Goopy White Flour Starter Question
I usually maintain my starter with fresh-milled (literally - from my Grainmaker No. 99) hard white wheat. It’s very happy and poofs-up to about 250% of its original volume after each feeding.
But when I’ve tried to feed it with white flour — whether BRM Artisanal Bread Flour or Caputo 00 — it just winds up being a bubbly goop that maybe increases in volume about 25%. I’ve tried transitioning it slowly, over the course of maybe 10 feedings. Same end result. I’ve tried being patient and tending to it for weeks, hoping it needed some time to get used to the new flour. No improvement.
So is that just how white flour starters are? Goo? And if so, how do I know when they’re ready to use? With my whole wheat starter, I can tell volumetrically, but that will not work here.