4 weeks feeding, ratio questions for beginner
Sorry if this has been addressed before but after searching and reading countless posts, I’m still confused. Can someone please answer in most simple terms for a beginner:
I have a starter that is 1:1:1 (113g starter, 113g flour and 113h water). I have been feeding every 12 hours since 4th day. I keep in the oven with the light on and a wooden spoon for the right temperature.
After trial and error for 4 weeks, it seems happy, rising about 75% max after 12 hours then falls a bit. It’s been like this past 3 days. Hasn’t doubled yet.
I have wasted about almost a kilo of flour trying to get this starter developed! :(
My questions are:
1. Can I keep developing this starter with a smaller amount and if so how little?
2. When or should I change the ratio to 1:2:2? Or do you advise 1:5:5 at this stage? Again hasn’t doubled yet!
3. I’m so confused about hydration levels. I guess it’s something I need to research later when my starter matured and it goes in the fridge? If yes, how much in weights and ratios? I hope to use for baking 1x per week. At that later stage do I need to readjust my hydration level for the Levain? I need simple. :)
I know it’s a lot of questions. Whoever can help, much appreciated!!!
Jen, a healthy starter will over-ferment in 12 hr @ warm temps. I think this is your problem. A healthy starter will double or more in ~4-6 hr at 80F.
The most probable reason your starter is not more active is because it has been allowed to over mature. Because of this is has become too acidic. This will hinder the yeast.
Try this -
Take 10g starter and mix 30g water and 50g flour, stir well and then knead by hand for a couple of minutes. This starter will be drier and relatively slower to rise. We are shooting for a 12 hr cycle. This way you’ll feed the starter twice a day while building it’s strength. Keep your starter at room temp, not in the oven.
Save your original starter (just in case) but reduce the size. Mix it 10 starter + 20 water + 20 flour. Keep your starter at room temp, not in the oven.
Mark the starting level of each starter and put the time on the side. From time to time (maybe every 2 hours) at hours 6-12 mark the level and times again.
Take closeups of starter and post them.
I expect your starter will take off in short order...
Danny
Thanks Danny! I really appreciate the simple and specific instructions! I’m nervous about continuing with so little starter but I’ll do it! It’s been 3 hours so I’ll wait 9 more hours and start this process then unless I hear otherwise. By the way the weather is 64F/16C here, which is why it’s been in the oven but again, I’ll do as you say! Thanks again!
Jen, watch your starter. If it starts to recede (fall) it has matured. You can re-feed.
50 grams of starter is more that a lot of bakers keep on hand. The starter is kept small to eliminate waste. When you are reay to bake to will take the starter and make a levain. A levain is simply a large starter. 10 grams of starter can become 200grams quickly and easily. You’ll see when it comes time to bake.
Jen, you got some nice simple advice from Dan. I am interested in how your starter does when you follow his advice (and please post a photo or two and update us).
Happy baking (and starter building) -- and stay healthy.
Ted
I have been feeding my starter for about a month. I am not seeing that kind of growth. I am beginning to think this doubling thing is a myth. Feeding 1:1:1.
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Sigh, maybe it’s the temperature so I’ll put in oven with light on and hopefully it will at least go back to before. I know it’s not dead but very stubborn!
Disappointed and ready to give up. :( Anything else that can be done?
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Jen, is it possible that your starter rose as high as the yellow arrow and the fell back down?
If the area at the yellow arrow happened when you stirred the starters, next time use a paper towel on a stick or something and try to clean the starter off the jar.
A healthy starter will rise is much less time than 12 hours in a warm environment. The video below shows two separate feeds cycles. The seed build starts ~11:00. When watch the starter rise notice the elapsed time on the clock.
If your starter is not rising, I suggest you start a new one.
HTH,
Danny
Thanks Danny but the yellow arrow points to where I stirred, not the rise and fall unfortunately. It does rise but only when in the oven with the light on and wooden spoon to lower temperature. The thought of starting a new one makes me want to weep after a month of so much feeding and monitoring. I appreciate you trying to help though. I'll put in oven as that's the only thing that's worked so far with your suggested small amount and 1:2:2 ratio to start.
