The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Starter Woes

velvetyjoe's picture
velvetyjoe

Starter Woes

Hi all,

I'm sure you're sick of starter related posts now, but I wondered if you could lend a hand. I've had my starter for 3 wks, and received it from the Leeds Bread Coop bakery where I did a one day course. This was a rye starter and i have kept it at room temperature, removed 1/2 and fed it daily with 50g dark rye flour and 50ml water. It began beautifully and made some very tasty loaves. However, recently, despite being very active and bubbly when i feed it, every time I remove the lid I am hit by a really strong acidic smell. What am I doing wrong!? Am I overfeeding it?? It is in a 1L Kilner style jar, but I leave the top unclipped without the rubber seal. There is about 2/3 air above the starter when it is at full height.

Many thanks!

Tom

golgi70's picture
golgi70

Hey Tom, 

Your starter looks lively and healthy enough.  You say you feed it 50g flour and 50g water.  How much starter are you starting with?  

The relevance is all in the relation of starter inoculation to fresh flour.  If you are only feeding once a day and keeping at room temp I'd say no more than 5% seed would be needed.  That might be too much but a good starting point.  That is 5% starter to the amount of flour you will feed it.  In this case 2.5 g of starter to 50g of fresh flour.  The excessive acid smell is your starter out of food and breaking down.  My guess is you are keeping too much seed for each feeding and its getting gobbled up too fast.  A few good feedings and the right perfume will come back.  

Josh

DavidEF's picture
DavidEF

Unless you are unsatisfied with the bread it is making, there is nothing wrong with your starter at this point. A strong sour smell is not a bad thing in and of itself. If it develops other smells or changes appearance in some way, then you will have a problem. If the smell really bothers you, then you can reduce the inoculation as Josh said. But, if you want the very best for your starter, then the process is a little more involved than picking an amount and going for it.

I suggest you watch your starter rising in the container (just check on it every couple hours) and when it stops rising, there is a time that it stays at its highest point. That point is what we call the peak rise. It may be doubled, it may be tripled, or something else, but it is the peak. After the peak, it will eventually start to fall back down. With the amount you are feeding it now, it will be well before 24 hours. I suggest you feed it again sometime just after the peak, during the lull, or just after it begins to fall. Do that for a couple days, and you will see that each feeding cycle is a consistent length of time. That is when you change the feeding ratio in order to get it to peak at the 24 hour mark. It may take a couple more feedings with adjustments along the way. Then you know you're feeding the right amount at the right time for your starter. You will end up with not only the optimum feeding regiment for your starter, but also a better understanding of how the starter lives and grows. This will help you with scheduling and timing your bread making, and getting the best bread you can out of it. Consistent actions bring consistent results. Then again, knowing how your starter reacts to different amounts of feeding can help in making changes to bread recipes in order to get even better results! It also helps to know what your starter needs, so that if you need to change your schedule in the future, you can easily figure out what to do to keep the starter healthy.

David Esq.'s picture
David Esq.

Assuming he is not using the same amount of inoculation every time, I assume you recommend he do so for consistency sake (and the sake of accurately determining the peak times?)

DavidEF's picture
DavidEF

I was assuming that he is using the same inoculation each time. If not, all bets are off.