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Submitted by animus on November 24, 2007 - 1:43pm. Liquid LevainI've been researching for a while, but haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with my liquid levain. I'm using the proportions from Daniel Leader's "Local Breads" (130% water to 100% flour, pg77), and while it bubbles quite noticeably and smells and tastes quite sour, it hasn't risen, nor formed elastic strands when stirred. I'm using a digital scale to make sure that the 56.5% hydration is accurate up to a gram, and it still seems soupy. I tried to make the French Country Boule (again from "Local Breads" though the recipe is similar to the others I've seen on this site) and couldn't get it to rise, though I refreshed the starter 12 hours before hand, and left it in the oven (only slightly warmed and shut off beforehand) overnight. The consistency of the levain is described as milkshake-like, so I'm not far off since I would compare it to pancake batter. When I used the portion that I was throwing away for refreshing, I made sourdough pancakes. They rose a little and tasted quite sour. I can see it bubble when fed, so it's clearly active to some degree. However, I am still confused as to what I need to do to make it work in bread. The starter is over two weeks old. Any advice that anyone can give me on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: Liquid Levain
I had a look at Leader's instructions and I'm a bit perplexed. I may be missing something, but it looks like there is no discarding of any portion of the culture for the first ten days; he just has you keep adding 50 grams of flour and 65 grams of water (all of) the previous culture, every 24 hours. That means that by day 10, you would be feeding 50 grams of flour and 65 grams of water to over 1000 grams of existing culture. A pretty small meal for a pretty big crowd. I don't see how this would work. And if you're leaving it in a warm oven, you're only increasing its appetite. I think your culture is starving to death! There have been some errors and discrepancies in Local Breads that people here have discovered, and I think this is one of them. (Not trying to disparage the book, actually I like it a lot.)
I have had better luck maintaining a ratio of 1:1:1 (culture:flour:water) in the initial stages, and refreshing every 12 hours, not 24. Here's my method of starter starting, if you're interested.
Also, just a clarification: the convention is to refer to hydration as the ratio of water to flour (by weight), not water to total amount of starter. So yours (Leader's) would be a 130% hydration starter, and mine as described above would be 100%.
Susanfnp
http://www.wildyeastblog.com
score: 2
starter from scratch
Hi
I had my starter from Lİnda Collister's 'The Bread Book'
4 years ago and been using the same starter for 3 years.
Than one day I had a vacation for two weeks. I made a special container with towels for a comfortable travel. But in the hurry I left it behind. My precious had gone. I couldnt recover from that day on. anyway I had many tries after that without success. I finally used dried yeast to make a regular bread and saved some of it as a starter. It worked and been using it for the last two months. But my conscience is not clear as it is not from the scratch. Today I found Susans's descriptions. I will have a go at the real thing again.
Thank you susan
score: 0
Re: starter from scratch
Hi bulent, you're welcome and good luck with the new starter! I don't know where you live but here in my piece of California the days are now warm enough to be able to find a toasty spot in the house to keep a new starter nice and cozy. When I go on vacation I put my starter in the refrigerator; it then needs feeding for about three days when I return before it is awake enough to use.
Susanfnp
http://www.wildyeastblog.com
score: 0