hooch with inconsistent rise
Hi, I've read about sourdough and experimented with it by starting with 4 scoops baby cereal with probiotics, honey, lemon and 4 scoops of glutinous rice the water is about 8 scoops. It started rising very fast in the second day, wanting to slow it down, I discarded 90% of the sourdough and feed it with 3 tablespoon of bread flour, now whenever I add flour it smells like freshly baked bread, about lunch it would start to form hooch between the surface and the bottom. It doesn't matter whether I made the mixture thick or thin, so I fed it 4x daily. However, last night it risen to about half its height, but on the morning it collapsed. This is the 4th day by the way, this morning I tried baking crumpets and it taste very acidic, but smells like a local ciabatta being sold here.
The temperature here is inconsistent, sometimes cold because of the rain, then sometimes warm, but not that much.
How do I make then rise and also prevent it from being always hungry.
it is only just beginning to become a sourdough culture. The first risings were pre.mature and most likely bacterial action, not yeast. The hooch was more than likely separation of flour and water. Once the yeast take hold, they tend to stir up the mixture and keep it from separating.
Stick to the rising and observation of carbon dioxide bubbles. When you see them at their most active point reduce the starter (or remove a tablespoon) add a tablespoon or two of water and enough flour to make a soft dough. Let that stand to ferment. When it is most active, you can add more water and flour to make more starter (let it ferment before using) or reduce and feed again.
The culture will ferment slower with cooler temperatures and rapidly when warm. Take this into consideration and feed just before temps rise. If the starter is peaking in activity in the night or when cooler, don't rush to feed it, feed it in the morning or as temperatures warm up.
oh I see, but it does smell alcoholic though and the texture is similar to what happens when you mix flour with instant yeast. I actually thought it started working on day 2 because the baby cereal does contain live lactic acid bacteria.
more flour. Mine after feeding smells like wet flour and then the aromas build as the starter starts to rise and trap gas. How are you feeding it? Exact amounts of starter, flour and water please. What is the exact temperature?
Yes, live lactic acid bacteria would speed up the process. A clever idea.
are supposedly chosen to live in the acid environment of the stomach to. You might actually get some that really like the acid,
I agree - the culture looking dead on day 4 is pretty normal as the acid loving wee beasties are just starting to take over from the more vigorous non acid loving ones. This is when you don't want to be feeding it too much since that will just dilute the acid environment too much and slow down the takeover attempt.
I'm not sure of the exact temperature, but my phone app says outside was about 70 F more or less.
I killed the culture and started again, this time using ginger beer. There was a quick rise on day 2, followed by bubbles. today is day 3, it's starting to smell sour, but there is not much bubbles, it only does when you open the jar. I'll try not to feed it today.
Oh, and as for the feeding, I remove 90% of the starter and add three scoop, I give it enough liquid to make it look like a pancake batter.