The Fresh Loaf

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Starter with wheat germ?

stephdld's picture
stephdld

Starter with wheat germ?

I am curious if anyone has some input on this ...

I have a starter that has been going maybe 6-8 weeks but still doesn't have enough gusto to leaven my bread doughs!

Of course my desire to start this endeavor happened right as everyone and their brother decided to hoard everything from the grocery stores. I had just run out of active dry yeast for baking and thought I'd give sourdough a shot. Terrible coincidence. Now there is no yeast available at any store to go back to my regular baking, and the only flour available is bleached all-purpose! 

I started my sourdough starter with rye and switched to unbleached AP, both of which I had on hand. Then switched to a blend of the two. But now I have used that all up and I have bleached AP, whole wheat, vital wheat gluten, and wheat germ to work with, and a small amount of rye (I've gotten away from rye in the starter, thinking that might be why my doughs weren't rising)

When I was feeding it a rye mixture, it bubbled up but wouldn't leaven dough leaving me with very very dense bread. Delicious, though it was so sour it gave me the hiccups to eat it!

Now I am feeding it the bleached AP with a sprinkle of wheat germ and it is only raising about 20% at most before needing to be fed. Also, I have always stuck with equal weights water to flour for feeding, so it is quite liquidy. 

At this juncture I am feeling defeated! 

Any suggestions? I felt the addition of wheat germ might be better than just bleached flour alone. But it is crazy-making, why won't my poor starter work! Literally every store in my area has no flour of any kind or dry yeast on the shelves, and I just want to go back to making edible sandwich loaves!

Please help!

-Steph

 

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

50% bleached AP, 25% whole wheat, 25% corn starch, to stretch out your WW, when feeding.

The small amount of wheat germ in whole wheat is likely beneficial due to the vitamins it contains that may help the yeast cells.  But as a separate ingredient, mmmmmmehhhhh, probably not, except in minuscule amounts, since it has oil and protein that is not needed.   Yeast and lactic acid bacteria want simple carbs and oxygen more than anything.

Something about your feeding schedule, feeding ratio, water, or storage method is off.  6 weeks is too long for it not to take off.  So please describe exactly what you're doing, including timings, amounts, storage at room temp or in fridge, etc.  

If you are using tap water, do you let it sit out in an open wide-mouth container for 12-18 hours to evaporate off chlorine?

Bottled _spring water_ (not bottled "purified water") is best, even better than filtered tap water.

stephdld's picture
stephdld

Thanks for the ratio ideas using the stuff I have in hand! I will start trying that mixture and see how that goes. 

I had gotten away from using the whole wheat or rye in the feedings, thinking that may have been keeping my dough from rising. But at about the end of week 2 it seemed good to go, doubling between each feeding, then nothing for the dough! I was thinking AP would have better rising power.

My aim was to bake in a loaf pan and get something sandwich worthy in the end, so my recipe is mostly AP flour with a bit of whole wheat. Maybe my recipe isn't the best on top of it all.

Also it has veen very difficult for me to be patient with things, so I have changed things up more than I probably should have.

At first I did 2:1:1 (starter:flour:water) for each feeding, discarding half each time, once a day. Half rye, half AP. Then all AP. After 2 weeks storing in the counter, started adding a bit of rye back in. When things were looking good, i switched to twice a day and the starter seemed to die, so i switched back to once a day, but it hasn't seemed to recover completely since then.

Then I switched to storing in fridge for a bit because I was frustrated and feeding every 2 or 3 days. Pulling it out in the morning and waiting until it looked hungry, feeding it, letting it sit for a while and tossing it back in the fridge.

Yesterday decided to go back to the counter for storage and daily feeding to see if that would bring it back around. I have about a cup of starter in a glass jar, and it only rises to about 1.25 cups. It's probably 75F in my house through the day. Just using tap water, because I keep forgetting to use the water I leave out to water my plants with.

Now I am sort of all over the place. I have not always been discarding, but add 60g each of flour and water. I've introduced a lot of variables and am thinking of starting over. Only feeding it the bleached AP, it has a smell to it that doesn't seem healthy. But I am so new, I don't really know what I'm smelling for.

We've eaten a LOT of delicious discard pancakes so not a total loss.