Some warmth can be helpful right at the start, but you’re better off keeping it at room temperature.
Regarding quantity, you can get a starter going just as effectively with a teaspoonful as a bucketful - it’s just that small quantities are fiddly to measure accurately.
Leave the thicker mixture for a bit and see what happens. Patience.
Ok will do Martin thanks
You wrote in your initial posting "After trial and error for 4 weeks, it seems happy, rising about 75% max after 12 hours then falls a bit. It’s been like this past 3 days. Hasn’t doubled yet."
A rise of 75% is fine. That indicates activity. Whatever you did that produced that result, go back and repeat it.
My starter goes up by about that amount in twelve hours and then begins to recede. The hydration of a starter (or poolish or biga or levain or any other preferment) will affect how much it will rise. If you are getting 75% rise, perhaps that is what you should expect from what you did, and that is fine.
Ted
Thanks Ted. I am sad I won't be able to get those nice rises I am seeing in people's pictures. I'm so far in with 1 month spent/wasted, that I will go back to the oven method and try the 1:2:2 ratio in a smaller amount and see if that helps. Its my last option before trying a 75% rise loaf and then throwing everything in the garbage.
I appreciate everyone trying to help.
Still, I guess you know best.
Lol, I don't know best. My starter never rose in room temperature, thus the oven. I am at a loss of what to do except settle for the 75% rise and bake with that.
Apologies, I didn't mean to sound petulant - but keeping a starter n that environment is not good for it. The warmth will cause the lactic acid bacteria to multiply much more quickly than the yeast, meaning that it will become too acidic and have very little raising power.
Equally there is no such thing as a healthy, balanced starter that won't slowly rise at room temperature (even in the depths of winter).
I think it's very likely that by keeping your starter in the oven you are simply perpetuating the imbalance between yeast and LAB that have been causing it to 'not rise' at room temperatures. Just to be clear, you need both yeast and LAB to be in balance because they have a symbiotic relationship that is necessary to metabolise the available food efficiently.
IF you want to fix the imbalance, then you need to acclimatise your starter to working ar room temperature. This will take a few days, because you have to give it time for the population of heat-loving bacteria to die down and the population of cool-loving yeast to increase. You can help this process along by feeding with a proportion of wholewheat flour, because that will introduce fresh species of yeast and LAB that live naturally in the outer layers of the wheat berry.
However you have to be patient - your starter is a living thing and it won't just change with a snap of the fingers. Yes of course it's going to 'sulk' when you take it out of the oven, because at present it's largely composed of lots and lots of heat-loving LAB and a tiny minority of yeast species. It's like taking a plant out of a dark place and wondering why it doesn't flower the first day... you have to give it time - in this case at least a few days; possibly a week.
I really wish you success.
Wow, thanks for this information Martin. This makes perfect sense! Now I am understanding better. :) So last question: as I am "giving it time," do I keep an eye on or keep feeding? I understand the rise will be much slower, hardly noticeable for days probably. 24 hour feedings ok? More or less? Sorry for all the questions. I am really trying to learn! :)
OK great - yeah - that's right; you've got it :)
It's going to be hard to tell when the food is properly used up. To be honest, if it were me I'd probably begin by starving it for a couple of days until it started tasting really sour and starts to smell a bit 'sharp'. Then I'd probably split it, and feed one half 1:1:1 and the other 1:2:2 (using just whole wheat) and then see how it responds in the following 24h...
You can do all this using just a couple of spoonfuls of the existing starter - that way if it doesn't work out, you're no worse off than you were
Will do, thanks Martin and everyone. I'm grateful for your and everyone's advice and encouragement!
Oh, I should add that during the 're-alignment' period you should only feed the starter once it's definitely finished using what you've already given it,,, and as its metabolism will at first be very slow (because of the very weak yeast population) that means you may be leaving one, two or more days between small (1:1:1) feeds...
