a dormant phase. That's what is critical to know. That's it's normal for the starter to go quiet. so as regards this, you really are a guru.
hester
That is so important and not one "official" recipe warns of this. This I would regard as one of the most important along with feeding when your starter needs it and not by the clock. And if course "warmth".
Glad I helped Hester
It's taken me all day to get enrolled after software glitches. So glad I was persistent because I desperately needed help with my sourdough starter!
Last night I started a San Francisco Sourdough using a packet of dried starter from SourdoughBreads. but it just didn't seem to come to full life overnight and all day - just some small bubbles. This morning I removed part of the mix and added another cup of my fresh King Arthur organic all purpose flour and a cup of water and it's been all day and it doesn't seems to be doing anything more; but still has small bubbles on top, even after mixing (I've been mixing ever half hour tonight). Also, I took a cup of that original mix and in another glass bowl, and fed that one. An hour or so later I removed all but a cup of it and added 1 1/2 C of flour and 1 1/2C water; and that one looks less lively than the first one that only had one early morning feeding! After reading your thread I feel encouraged that maybe this thing will come to life!
I even went on FreeCycle asking if anyone had a starter they could share and one gal answered my request saying she has a 60 year old starter that she has to feed, so she'll keep in touch! It would be lovely to have two to compare; but I'd be happy to make my own again. I gave my old one to a friend a year and a half ago when I moved and haven't done any baking since due to my life going on a crazy, pain filled series of events including the death of my husband a year ago and a bad car accident 7 months ago that I'm just recovering from. So life goes on, and a year later with this cold, damp, rainy,weather I really want to get back to baking bread again, so thank you for your advice and thanks for this wonderful forum!
June
Sorry to hear about your pain filled series of events. Hopefully time will heal and as you say, life goes on. Welcome to TFL, nice to have you on board and glad my post has given you encouragement. Please keep me informed how things are going.
I think you need to give it more time to "wake up" and you're overfeeding it at this young stage. No sooner had it had it's first feed you discarded some and fed again. This will be counterproductive. Keep it warm and give it a little stir (no need for 30 minutes) every 12 hours or so. Once it begins to get lively then feed. Keep up this method and you should see it go from strength to strength. Get some whole grains in there too.
- Abe.
The starter won't be able to trap bubbles because it's so thin. If you switch to feeding equal weights of water and flour, instead of equal volumes, the starter will be able to trap gas. Then you'll see it double or triple in volume before it begins to collapse.
Sourdough requires patience. While you can affect its behavior to some extent, it has its own rhythm and its own pace. Learn to relax and wait for the little ecosystem that is your starter to conduct its business on its own terms.
Paul
I missed that. Thank you Paul.
I
Thank you, this is the thread a needed to find out. Im at my first started and i was pretty frustrated by all the missconception on the net. Finally what i needed, thanks alot :)
Hope it all goes well. The net can be an overload of information. When I first started off it was so confusing. Only when I stopped following recipes and went about it logically, understanding the what's and why's, did I have success. Just following a recipe blindly, finding yours doesn't react on time in the same way, not knowing what is going on is a recipe for disaster.
All you're supposed to be doing is keeping it warm and feeding it when it "needs" to be fed (not by the clock). Warmth speeds things up and giving it fresh flour is food for the yeasts. If things are quiet, the yeasts and bacteria haven't "woken up yet" then what are you feeding? So if you follow the advice of feeding when necessary and keeping it warm then you're sure of success. Once your starter comes alive and bubbles up on cue every time and you can set your watch by it then it's ready. But it will take patience and stubbornness to not give up.
Good stuff! You make some great observations -- especially regards to that first burst of activity (the "false positive" as I tend to think of it) and the necessity of patience. My favorite way to make a starter is to simply mix flour and water, and then just wait . . .
And wait some more.
