The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Making a new starter. Violent raising and cheese smell. Help please.

_vk's picture
_vk

Making a new starter. Violent raising and cheese smell. Help please.

Hey guys. Long time no see... 

I'm making a new starter as I let my old one die. 

So I was amazed that in the first 24 hours my mixture of flour and water rose big time, like tripling. But it smells unpleasantly. Like a very strong cheese. Not a good cheese smell. The others starters I made passed a stink phase. But this is really smelly and potent in rising.

I did feed it 1:1:1 yesterday night. Today tripled again... 

My question is should I keep feeding it daily? Or it's better to let it be for a few days so the acidic environment can be created to "select" the wee beasts? Or even: should I give up on this and start over?

 

Its was made from 1:1 mixture of flour (stone milled, officially white, but actually not so white italian flour - pietra 5 stagioni) and water.

Thanks for your input.

cheers

vk

Ford's picture
Ford

I noticed an off-aroma (like salt-rising bread dough) when I started with whole-wheat flour and water alone. Debra Wink[1]discovered this was due to a strain of bacteria called leuconostoc that seems to be more prevalent in flour now than it was formerly.  This bacterium is self-destructive as it produces acid that inhibits its growth.  Apparently, the bacteria are not harmful.  Four remedies are readily available: 1/ keep feeding the culture (whisking to aerate it); 2/ add a slight amount of acid (a pinch of citric acid, or a pinch of ascorbic acid); 3/ start with canned pineapple juice[2](acid enough to inhibit the growth of these bacteria) instead of water; or 4/ start with rye flour and later switch to wheat flour.

 

Like Debra Wink's pineapple juice solution to the problem.

 

 


[1]Bread Lines, a publication of The Bread Bakers Guild of America. Vol. 16, Issue 1, March 2008

also -- http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1

[2]ibid

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

What Ford said.  Here's a side by side using and not using the pineapple solution.  Both work well.

http://yumarama.com/968/starter-from-scratch-intro/

_vk's picture
_vk

@Ford and @Filomatic thanks for the input and links. It really nailed it :) Nice documented journey Filomatic, thanks. And, Ford, the Debra links, well this is it.

 

I have no pineapple juice around so I'll try to just keep going with water. The smell is terrible :(

 

I'll skip today's feed and wait.

 

again thanks

 

Happy baking

v

 

i love this community. Happy holidays!

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

I'd continue to feed it if I were you and only skip feeds if it goes quiet. What you are experiencing is very normal. If starting from scratch I'd say use pineapple juice but you've come this far and might as well carry on with water. You can keep a feed of once every 24 hours for now but don't skip just yet. When discarding for the next feed use the discard for a 1:2:2 feed and see how it reacts. Off set the bad smelling bacteria but might send it into a quiet stage in which case just leave it alone until it wakes up again. In the meantime carry on with your usual 1:1:1 feed every 24 hours while it's showing activity. 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

the first day to speed up the transition. (85 to 92°F).  Then drop the temp back down to 76° to encourage yeast.

What temperature is the starter breeding goop? :)

_vk's picture
_vk

It's making around 100ºF every day. and I'm letting it at room temperature. Do you think I should take it to the fridge?

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

That's a good question.   If your temps are that warm, the yeast will want to survive by not reproducing until temps are lower.  Try wrapping a damp cloth around the standing starters or draping a rack placing the starters underneath.  Evaporation will cool them slightly.  A cool box with a jar of ice water in one corner could help also. Aim for temps between 75°F to 80°F.  

Often the refrigerator is too cold but if you don't count the time there and the time it takes the goop to warm up into the seventies, it might help.  

Chilling might look like this....   feed in evening, cover with a damp cloth, in morning move into the refrigerator.  An hour or two before feeding let the goop warm up and note aromas etc.  (cold goop seldom give off aroma) then remove part to feed.  

Once the yeast have shown up, flour feeds will increase (or inoculations decrease down to a teaspoon) and you only have to leave the starter at room temp until it peaks.  You can also change the feeding schedule to watch during the day.  Lots of possibilities.  In a warm climate, a lower hydration (less water to flour weight) is recommended.  It makes it easier to "read" the starter.  As the starter gets stronger, it can be placed into the fridge sooner, at half peaked or less depending on the feed, ratio of culture to water and flour and how often the starter is used.

_vk's picture
_vk

Well after skipping a feed I split it and fed. One with water and flour 1:1:1 and the other with lime juice and flour 1:1:1.

This was yesterday. The water one is showing some activity, but not the strong raising activity as before, it's now with little bubbles as a normal starter, well... starting. The one with lime is more still. The water one also has improved in smell, more than the one with lime juice. None of them rose not even a bit.

I'll feed them again now. Yet to decide If I'll use lime again or water in both, as I believe the acidic enviroment is there already...

What do you think?

cheers

 

_vk's picture
_vk

I fed the water one, that was showing some activity, little, but some (small bubbles as I'd expect if I had no leuconostoc in the first place). The smell improved a lot, I think I can sense some fruit in there already. So, new feed with water. 

The Lime one is showing NO activity att all. So I mixed it and let it be. It smells like lemon pie : ) Again,  this would be a normal behaviour for the first day of a regular starter build, if I had no leuconostoc... Let's se if it will come alive :)

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

sounds very concentrated, you may have to increase the feeding to raise pH and stimulate the little beasties.  Can't make them too  in their servival mode. Too comfortable to reproduce.  Feeding them should make them want to control their environment and they have to increase their numbers to do it.

_vk's picture
_vk

Feed them both with water today. Still observing,

 

Merry Christmas

_vk's picture
_vk

Thanks everyone who helped me!

This evening the starter rose lovely. With a very strong ripe banana smell. A little like sun-dried bananas. Delicious!

What a good year's start, wake up with a working lovely new starter made from the scratch. Good sign ;)

After some days I discarded the one with lime, as ,the water only one was developing so well. The bad smell gave quickly. And there was a lot of activity (no rising, but bubbles). I kept feeding it 1:1:1 every 24 hours. Some times I let it be even more time as I could see there was not enough bubbles yet. In the new years's eve it was almost 48 hours from last feed. So before bed I fed it once more. It was looking and smelling nicely, I just thought it was ready to rise. And it did. :) New feed this morning, two hours ago and it is already almost doubled.

yipiiii :)))

And it smells superbly.

Happy new year of baking for everybody.

cheers.