The Fresh Loaf

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14 days old starters

Baker2's picture
Baker2

14 days old starters

Hello, my name is Elena, I'm from Whitby, Ontario. 

I have two sourdough starters, which are 2 weeks old. One is fed with stoneground rye flour, the other one is fed with 50% rye flour and 50% all purpose unbleached wheat flour. I feed them every day with 1:1:1 proportions.

Starters sit in 78-80 F. The rye starter doubles and doesn't fall much, the second one triples in volume. They rise within first 5-6 hours, then they fall and sit hungry. They do not float in water. 

Do I need to feed them differently? I wish to develop all the right bacterias/yeasts.

This is my second attempt with sourdough starter.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong this time. I have read so much here and didn't find the right topic. If you have any suggestions, please advise.

Thank you.

VRini's picture
VRini

My starter developed mold and I had to start from scratch. This is the approach I used:

Actually I didn't follow this exactly as I didn't have rye flour handy. It was starting to fail and then I gave it a whole feeding of rye flour ground fresh from berries and it sprang into life. The whole process just took a little over a week and I'm baking good bread. Notice that you have to discard 150 grams of material at each feeding.

Also developing "all the right bacterias/yeasts" requires using your nose.  My understanding is that the finished starter should have something of a sweet (yeast) over the sour (bacteria) aroma. Other folks in this forum I'm sure have a more informed opinion.

Text recipe link: 

https://fdgk.dk/sourdough-starter

Good luck.

LittleGirlBlue's picture
LittleGirlBlue

I do not have personal experience to confirm this, but I've read that rye starters tend to trick you regarding the fall.  They apparently leave a sort of shell at the peak height, but underneath that they have fallen.

I agree with VRini that feeding 1x/day at 1:1:1 might not be enough for them to be at their best.  If your schedule makes it possible to feed 2x/day, I'd start with that.  If not, start with 1:2:2.  Then adjust from there.  You don't want them to spend too much time being hungry as that can lead to issues.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Typical behavior of rye and rye/wheat starters and noticed the difference.  Rye starters do not rise as high as wheat starters so a mix with rye will rise more.  Many rye starters, as already mentioned will rise and stay stiff while the inside falls.  Poke the top gently after it has peaked to see if that has happened.  

Rye starters are also stiffer at cooler temps than wheat starters, this carries over to chilled starters and chilled dough containing various amounts of rye flour, doughs will be stiffer the more rye they contain.  Rye starters when chilled will not rise much.  Wheat starters on the otherhand need lots of head space.

I never could get a starter to float.  Goofy test.  Go by aroma and gas build up.  I think your starters are hungry too and should be fed more.  You are also ready to bake after the next successful feeding and peak.  Go for it!

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Elena, I’m with Mini. Your starters sound like they are active and healthy. Since Rye doesn’t contain the same quality of gluten as wheat the rise will always be different than wheat.

Try this, if you want to extend the feed cycle. Take a small portion of any one of your starters and mix 5g starter + 15g water + 25g white flour. It will be much drier than your present starters. Knead it on the counter for a few minutes and place in a clear vessel to rise. Note how high it rises and also how long it takes to fully rise and the just begin to recede. It is a good learning exercise that I think you’ll enjoy...

barriehiebread's picture
barriehiebread

As Mini said "Go by aroma and gas build up.  I think your starters are hungry too and should be fed more.  You are also ready to bake after the next successful feeding and peak.  Go for it!"

My starter is 2 weeks old as well and I've just made a loaf like this:

Good luck and post some pics please!

Have a great day,

Barrie

Baker2's picture
Baker2

Thank you so much for your fast replies, I need it! 

I fed my starters in the morning with 1:1:1 proportion, so it can rise fast and I can bake bread since the floating test is not important, yay.

Around 5.30 pm starters more than doubled and started to fall a little, I took a small amount of sourdough starter to make bread by Jeffrey Hammelman recipe Sourdough rye with walnuts. It's now on the first stage. There is nothing in the recipe about what to expect of it, though.

It's evening now, I was so busy, couldn't feed my starters earlier, I will feed now starters again 1:1:1, so in the morning I will feed it again, but at 1:2:2 and will be doing it once a day.

And now a new question, why are there different starters - all rye, rye with wheat, all wheat? Can sourdough bread be 100 % wheat flour? 

