Sourdough starter no longer "sour"...what should I do?
I can't get my starter to get sour anymore. While I realize there are those who don't like the sour taste, I was born and raised in San Francisco and love sour sourdough.
I've had my starter for 4 years. After waking up the starter over 2 days, I reserve about 60 grams of starter, add 60 grams of flour and mix to incorporate (it will be VERY DRY) and then stash in my fridge for up to 4 months. I then will refresh it by removing it from the fridge from its hibernation, scraping off the top and sides until all the "yucky" part is gone, take between 15-30 grams, mix with equal amounts of water and flour, and refresh every 12 hours at a 1:1:1 ratio (starter-water-flour) for the next 2 days.
It has lost all it's "sour" doing this refresh. Is there a way to make it sour again?
There are several ways to achieve more sourness.. Try these first.
1/ use less starter in the dough. Yes, less is more sour.
2/ retard the dough for a day or two in the refrigerator during the first fermentation.
I hope this produces the desired results.
Ford
Thank you. While I've tried both, I think I really need to try 10% starter instead of the 25% most recipes recommend.
Much appreciated!
is to use whole grain rye or wheat for the feed for the stored starter. But to build the levain, use just the bran of rye or wheat instead of flour and make sure you are at 90-92 F when building the levain. This makes for a sour starter and levain resulting in a sour bread.. White flour at room temperatures produce a much less sour starter, levain and bread.
Happy sour baking
Thank you. I hadn't thought about trying to use just the bran. I will give that a try.
Much appreciated.
I'm in the process of trying to get a good result on the Vermont SD. The last loaf went well but was apparently underproofed (someone said it was too short a bulk ferment).
I'm willing to experiment, certainly, but let's say I veer from the recipe inasmuch as I use your method here to crank it up to 90-92 F vs. Hamelman's 70 F, and use bran for the levain vs. Hamelman's bread flour. Will I not get a drastically different result? Will the levain at 90-92F need much less time to build vs. Hamelman's 12-16 hours? With under 10 SD bakes under my belt, some of which didn't go well when following the recipe and reading loads about each step, I'm far from confident about veering from the recipe (but willing).
I really miss my sourness, which left pretty quickly after about a month in the fridge. But I've not been feeding it rye or WW, which I was when first building the culture.
It is specifically designed to be a the least kind of SD bread you can make - Like Tartine or Forkish white bread. Most people don't like sour bread and prefer these kinds of breads, If you want to stay closer to the recipe then use bread flour and the higher temperature. At 92 F LAB are reproducing much, much faster (12 times) than yeast which are restrained at that temperature.
So the yeast ( which cause the the dough to rise and proof to make it ready for the oven) are reproducing at the same rate they do at 65 F. This means that the rising of the levain and dough will be about the same, perhaps a bit slower but the LAB will be cranking out the acid making for a more sour bread.
You can build the levain at a high temperature and get more LAB to start with in the mix or you can do the bulk ferment and proofing at a higher temperature or you can do both to increase the sour without changing the flour
Happy SD baking.
That's so helpful. I had no idea it was designed not to be sour! I love your explanation in another post (bookmarked of course) re why using bran in levain is more healthful, as well as sour inducing. I'm looking forward to this experiment.
Something else came to mind after posting. What is your practice for getting bran, both for WW and rye? I've seen postings where people sift WW, and it appears the same would work for rye. I've seen bran for purchase, but I'm not sure if it's the same thing you're talking about. I don't think I've seen rye bran for purchase, though. I do have rye chops and cracked wheat, but those are obviously a thicker consistency.
If sifting, what does you like to use the branless, sifted flour for? Do you use that for the final build in place of unsifted flour?
and sift out the bran. Whole grains come out to be between 12-15% for the hard bits and 85-88% for the high extraction larger portion and for the sprouted grains the hard bits at 18-22% extraction and the larger high extraction portion of 78 - 82%.
What millers call 'straight' flour is around a 72% extraction and patent flours are further refined from that They want all the bran and germ gone because that is what spoils fast, but sadly, that is also where most of the the vitamins, minerals and oils are found too. Since I make whole grain breads that are usually, at the very minimum, 30% whole grains with half of them being sprouted, I have bran to feed the levain and if I need more flour for the levain because there is a low portion go whole grains in the bread to get bran from, I just use part of the high extraction flour to finish the levain build. I always use the high extraction portion of the grains in the dough flour of the bread. There is nothing better than fresh milled whole grains and you want to use them fresh before thy go stale and lose their oomph! Fresh is usually always the best when it comes to food.
I don't know what extraction the bran is that you can buy at the store and don't know how it would perform as a levain feed by itself. But, you can always throw in some bread flour, say 10-15% of the weight of the bran as a mix to get a good approximation of what i mill and sift out - so no worries there
I always grind the exact amount of whole and sprouted grains specifically required for each bread. I usut figure out what the recipe is going to be that week and take it from there. If the bread is to be a 50% whole grain one, at 80% hydration, with half the whole grains being sprouted and I want the dough to weigh 800 grams and the pre fermented flour to be 12% I just do some quick figuring I know the total flour will weigh 444 g (800/1.8) I now the four in the levain will be 12% of that so 444* .12 = 53 g. Half the flour will be whole grains or 222 grams with half of that being sprouted or 111 g. The 50% white patent flour will be 222 g to match the whole gain weight and the total water will be 800 - 444 = 356 g. So now the formula is set except for the 2% salt or 444 * .02 = 8.88 g of salt.
First, we have to get the sprouts gong so I weigh out 222 g what ever whole grains I want in the bread and take half of them to sprout. 24 hour later, I dry the sprouts in the dehydrator for 3.5 hours. Then we grind the sprouted grain and the whole grains to sift out the bran portion. The mix of sprouted and whole grain bran produced with my sieve, will come in at an average of about 16% extraction or 36 g of bran (222 * .16 = 36. In this case, I will use all the bran in the levain feedings plus.... 53-36 = 17 g of the high extraction portion in the levain too get to the total 53 g of flour needed. This leaves 222-36-17 = 169 g of high extraction flour (84% average extraction) for the dough flour. The rest of the dough flour is the 222 g of white patent flour.
Since the levain was built to be 100% hydration we used 53 of water for that and 356 g total water - 53 g in the levain......leaves 303 g of water for the dough liquid. Each week all of the freshly milled / sifted high extraction flour left over from the levain build is used up in the dough.
To get rye bran you can always take your rye chops and or cracked wheat and grind them in a coffee mill and sift them to get the bran and high extraction flour you need. I did this for years in a Krup's coffee mill before I got my Nutrimill. I still it to grind toasted seeds for bread and other dishes.
Hope this help.
Hey Dab.. not sure if you're still checking messages.. on this comment above, you're sifting out the bran in say whole dark rye and using only that (no flour at all) to build the levain? Hmm.. just confirming.. And why does that work? Thanks in advance.
as a back up or if you ever want to use it in sweet doughs. :)
Try starting a new one while you play. it might turn out more sour and shouldn't be too difficult to start.
It hadn't occurred to me that I might want non-sour starter for regular breads. Great suggestion! I have my old starter in the fridge. I'll go re-label it now!
Much appreciated.