August 30, 2013 - 6:36pm
starter trouble
I am having trouble with my starter. I have successfully made the Tartine bread several times. Lately, when I follow the same start instructions, my starter looks limp with a liquid layer separating out on the surface. i' e tried different containers, flours, water, etc. to no avail.
Any ideas would be appreciated
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Try more flour and less water to thicken it up some and give more food for the culture. The poor beasties are probably starving but not dead - they are tough to kill.
Thanks - worked perfectly and this morning my leaven passed the float test with flying colors.
I then followed the Tartine directions and put the dough into a container and started doing the turns every 1/2 hour. After 4 hours the dough was no more advanced than when I started. Extremely sticky to the point that I said the heck with it and used flour to "knead and slap" the dough to develop gluten. It finally passed the window pane test and is rising, very very slowly.
An thoughts about the 4 hours of folding and the persistent stickiness of the dough?
Thanks so much - it is bizarre since I've made this before with classic results.