I poured off some of the "hooch" from my liquid levain, are my yeasties gone too??
I've been following Leader's directions for starting my own liquid levain (local breads, p76). I used it to raise some dough on day 4 of the levain. Even though it was early in the process, it rose my dough well in the 8 hours I allowed it to ferment. I fed it on schedule after baking my loaves. The next day (#5), I checked on the levain and it smelled quite pungeant from the alcohol based hooch.
I know that allowing too much alcohol to develop can ruin the starter. Since day 2, I could see the hooch separating out from the rest of the levain in between the elastic gluten stuff on top and the thinner "pancake batter" stuff on the bottom. Worried about the damaging effects of too much alcohol, I poured off 3/4 of the hooch liquid.
Did I also get rid of most of my yeast culture too? I'm hoping the yeast doesn't live in this layer of the levain and I can just keep on feeding it as instructed.
Thank You.
Dale