looking for liquid levain pointers
Hey Guys,
All of the starters I'm keeping are doing fine. I have some nice whole wheat going, some rye, and my every day sourdough starter. All of them are kept at a 100%, except for a bit in the fridge of my "daily" SD, that I keep in a more solid state for emergencies (=when i forget to feed )
My liquid levain is a different story though....
I'm using Daniel Leader's way of going about business, as described in his book Local Breads.
It's built up on 60% with 50-50 rye and AP flour and kept at 130%, fed with AP flour and spring water.
When I get it going I find it the best tasting sourdough ever with the organic flour that I am using. It works especially well in sourdough croissants.
But I'm failing more than succeeding with this high maintenance starter. And the bottle neck is in the early development of the wild yeast, or so it seems. It doesn't do any of the things all my other starters do (unless I'm lucky).
Can any one of my trusted TFL friends point me in a direction to a possible solution?
I've tried a test with both bottled water and tap water, and they both didn't come alive, so my theory that the bottled water is the culprit went down the drain.
I've tried different rye flours, found one that worked really well, or so I thought, but the same flour is now failing to produce "life".
I could do the pine apple thing in the start up phase, but I'm not sure how/if it would affect the taste. My daily SD is built with the help of the pine apple method. Would there be a significant difference in taste if i would try this approach (that is actually always working with me?) The times I get the liquid levain going, I love the subtle, but intense and complex tang it produces. My daily SD is very nice, but doesn't have that "velvety" quality to it, that's why I haven't tried building a liquid levain with the help of the pine apple method yet. Any one have any experiences with this?
Maybe some of you have a method of developing a liquid levain that always works and that I don't know about yet! I'm constantly on the browse, also here on TFL, but I do miss some of them very useful posts. Please, feel free to point me towards my liquid levain liberation :-)
Thank you for reading and taking the time to help!
BreadLab-Freerk [1]