About a week ago I used 50 grams of a well established starter that I've had for several years to establish a new starter using home milled whole wheat flour. The parent starter at 100% hydration was originally created using the Pineapple Solution and, once it was 'all growed up', was maintained with store bought bread flour and kept in the fridge with feedings approximately once a week. It regularly produced hooch and had a alcohol odor. The new starter has a very different smell and because I've been feeding it daily while establishing it has not produced hooch. So my questions are for folks who've 'crossbred' starters; did you notice any significant divergence in odor/flavor when you switched flours? Is the difference I detect now simply an artifact of the new starter's youth and will the difference diminish over time?
your starter will certainly behave and smell differently when you switch up feedings schedule and type of flour. i've switched between using WW only and various combinations of rye/WW/AP blends. and my starter responds differently.
how long have you been feeding your new starter?
It's a little over a week old. I just finished my first loaf with it using the same recipe I used with the old starter. Despite the wide difference in fragrance there's very little difference in the taste of the bread. It'll be interesting to see how 'the new kid on the block' changes over time (if it noticeably does at all). There is some difference in the performance of the dough but I suspect that's because using the new starter decreases the amount of commercial flour in the loaf.
in the starters. One is underfed, kept on the edge of starving in the fridge. The other fed regularly at room temps. Details on procedure and amounts of starter, water, flour would be helpful to correct feeding and prevent too much hooch from happening but my guess is that the plain flour starter could use a few days on the counter too.
An active starter culture stirs the culture preventing separation with the rising of gas bubbles. Making a lot of hooch can push some bacteria and yeast colonies over the edge of existence and reduce the number of good aroma producers in the starter. Chilling the plain starter before it is ready to use will keep it bubbling slower and longer in the fridge and prevent hooch. The trick is to not chill it too soon or too late. That takes some experimenting on your part and will change with temperature and season. You will want to see signs of life before chilling.
Using a large amount of starter 50g to inoculate a WW starter would only change the food of the starter and introduce a larger variety of bacteria and yeasts to the culture as the flour includes the whole berry. WW will also stimulate the culture with more nutrients and possibly support more bacteria and yeast colonies in the culture until the inoculate suppresses them. The bran in the WW will change the aroma to more nutty and sometimes interesting aromas pop up, not all of them pleasant to everyone and not all of of them affecting the taste of the bread. Feeding the starter WW may boost the old starter back to health if that was the original plan but so would regular feeds with plain flour. You are still dealing with wheat. Try switching up the grain.
The "new" starter is not new as in "starting one from scratch." There is already a pecking order in the established starter. Starting a WW sourdough starter from scratch is more likely to give a different profile. I would encourage trying and should be easier this time around as you know what to look for as the starter develops. It may also be more vigorous depending on how the beasties sort themselves out.
Mini, the old starter, affectionately named 'the Beast', totals around 300g. When it is used I pull 150g and feed it equal weights of water and unbleached bread flour totaling 150g. It stays on the counter for a couple of hours at room temp before going back into the fridge. In the past it has been used on a slightly-less-than weekly basis. The recipe that I use for a mostly whole wheat sandwich loaf calls for 300g starter and I would build it from that 150g of the Beast. My routine would then include an overnight for the dough and a next day bake for the loaf. Simple parsimony made me reluctant to throw away 150g of flour on a daily basis so I banished the Beast to cold and darkness until needed.
With the 'new' starter (I think I'll call it the Mule because it is a crossbreed) I'm going to be using a slightly different routine by pulling 50g of the Mule adding 50g each of water and home milled hard white wheat at noon and 75g each of the same around 6 or 7pm. The resulting 300g of starter will get an overnight on the counter and I'll mix, proof and bake the loaf next day. The Mule has been spending time in the fridge for several days now and I'm going to see if keeping it around 100g will work out.