January 30, 2020 - 8:38pm
Starter suddenly sluggish
Hey guys,
I keep my starter in the refrigerator, I feed 100g of AP flour + 70g water to 20g of starter and stick in the fridge where it normally peaks in 3 or 4 days, it's what I've always done. However, as of a couple weeks ago, it's really sluggish. It's been in the refrigerator for over a week now and has yet to double, it's rising at a glacial pace. Any thoughts as to why this is?
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Arch, your process is unusual. Most bakers ferment their refreshed starter on the counter for a while and then refrigerate. Since you’ve done this successfully before, I’m guessing your fridge is fairly warm.
Try this. Place a glass of water in the fridge overnight. The next day measure the temp and reply to this post with your findings.
I'll do that tonight! my refrigerator is set to 2 on the temperature dial, 1 being the warmest and 5 the coldest so it's on the warmer side I suppose. I haven't changed the setting though :/
Arch,
I’m still new at this and I have some ups and downs with my starter too. What I do when it feels like my starter is sluggish I discard half and replace with a 50/50 flour mixes usual. Instead of waiting 24 hours for the next feeding I wait 12 hours and discard about 20% and replace it with a 50/50 mix. 12 hours later I get back on my 24 hour schedule. It seem that that extra small feeding really does the trick.
As far as refrigerating, I keep a back up starter in the fridge that I feed about once a week. Sometimes I simply feed it with excess leaven and a small amount of 50/50 flour and water. This helps maintain the original starter lineage with both my room temp one and my refrigerated one.
Cheers
Thank you, I'll try that. I'll leave my starter out for a couple days and feed it twice a day, hopefully that'll do the trick :)