Honestly it WILL be fine - but don't feed it until it tastes quite 'sour',,, otherwise you'll just be diluting its acidity levels and weak microbe population!
I think I figured out my problem! The experts will roll their eyes at this, but I was using bleached cake flour! As a newbie, I didn’t know that AP and cake are not the same. (In the country I live in, “All Purpose” does not exist or goes by a different name I guess). So no wonder my starter wouldn’t go far. I did later switch to rye based on the advice here but the rise was very slow, probably because the (cake flour) starter was weak to begin with. Lol.
In this process I learned a ton:
1) As shared here, small batches same results. See above thread. I wish I knew this in the beginning. Over a kg of flour wasted.
2) Oven method not sustainable. See above thread.
3) Watch your starter. 12hr, 24hr, etc are guidelines but doesn’t substitute watching your starter. Everyone’s is different. The 10:30:50 suggested above didn’t show visible activity for 3 days! The 10:20:20 worked too, about 24 hours, but again that was based on a cake flour starter lol.
4) This is an amazing community of support. I am so appreciative of all the experts lending their advice and answering questions that even google couldn’t answer. :) One person even offered to mail some of their starter to share and although I live in a different country, I’ll always be grateful for the kind offer.
So what happened? After many days of watching my slow cake flour starter with rye added, I broke down and purchased some starter online. I compared all these starters (4 jars on my counter!) and the purchased starter doubled in ONE DAY whereas my 3 home versions were fed over a month (never doubled). Upon reading about flours I then realized my initial mistake about flours. At that point I threw all my homemade starters away and focused on the one that was healthy—store bought version.
Anyway, I hope this story will help all the newbies while the experts get a nice laugh. I will eventually create my own starter in the future, once I gain some confidence by using a starter that already works! :)
Now that you have a good starter, it is time to put it to work. There are several sourdough recipes on TFL (and the 1-2-3 is geared for a beginner).
Please post your results too with photos.
Happy baking.
Ted
Thanks Ted! I hope it gets easier from here. Probably not but should take less than a month this time around. ;) Ok I’ll let you know how it goes! I’m sure I’ll have more questions along the way.
Thanks everyone for all the great advice! I learned a ton and still learning. My purchased dried starter worked like a dream. Ready to go in 5 days (probably sooner). I fed 1:2:2 or sometimes 1:3:3 (no noticeable difference) rye flour whenever the starter sank a little after peaking. Doubled, almost tripled after 6-8 hours so I knew it was ready to go. Never passed the float test but I read its not the best indicator (maybe because 100% rye?). I followed the Food52 Table Bread recipe. Video especially helpful. I welcome any further suggestions or advice as I am more motivated to keep going!
Success is wonderful. That looks like a great bread with a nice even bake around the perimeter of a slice. From a distance it also appears to be a great crumb that would probably qualify as "lacy" in Trevor J. Wilson's terminology.
Do you have a thermometer? (Google "Thermapen" for what I have.) It is a good way to check the internal temperature of a loaf. Yours looks fully baked, but once I see 208-210 on the readout, I let the loaf bake a bit more until it gets a slightly darker crust. That is of course a matter of taste, but a stronger (i.e., longer) bake will allow the caramelization of the crust to continue and produce a stronger flavor.
You must feel ecstatic after all of your travails. Keep going with more bakes, and keep posting. How does it taste?
Happy baking -- and stay safe and stay healthy.
Ted
Thanks Ted for your comment and useful advice!
I don't have a thermometer but its on my shopping list now! I just tried to eyeball it for color but yes, next time I'll leave it in longer because the crust was a bit soft, even after letting the bread cool all day. This version had a nice chewy bite, but zero flavor, lol. I wasn't aware that a longer bake would affect the flavor, wow! I"m happy to learn something new. :)
Yes, absolutely thrilled that after a month of starter problems, I didn't give up and finally made bread, haha.
You’re right Ted! This time cranberry walnut sourdough loaf, baked longer. Darker crust and more flavor. Anyone have tips on how to get the crust more crispy? I’m using a Dutch oven, 20 min with lid, 20 min off.
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