Benito's picture
Benito

Steph, I’m no expert but I notice that your feedings are a bit on the low side, depending on how often you’re feeding and at what temperature it is fermenting, 2:1:1 isn’t all that much food for the microbes.  You might want to give them a better feeding 1:2:2 or even more if they’re very active and hungry.  You can reduce your flour use as well for the feedings by reducing the starter that is fed down to 5 g or so that way a feeding of 1:2:2 is only using 10 g of flour.  When I’m getting my starter working to build a levain after taking it out of the fridge I’ll feed it at 12 hour intervals fermenting at 80ºF with a feeding of around 1:8:8.

Benny

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

If you can share/divvy with friends, you might be able to buy a 50 poundbag of bread flour from a local restaurant supply, or a General Mills distributor.  Check your yellow pages for commercial or restaurant food suppliers.

King Arthur Sir Galahad is the name of their commercial flour equivalent to KA All Purpose, at 11.7% protein.

King Arthur Special Patent is their Bread Flour equivalent, 12.5% protein.

General Mills 12% protein flour is called Harvest King.  Try to get unbleached unbromated, # 53722.

Go here:  https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/hard-winter-wheat/harvest-king-enriched-unbleached-50lb  and plug in your zip code in the right hand column to go to a list of distributors for that flour in your area.

some distributors will do cash sales if you order on the phone, and schedule a time to go pick it up.  Don't ask them about baking questions.  Know what you want, and alternatives, before calling.

--

Here's a list I made of all General Mills/Gold Medal flour that is unbleached and unbromated, at 11.1% protein and higher.  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62291/experience-w-general-mills-50-lb-flour

Imperial, 54431,  is at 11.3% (good for AP) and Full Strength, 53395, at 12.6% is close to KA Bread Flour.  Make careful note of the part numbers, because each one comes in various combinations of bleached/unbleached and bromated/unbromated.

Good luck.

stephdld's picture
stephdld

That is a great idea! I would have to search around for someone to split it with, I don't have any friends who bake!

I usually just make my own "bread flour" by adding vital wheat gluten to my AP. I normally don't have trouble finding unbleached flour bit the pandemic has people in my area clearing the shelves of baking staples.

Thanks for the links! I will check them out

seasidejess's picture
seasidejess

I agree with Benny, your yeast is not getting enough to eat!

Think of the yeast like your own little captive population. Say, a chicken coop full of chickens. You have them fenced in, and you provide food every day. Right now you have too many chickens in the pen and not enough food, which is weakening the whole population. When you set them free to eat and breed, they're too weak and sickly to do very much. A lot of them have already died or are close to death.  

Bottom line: you should be feeding a bare minimum ratio of 1:1:1. 

Feed them more, and I bet you will see your grateful little critters spring to life and raise your bread!

stephdld's picture
stephdld

Awesome! Thank you!

I had cut down on the feeding because there was just sooo much extra to discard, even though we are using the discard for various other things. 

I think I need to start with less to begin with, so it doesn't take as much to properly feed them. 

seasidejess's picture
seasidejess

That exactly right. Start with less starter and you don't have to feed it as much flour, and you don't have as much discard.

Extra unfed sourdough 'discard' can be collected into a tub in the fridge to use up as pancakes, crepes, biscuits and muffins, too. Because it's so acidic it keeps really well in the fridge. Toss it if it starts to grow mold, obvs, but otherwise you can add to it over time and then use it all up at once.

stephdld's picture
stephdld

We have been making huge batches of suuuuch delicious pancakes, and then freezing the ones we don't eat right away. I have some overripe bananas and am thinking of banana bread with the discard too.

Keeping a smaller starter looks like so little! Like it wouldn't be enough for a loaf on the side!

Karaharf's picture
Karaharf

I had the best success with a starter of 1 tablespoon of wheat flour 1 tablespoon white and 2 tablespoons of water .... making my first load today did the 12 hour prove overnight and it was at top of bowl.

small amount that is more controllable and then you give feeds twice a day of 40 gms flour and water when it’s active to get it a big enough amount to cook.

what you can do is a discard feeding but leave say 30gms of starter and feed with only a small amount of flour and water.

seasidejess's picture
seasidejess

If you know you're going to make bread soon, don't discard any, and feed at that 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 ratio. Let it rise, and you now have lots of ripe starter to use in your bread...