Does Liquid Starter also Double in Size?
I've been feeding my starter for a week now. It's 100% hydration based off Jeffrey Hamelman's instructions (though 100% instead of 125% hydration, as the flour I use isn't as strong as US flour), and it does get a lot of bubbles on the top but it rises maybe 1 inch (in a measuring jug a little wider than an average mug) after 16-24 hours. Is the lack of rising because it's still very weak, or does liquid starter just never double due to it being liquid? The consistency is like a very thick pancake batter at initial mixing, and more like a normal pancake batter once it has had time to sit.
Additional: After getting a malt vinegar type smell with a decreasing amount of bubbles at about day 5, I reduced down from 2 daily feedings to 1 daily feeding for fear I was suffocating a starter not ready to handle such regular feedings.
Feeding is as follows: 100g starter, 90g water, 90g flour.
What you suspect is true, a liquid-ey starter will not expand as much as a thicker one, though they may be equally active. When bubbles of carbon dioxide generated by the microbes reach the surface, if not sufficiently trapped by the mixture, they will tend to pop and release into the atmosphere. You can maintain your starter at a lesser hydration, if you want, and adjust to meet the recipe as you mix your dough.
At a week, your starter is still quite young, and may not perform as dependably as it will as it matures (and as you become familiar with managing it). Depending on how warm it is where you're keeping it, one feeding per day may be less than optimal. You can test it by splitting it and feeding one half once per day and the other half twice, and see what happens.
There are also loads of posts on the Forums section here, regarding starters. Reading through some of them may answer your questions. Please keep us posted on your progress - and careful - baking can be addictive! lol
Cathy
Thanks for the tips Cathy! The room temperature is averaging about 24 degrees C, or 75 degrees F, here. So a little lower than optimal yeast growing temperatures but not exactly arctic. That's set to change in the next month though...
I'll try to look through the other posts for similar problems to me own rather than bothering everybody with questions they've already answered 100 times, and I'll definitely try your idea with splitting the starter to see how that goes.
I'm already a baking addict! I just never tried sourdough as it always seemed like a monumental hassle to me, and a little intimidating. But if you don't try you never grow, so here I am!
I'll keep you updated!
Young starter needs some time to develop the strength. I am using 50% whole wheat and 50% bread flour to feed my starter @100% hydration. It doubles in about 4-6 hours, but I am feeding it twice per day with 30g of flour mix and 30g of tap water when it's out of the fridge. But doubling happened only after probably about 10-14 days after I started it. What is the cycle of your starter - how many hours it needs to peek and then collapse. Keep it feeding and observe what happens. You need to get a consistent raise cycle after feeding.
I would suggest you to read these posts by Debra Wink - you will learn a lot about starting a new starter and feeding it and also controlling the sourness.
The Pineapple Juice Solution, Part 1
The Pineapple Juice Solution, Part 2
Happy baking, Joze
I think I read these posts once before. I'm the "read loads of literature before trying anything" type of person. Thanks Joze
Won't rise as much as a lower hydration starter for obvious reasons. Or one obvious reason. There's no structure to hold the bubble so they break the surface. While it won't rise as much there should be some increase in volume with a lot of bubbles on top and often quite frothy when fully mature. The smell should not be vinegary. It should be very pleasant. Lower hydration will encourage a more acetic acid starter, like the acid in vinegar (but won't smell like vinegar, hopefully). A very liquid starter will encourage more lactic acid, as in yoghurt. I find a lower hydration starter encourages a better leavening in the final loaf with more tang while higher hydration does produce wonderful flavours that are more mellow. I enjoy and experiment with both.
Yeah once the starter has become active I think I'm going to experiment with hydration, but I read that initially using a liquid starter is better as it encourages growth more than a stiffer starter.
I keep my starter at 100% hydration. It's quite mature now (been going for a couple of years!), and I generally keep it in the fridge when I'm not using it, or after it has been fed and peaked. And I can assure you it more than doubles when I feed it. It gets beautifully pillow and bubbly. I feed it at a ratio of 1:2:2 (starter, water, flour), and usually use some (maybe around a quarter of the total) whole wheat flour and bread flour for the rest. So when I get down to 50 grams of starter or less I will feed it 100 grams of water and 100 grams of mixed flour, let it bubble up fully, then store it back in the fridge. Sometimes if it has been sitting in the fridge for a while (when I go away, for example), it will need a couple of feeds to get back in peak condition, but generally it's pretty reliable.
Thanks for the insight. When I scoop some of mine up with a spoon it looks "fizzy", for lack of a better word, but it's definitely too thin to be able to get big ol' bubbles other than on the top. I'm still doing daily feedings at this point to encourage growth but once it seems to be active enough I'll try your suggestions on the maintenance feed.
just take a tsp and put into a shot glass and thicken a little bit with some flour, See what it does. True, thinner starters ferment faster. Sounds to me like "fizzy" is worth giving more flour. Your temps seem to say it will take a while longer. 75°F is my favourite temp after a very first warm day.
I actually ended up splitting the starter into two and making a 70% hydration starter with 1 daily feed and a 100% hydration starter with one feed each 12 hours. Going to see how this looks come the end of the week. Fingers crossed that this weekend, after hitting the 2 week mark, I should be able to bake something.
Thanks for all input here guys. Sadly the resulting loaf could have been used by a primate to crack open a coconut/result in blunt trauma force to anybody it was thrown at/be used as a shield in a sword fight etc.
Hydration worked out around 70%, but I think:
a) I was too impatient to use the starter, and it wasn't active enough to produce a loaf.
b) the bulk fermentation probably needed longer, but it'd already had 3 hours and it was 12.30 at night, so I shaped it and refrigerated it anyway.
Dissapointing but I'm sure I'm not the only one this has happened to.
Good bread needs time. A starter which isn't mature will result in a poor bread. You need to rethink this!
Build your starter the night before so it can mature through the night. This will stop you from losing patience and using it too early. It will also enable more time for your dough to bulk ferment if you start in the morning. Unless you lose patience during the bulk ferment that it ;)
How would you like to fit making bread into your day so a recipe can devised to suit you.
What baking equipment o you use?