Barrie, your bread is mouthwatering! I can smell it... it inspires me!

thank you all

barriehiebread's picture
barriehiebread

Thank you!  For now the only starter I've got is WW but when my rye gets here I'll be trying to get a more sour starter.  Lot's of posts on here about starters!  My take away is that rye will produce more sour than wheat so I'll find out when it gets here.

Barrie

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

"Starters sit in 78-80 F. The rye starter doubles and doesn't fall much, the second one triples in volume. They rise within first 5-6 hours, then they fall and sit hungry. They do not float in water."

According to my experience the starters should not be left to go hungry very long or the yeast population will start declining.  If you feed 1:1:1 in the morning and the starter is not peaking until late afternoon, then the yeast numbers are declining already.  Please feed more flour.  These should be fed every 6-8 hours four to three to times a day at a 1:1:1 ratio.  (Slave hours for you!). If you raise the ratio of food to 1:2:2 they might make a 8 hour 3x a day feedings.  

Try 1:4:4 feeding (use 20g starter) after the 1:2:2 feeding peaks and see if the starters can handle a peak and start to fall around 8- 10 hours.  Then feed twice a day. The first feed may take a little longer to peak but the next feeding should speed up dropping several hours off the time it takes to peak.  The only reason now to feed lower ratios is if the temperatures drop to under 75°F. Once a day feedings are for cooler weather.  

How is that loaf coming along? 

Baker2's picture
Baker2

Hi Mini, 

I fed rye starter yesterday at 1:2:2, it was in the evening, it more than doubled already. Something happened to the rye starter a few days ago, it started to grow more than the mix starter. I will watch it now, when it will stop rising I will feed it at 1:4:4. So, I will be feeding twice a day at 1:4:4?

The rye/all-purpose starter: I made some changes yesterday, I fed it yesterday 1:2:2 also, but I changed all-purpose to Hard white wheat bread flour. It's rising, but slowly. I am watching it. 

My bread. I chose one recipe from the book of Hammelman, but didn't read the whole recipe (!) and today I found that recipe uses instant yeast! which I do not want.  So, I found a recipe on the internet, calculated percentage of starter to flours and mixed the flours for bread, and using that proportion. My levain is ready, I will be mixing it all in half an hour after autolyze. I don't have high hopes, though.

I also, made another "levain" from yesterday's starter leftover, but without any measuring, I didn't want to discard so much of starter. I had a lot of starters yesterday. 

I don't have much hope about my bread, but as long as my starters do not die, I will learn (if my starters do not kill me :). I will be experimenting a lot. 

This is about math too - I have to calculate how much starter I need to bake bread 2 times a week, when to feed it so I can bake during a day not night, and what proportions should be... How do you all do it?

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

with the Q's.  :)   Yes 1:4:4 twice a day but take your instrucions from the starter.  If the starter takes 14 hrs to peak, then it takes 14 hrs. Watch the starter.  It should fall back just a little before feeding again.  

Bread flour switch will take longer but only for the first few feedings because bread flour absorbs more water so the  starter will be thicker, slower.  Wetter starters are slightly faster.  

With a freshly fed starter that has peaked, i often skip the first step in a recipe to build the levain and use my starter as the levain, then take out the starter amount to feed, not much is left over.  (That's one way.)  So to repeat, i feed the starter with enough flour and water to use both as a levain and maintain the starter.  I often give the starter another hour before feeding so it is ripe ripe, acid levels go up so it can fight off any bad bacteria when fresh flour is fed to it..  Not a concern with bread dough but it is with starters.  Ok, but what if the recipe levain uses a different flour or starter?   Then feed your starter for maintenance to keep them the same and build the levain separately.  

I think that after a few feeds, days or a week, you may want to reduce the amount of starter fed or refrigerate the starter and give yourself a break with the feeding schedule.  Then you have to make a few decisions like how often you want to bake per week (roughly) and which type of starter maintenance you think fits your schedule.  Naturally the starter has it own ideas once in a while.  Cooling it down slows it down but not completely.  There is no need to keep large amounts of starter hanging around as you can always make more in a very short time.  With discards from 1:4:4 take the opportunity to dry some of the peaked starter spread thin on some parchment paper.  ( and you can think of peaking discards as levain!)   There is a muffin recipe around here that takes a whole cup of collected chilled discard starter and makes about 6-8 muffins depending upon all the berries you find from the garden.  :). 

10g is about the lowest i would go with a new starter to feed. I think it is safe to say your starter discards can be used in cooking now.  If they smelled funky, you would have said something by now.  :)