Starter can not keep going with White Flour
Hi, I'm new here, I'm from Brazil, sorry for my bad english, hope you can understand me.
I'm reading a lot of your stuff for the last weeks and have tried creating my starter a few times. I did it when I found the pineapple juice solution and I had 3 starters going on. Two from the pineapple solution (one feeding with white flour and one with whole wheat flour) and one I had started with just water and had lucky it skiped the leuconostoc grow. The one using white flour stopped creating bubbles and wont come back after many days feeding, it do not stinky but the good smell disappeared. The one from pineapple which I kept feeding with whole wheat flour lost a little of the good smell too, but the one I started with water still have an amazing smell. Yesterday I tried to make my first levain to my first sourdough try, i fed it with white flour and it was active this morning but not so much as my starter. I can use my whole wheat starter to make white flour bread? Why my starter dies if I try to create a white flour starter from my whole wheat starter?
Starters don't usually die. They sometimes need time and patience to adjust to a new flour or a change. Watch the starters not the clock too much.
2 weeks old. It's to soon to try a bread?
How are you maintaining it and what temperature is the starter?
It's too hot here these days, like 33 - 36 Cº, 31 in my kitchen. I can feed my starter once by day, so it was creating a lot of hooch and was losting the good smell in the end of the day, so I started feeding and leaving on the counter overnight, by the morning it looked great doubled in size and smell so good, than I put it on the fridge for the day and remove it when I go back from work at the end of the day and feed it restarting the cycle.
And you got it on a schedule too!
With the heat, the fridge is your friend.
Sounds also like you may be on the edge of underfeeding it.
Once yeast are thriving, the amount of flour food increases.
What is your current feeding amount? Starter culture? Water? Flour?
Does the room temp drop at night?
I have two starters now, one with white wheat flour and water and the other with whole wheat flour and water. I'm feeding them at a 1:1:1 ratio, 150g total. The temp drops to 27º approximately. It would be better if I increase the ratio, like 1:2:2, or if I try to feed it twice a day or maybe three times?
I tried my first bread, it was a big failure. At the folding process it never got to the point when it can hold the shape a bit, it got more sticky each time and started to separate the dough when I lift it up, I tried to keep folding and folding for more time, but it was getting worse, so I gave up for this time. It probably was the flour which was not strong enough?
Thank you very much for all your help! :)
portion to feed and reduce the starter to just a rounded teaspoon or two. Thicken it up gradually with each discard and feed and shift feeding to twice a day. If you do decide on chilling, let the starter rise about half way first then chill and leave it there (mother starter.) It will hold out for several days nicely up to several weeks. Take a spoonful out after several days to grow a starter (levain) for making bread.
Try less water in the dough next time and knead well in the beginning. :)
If you are able to provide pictures or better yet short video clips, we could troubleshoot to stretch and folds.The recipe with instructions would also help us to better help you.Sorry solano, I must have thought I was replying to another post. The message above is totally unrelated to your question. I did got to the link you sent. It looks like the recipe is documented very well. The pictures ar very helpful.
Dan
My starters are on the fridge right now, i'm on vacation and when I go back will try to make a bread again using your tips. Thank you very much!
The recipe I tried was this one https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-sourdough-bread-224367
I think the flour I used was too weak and cant support the high hydration, its hard to find good flour where I live, there is an online community in Brazil where people share which flour worked for making bread, and I cant find no one of it in my town.
Maybe you can find someone near you that could share their starter. Starters can be dehydrated and small amounts can be mailed in an envelope. If you can’t find a starter locally and you want to try a known good starter send me a PM and we can discuss having 1 sent to you.
At least with a good starter you would know for sure if the flour was the problem.
Stick with Mini’s advice. She has a lot of experience.
Dan
I'm back from vacation and yesterday i got my starters out of the fridge, they had a good smell and good appearence, so I fed with 1:1:1 and for my surprise the white flour one got very active, like never before. I fed it at 8 a.m. and the white flour grown till 3 p.m and started to get down, but surprisely it had grown again and kept till 9 p.m. when it started to go down. I fed it again this morning and hope to see it active like yersteday again, I will feed it twice by day now and will try to make a bread again this weekend.
What could be the reason? Time in fridge helped to develop the culture better? The low temperatures helped as I live in a very hot city?
I did it! Thank you Mini and DanAyo, thank you very much! I did what you told with my starter this last week and yesterday I tried a bread again, with 66 % water. I am very happy with the result, need to improve my technique, but for my second bread it was great. What can cause the big holes in the middle? Did not knead it enough?
I'll let others troubleshoot the holes. That bread looks too good to critique. You must be proud.
Let us know how it taste.
Dan
It tasted good, my guests liked it too, but I did not get the sour taste, maybe next time with some changes in the recipe.
I think the big bubbles is just too gentle handling. Pop those big bubbles when shaping, simple enough, and try not to trap air in the folds. (Trapping air only works for strudels!) Carefully feel for the bubbles <---(a little zen music please and slow breathing...)
Congratulations!
I'll try it next time! I was really gentle handling it, but now I know it will not break so easy hahaha.
Thank you so much!