Starter too active?
Hi all,
Newb here. I've been trying, and failing for some time to create a decent loaf of sourdough bread. But I have managed, for the past 9 months, to keep and feed my starter.
It has been living in the icebox for about 3 weeks, but I want to try baking again this Saturday, so Wednesday morning, I took 4oz of my starter (always a 50/50 mix, flour and water) out, and feed it 4oz/4oz. Wednesday evening, it had a considerable amount of hootch on it, and was very thin. This is my normal reaction I get, so I figured it needed more food.
Now we're at Thursday morning, and I feed the whole mess, (the original 4oz, plus yesterdays 4oz/4oz feeding) another 6oz/6oz.
About 2 hours later, I noticed it has doubled already! (I wish I'd taken a picture of it earlier.)
This is 2 hours after Thursday mornings feeding.
Notice, it's below the curve, or "shoulder" of the bottle. Less than an hour later:
It's well over the curve.
Another hour:
Yikes!
But it's already collapsed:
This all happened in less than 4 hours in a 74f kitchen.
I suppose this is good, but are there things I should be watching for, like greatly reduced dough development time? I believe my last few tries came out way over proofed, because I was waiting, folding, etc about 8 hours after initially creating the dough. If my starter is this fast, should it be going from dough to over in more like 4 hours?
Or, have I done something horribly wrong, and my starter is something other than sourdough? It smells yeasty, nice and pleasant, not off-putting, or sour. (I'd prefer the breads on the sour side..)
Thanks!
Sounds like you are doing something right, esp. if it smells yeasty. It will raise your bread faster when it is in this condition, so keep an eye on the dough and not the clock.
Congratulations!
Thanks, I keep thinking there's something wrong if it's going this fast.
And, apparently, it's not actually down growing yet. I had my wife move 16 oz of that starter into a clean jar. No additional feeding or anything.
This is what she poured into a new jar. (Ignore the scale readings, she didn't zero it, just added 16 oz over the jar's weight)
And a couple hours later:
So I guess we'll see this weekend, but it sure looks happy now.
That's a nice-looking starter! And parked right next to some Meyer's rum... Happy! Happy! :)
Murph
That's what you want. That's how I use my starter all the time.
My starter is never so active as yours but I am regularly baking with it. Remember, that you should never use the suggested timing for the fermentation phases of your dough but rather watch the dough. Maybe this is a little bit harder when you are a beginner, but definitely works best when you get more experienced. There are many variable things like temperature and humidity which influence so much the dough development. therefore the suggested timings are only indicative.
I have also learned that baking slightly under-proofed dough is much better than over-proofed. Finger poke test helps you to determine when the dough is ready for going into oven. But as already said, baking sooner is much better that to late. This is especially true for whole grain dough which should be baked earlier.
Happy baking, Joze
Thanks for the advice.
I feed it again this morning, it doubled in 2 hours...
I plan on on creating a levin this evening, leaving it out over night. (should be much cooler tonight, maybe 60's in the kitchen)
I also plan on creating an autolyse with the rest of the dough tonight as well, leaving it out over night, only salting and combining with the levin in the morning. I'd like to bake it tomorrow, so I'm hoping this is a decent plan.
I am pretty much a beginner with sourdough, although I've had plenty of experience with more modern, yeasted recipes, but the doughs for the sourdough are way wetter than I'm used to. My last failure was mostly because I kneaded way more flour into it to get it to feel more like a common white bread loaf. It looked great, but was mealy and dense inside. I can get that at the store.
I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow, thanks for all the comments!
Last failure:
Well, gotta post the failures too I guess.
Things started well, I made the levin last night, and even though it got down to 47f in the kitchen last night, it easily doubled by morning.
Last night:
This morning:
I also mixed all the flour, and most of the water last night, and left it on the counter with the levin.
This morning, I mixed the levin into the autolyse. It was wet. Seriously wet.
But, I tried working it anyways. Over the course of the day, while folding it, I even worked in an additional 50 grams os flour, but it mostly had the consistency of sour yogurt.
But, I decided to bake it anyway.
It came out seriously flat, but surprisingly tasty.
Oh well, at least it's edible.
I feed and placed my starter back into the fridge, it's going to be at least 2 weeks before I get to do this again.
Thanks gang for the advise, I'll have better luck next time!
=Don=