Overfeeding?
Hi all,
So I'm at it again...this time I got a scale to weigh the ingredients.
Yesterday at around 6pm I mixed 50g of ww flour with 50g of water. It was a very thick paste. I figured that since it's very warm where I live, my fermentation will probably go quicker. I think I read that here or online somewhere. Today at around 6pm I checked and it was bubbling already and rose. I added 50g of flour and 50g of water. At around 9am it rose about 3 times as I left it (like the original plus itself twice) then it collapsed onto itself. I mixed it and left it...
Should I feed it every 12 hours or stick to the 24hr people recommend?
What am I suppose to look for with regards to appearance. Since I live in a very hot environment and it seems very active and it isn't following the schedule post on this site and others.
Anyone have a link to that? I mean, instead of following the clock (days), I think it would be more useful to know what to look for in appearance, smell, and activity during the various stages.
...how often you bake and how much you need to build.
If you bake everyday or every other day and you use it in pre-ferments you might wish to give it a very good feeding once a week and simply take from it to use in your pre-ferments. When it looks as if it's running low feed again.
So a schedule might be...
Saturday night feed 150g flour + 150g water. Ready for use 12 hours later. Store in fridge.
Then simply 12 hours, or overnight, before you bake take a bit out and build enough to use in your bread, e.g. If your recipe calls for 100g starter then take off 20g and feed that 40g flour + 40g water.
Do that each time until it's running low then simply go back to step one and repeat process.
How much do you wish to bake? How often and do you have a particular recipe in mind?
I should have stated that this is a new sourdough starter started yesterday. I'm not even thinking about making bread until I get this starter done right for once.
As of now, about 8hrs after the second feed (done only 12hrs after I started this batch) it has already re-tripled as it did this morning when I fed it. As I mentioned before, I only stirred it this morning when I noticed it tripled and now it did it again and the 12hrs aren't even up.
From what I read, this isn't normal and most recipes for new starter say that activity usually begins much later!
So I don't know if I'm right to be feeding it at 12hrs so early on...or if I should be feeding it more since it's hot here.
How do I know when to feed it?
Let me re-read brb.......
First of all I think you've started with very high amounts. You want to create a viable starter but not create a swimming pool, I would've started with 5g of flour + 5g of water and work up from there. All you're doing is getting the flour wet and keeping it in the right conditions for yeast and bacteria to grow. Here's what I would have done and hopefully you can take some ideas from this to work your own.
Day 1:
5g water + 5g flour. Mix into paste and cover.
Day 2:
Feed this 10g - 1:1, so add 10g water + 10g flour, mix into paste and cover
(good way to feed a starter is water first and stir till milky white and evenly distributed then add flour and mix into paste)
Day 3:
Feed this 30g - 1:1, so add 30g water + 30g flour (you should now have 90g)
Day 4:
Stir down. Take off 60g and your now left with 30g. Then proceed as Day 3.
Carry on till you see enough activity so that it can at least triple in 12 hours. Many feed more than once a day at this initial stage but I didn't and managed to create a starter. What you can do is if you're feeding it every 24hours and you start in the evening then come next morning you can give it a stir if there isn't much activity going on. When you feed it in the evening and come next morning your starter has no trouble bubbling up and tripling then you have a viable starter. Should take about a week and you'll be left with 90g with which you can then work out a schedule of feeding according to your baking needs.
Best flour to feed a starter is whole rye and best water (I find) is boiled tap cooled down to room temperature.
Like I said, I've already seen activity in less than 12 hrs. Since the first feed, it already tripled. I stirred it and it tripled again (all this in less than 24hrs). I started with a 1:1:1 ratio and I'm only using ww flour. I've only fed it once since I started yesterday.
I'm just going to continue feeding at 12hrs since it seems the heat is speeding things up. If it fails, I'll try your method.
How much are you building and discarding?
If you are seeing success then carry on. I just think you're going to be building up a huge amount of starter and discarding a lot. You've started on a high amount and you're feeding twice a day. But if you are comfortable with that and its working then carry on.
Just a word of warning. It's usual to see more activity on days 1 & 2 than on days 3 & 4. Starters have an initial kick start then can go quiet for a bit. Many give up in this period. Don't be fooled and carry on.
Best of luck.
Normally most visible activity in the first 24 hrs is bacterial in nature. The flour/water mixture has to go thru a bit of evolution to turn into a usable yeast culture and the best way to do that is just to mix up flour and water (or juice) and leave it alone for the first few days. It doesn't hurt it to open the loose lid and stir if you feel you need to do something. Gives you a chance to smell and observe the starter.
Adding fresh flour too soon tends to slow down the initial process raising pH (thru dilution) favouring a bacteria group which grows in the beginning of the process. Simply put, the sooner one gets thru this initial phase, the sooner the culture will become favourable for yeast growth.
I had no idea. I've read some posts about starting a starter which said that the first day has very little activity! That's why I thought my starter was special and needed more feedings.
Ugh.
AbeNW11, I discarded today at 6pm and added 50g each of flour and water. I'll start over with a smaller batch like you suggested. Thanks for all your advice.
MiniOven, thanks for the info, I really had no idea. I thought it was on the right track since it smelled vinegary and was active.
So now I'll start over with only 10g...then add 10g of flour and water each on day 1. Then discard half (15g) and add 10g of both water and flour and continue that until...what am I looking for to know it's ready for bread making?
just feed less often. Vinegar sounds good,
I thought I wrecked the bacterial balance or something. I really wanted to keep it since it seemed ok and I even did for a while. It started to go through the stinky stage so I thought I was on track but then decided to take the advice given and do it right.
I started over with 10g of water and 10g of flour. What do I do next? Do I just double it for day 1, discard and add 10g of both water and flour and continue like that or add more...
Confused.
Was looking up the tread but can't see anyone advising to dump it. The strong advice is to continue. The bacteria balance will straighten itself out with time and patience.
"I started over with 10g of water and 10g of flour. What do I do next? Do I just double it for day 1,(no, let it sit, do not let it dry out)
discard andadd 10g of both water and flour the next day and continue like that for several daysoradding more... and stirring on occasion until you start to smell yeast fermentation. Then you can feed just enough to thicken the starter to a soft paste. Wait to feed until you see the starter darken lightly, smell positively of beer and the mixture stays mixed up. Evidence of gas forming and breaking on the surface is also a good sign.Remove 20g of very ripe beery starter and put the rest into the refrigerator instead of dumping, just in case you want to go back to it. You can dump it later on. It serves as "back up."
Take that 20g and feed it 25g flour and 20g water (about 80% hydration) mixing it well. scrape into the bottom of a small tall glass and mark the level. Let it ferment watching to see how high it rises. Mark off the hour as it passes. When it stops rising, levels out (mark it) and watch it fall back down a little bit. Take out 20g and repeat. Each time you do this the times will shorten and rises increase.
You can also follow this posting:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/233/wild-yeast-sourdough-starter