The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Spying on your starter...

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

Spying on your starter...

Just sharing a tip...

If you've got an old iPhone or tablet lying around, it really is dead easy to use it to take a time-lapse video of your starter's response to feeding or the inflation of your dough :)

I can't speak for other devices, but on the Apple ones you just bring up the camera, swipe left at the bottom to get to 'time-lapse', hit the record button and that's it. There's no need to adjust any settings, it just automatically reduces the frame rate depending on how long you leave it running (ten mins, a couple of hours, overnight or whatever). Obviously you probably need to leave it plugged in to the charger or the battery will go flat.

Personally I put an old wristwatch next to the container so I can see how much time's gone by at any point in the video.

An interesting thing to do is to get a few clear containers (e.g. shot glasses) and put them in a row. Put some discard in a bowl, feed it 1:1:1 and put a dollop in the first glass. Then 'feed' what's left in the bowl again (so you now have 1:2:2) and put a dollop in the next glass... etc. Set the camera up so it can see the whole row, go to bed - and then in the morning watch the video to see how long your starter takes to 'peak' for different feeding regimes. That's quite useful knowledge, if you want to adjust your timings.

Equally you could adjust the hydration level of the starter between the different glasses, or make a row of scraps of dough with different amounts of salt, percentages of wholewheat vs. plain ... ... ...

One final note though - friends and family seem (for some curious reason) to be not so interested in my home videos of overnight starter growth. No accounting for taste, eh? 

 

David R's picture
David R

... that when you do this, the Sourdough Elves always know about it right away, and they won't visit. If you want the Elves to come, you have to leave the cameras and timers off.

(The good news, though, is that every time you do this, the Elves are diverted to the aid of some other person's starter, the one that wasn't supposed to work.)

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

the SD elves have a highly skilled technical intelligence branch, who simply hack into the phone and edit out all the evidence...

Heikjo's picture
Heikjo

I've done this, but with a webcam and a laptop rather than my phone. What I wanted to figure out was how long my starters took to peak with different inoculation and temperature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPVoBOGZrmI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGhb7yBSIxs

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

ready for "Night of the Einkorn Killer."   "Death of a salessourdoughdough."

and "Bake to the Future I, II, & III".       

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Love your sense of hunour!

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

...gold mine -- a universe of creativity hiding behind that bespeckled smirk.  You should have seen her list of alternatives to "Yeast Affection" for names someone was soliciting for their new bakery a few years ago.

t

David R's picture
David R

... the annual holiday-season reruns of The Scarlet Pumpernickel, and on January 1 the big game - the Risen Bowl.

 

What really gets me, though, is all the commercials. A few for antibacterial soap, sure, and the old "Do you suffer from acid indigestion?"; but then all those irritating ones for yeast infections! (Though I have to say, I am sympathetic when my yeast has an infection. It can't be a good feeling.)

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

ROTFLMAO!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Does that mean the thread's been hi jacked?   I do like the starters rising.   007--->. Dough Finger!

Looks like the sunshine speeded up the rise in the first video.  

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

ROTFLMAO = "rolling on the floor laughing my *ss off"  (wink)

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

OK, I wasn't sure you'd want to see my starter video, but now someone else posted theirs....

https://youtu.be/nETA5QpmgWA

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Nice graph at the end too.  Starts rising right off the bat, must be a 1:1:1 ratio.  Can you post the graph as a pic?  Thanks. Looks like it rose about three times.  

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

Anything to oblige :)

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

What the complex shape of the graph demonstrates, I think, is that volume expansion doesn't depend solely on the level of microbial activity (i.e. gas production rate), but is a double act between the rate of gas production and the ability of the gluten to stretch and hold that gas in the form of bubbles.

I speculate that the initial fall-off represents the gluten membranes of the original bubbles stretching too far, and then rupturing into each other with a kind of cascade effect. Then perhaps what happens is that new bubbles form, and grow again (second and subsequent peaks) but rupture more easily due to the steadily weakening of the gluten structure by the enzyme action and reducing pH.

By the way, this is why engineers like me should NEVER be allowed near the kitchen...

pmccool's picture
pmccool

We engineers bring a number of valuable attributes to the kitchen.  These include a desire for accuracy and precision (and we know the difference), the ability to identify and isolate various factors to assess their influences, a propensity for sectioning complex situations or systems into their component parts for greater ease of comprehension, not to mention a mindset that sees failure as being equally valuable as success when learning new processes or techniques. 

And we love having cool toys to play with, like time-lapse photography.  

Paul

p.s. Ain't it cool that this is National Engineers Week? 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Paul!  Start a thread!  How many gadgets can you use?

Oh, and...."Gone with the Fan"   A Deep South experience with a convection oven.  "Y'all! Just look awl them lopsidedely lowves!"

David R's picture
David R

- I think just a few engineers are in the kitchen primarily because they came to annoy everyone else. Most of the kitchen engineers I've come across have been welcome and have done useful and interesting things.

The difference is mainly that the "good" engineers keep in mind the idea that engineering in the kitchen is strictly a means to an end, subordinate to the food. Most of the time, anyway. (Sometimes, things get too exciting. ?)

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

what you said, Martin.  Engineers welcome.  (Just don't tell me how to arrange my cupboards.)

The graph gives you basis for more graphs depending upon when the starter is fed (elaborated) again.  Yes, it is showing evidence of trapped gas  One can actually feed again at first peak and fourth peak and compare them.  Which build gives a larger working window and when, approximately how long at that temperature.  Is more gas being trapped?  Could this show that more yeast is being grown? How soon should a second feed be done?  It tells a lot about the flour too when preferment is 50%, how quickly it falls and breaks down. 

Gosh, by pinching off  little bits of dough from a recipe, rising comparisons could be experimented upon without having to wait for the bread to bake.  And you might only have to "be there" when deflating and shaping a sample to test bulk rise degassing.  

The video and resulting graph doesn't tell when to feed. That would take another observation but I can guess and speculate from experience just as you can with more evidence.  Cool!

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

Wow what great comments - thanks all :)