Usually I get that false positive within 24-48 hours. But then I just wait some more (no feeding, no stirring). Usually 5-7 days (though I've gone as long as several weeks -- to the point that the surface is covered in mold. Which, by the way, became my current starter). After a good 5 days or so, once everything has acidified, it usually springs to life within just one or two feeds. Usually its first refreshment is all it takes -- though I still typically give it another week of refreshments to bring it to full vigor and allow the flavor to develop.
Your point about "recipes" is spot on. Almost any recipe will do. It's not about the recipe, it's about the maintenance. It's about the rhythm. It's about learning to read the signs. Bakers and cultures are partners. It takes two. Creating a culture is easy . . . learning to work with it, however, is where it gets tricky. But then, that's where the fun lies.
The joy is in the challenge.
Trevor
Everyone experiences this and yet non of these so called recipes mention it. No wonder it is confusing when just starting off. When you start off you get excited, think you've created a starter within a day or two then left wondering how you managed to kill it. This is probably the most important thing one should mention and that it is an integral part of a starters life. Things are happening even if all seems quiet.
I think if we all share our experiences and how we were successful then that will be more useful then a step-by-step recipe. An explanation of what's happening and why enables you to judge a starter for itself. I prefer to call it feed 1, feed 2 etc, rather than saying to feed on a particular day and time.
Sometimes I make starters for fun now. Testing my skills. Seeing if I still have the magic touch. Seeing how different flours react. Temperatures etc. When it works and I see the bubbling up it is always exciting. Then I sometimes add it to the mother starter I have maintained for almost 3 years now to give it more character, flavour etc. Keep it healthy.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Trevor. I like to read how other people make starters too. Gives me ideas and always learning. There's no one single way.
Hmmm, when I first got into this art, I did a lot of research (as I always do when I get into something new). That was 3+ years ago and there was a lot of talk about the initial burst of activity -the false positive - when starting a starter here on tfl. That and the funky smells you tend to get when a starter first gets going (anything from old cheese to paint thinner). Maybe it's time to resurrect some of those 3+ year old threads as I found them to be most helpful and most accurate.
My recipe for starter is just flour and water and time. I've even used plain white (bleached no less) flour and water and created a starter - just did it 2 weeks ago - it's growing like crazy now.
I actually think time is the most important factor in creating a starter. I tend to like my environment on the cool side, like low 60s, so I guess I just got used to the waiting period.
Here's how it goes for me.
Toss a couple heaping tablespoons flour into a jar, add water to get a thick pancake batter consistency. Leave it alone for 2 (higher temp) to 5 (lower temp) days. No discard/feeding, maybe a good stir here and there.
You should see some sign of bubbling, and a definite change in smell, for the worse. Even though it smells bad, it's good. If not, wait.
Now add a tablespoon or 2 flour and water to get that thick pancake batter consistency again. No discard, now's not the time to dilute much what's already going on.
In another 2-5 days or so, smell will change for the better this time, getting sweeter and more yeasty - if not, wait some more. Now start feeding without discarding, but not too much, again keeping dilution to a minimum. Once a day or every other day works for me until things really get going. Which shouldn't take too long now. If things get real thin, and gets a layer of liquid on top, increase feeding schedule/amounts. That's a sign of a starter that's out of food -not good - but also a sign of healthy activity - that's good.
Once you get steady rising, start a regular feeding/discarding schedule. After a week or 2 of this, you should be ready to go with a healthy vibrant starter.
It's a simple process, and it's always worked for me. I've found type of flour doesn't matter so much as letting it do it's thing when necessary, and giving it what it needs - when necessary. And what's most necessary, is giving it the time it needs to do it's thing.
Hope this helps someone as much as it has helped me.
Interesting that you have use bleached flour and it works. I like your idea of smaller feeds while the starter is young. Helps to encourage acidity for a stronger starter. Feeding too much fresh flour at this young stage will only delay the process further. Once it's well established does it benefit from greater feeds.
Thanks for sharing and hope others can learn from this. Nice that we can share ideas and methods rather than giving a recipe. When first starting off it is tempting to follow a recipe to the letter at first (which is normally a good idea and is a good way to learn) but starters are different creatures altogether.