Some NMNF Starter Questions

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Justanoldguy on 21 Nov 2018 at 08:37

I've got a question about the NMNF starter. I used a few grams of my 100% hydration rye starter to create a 66% NMNF starter by inoculating a 45g rye - 30g water mix. After it was underway I added another 45/30 'dose' and put it in the fridge. I'm using freshly milled rye. After a couple of weeks in the fridge the upper surface of the NMNF developed a dark gray layer similar to what a 'hungry', 100% starter would have but there's no hooch. It hasn't developed a fuzzy coat of mold and there's no impact on the starter's fruity smell. So, here's the questions:

Is the impact purely aesthetic?

If not, is there a way to prevent this?

If you're using a NMNF starter and you have the same situation what's your response?

Thanks in advance for any info you might have.

first line of defense from invading organisms, I think oxidation make it darker.  Anyway,  I tend to get under it for my sample.  Just break or scrape back the gray with as little disturbance as possible and take some out to inoculate and build a levain.  Put the starter back into the fridge if there's enough, it's good for a few more inoculations.

Thanks, Mini. I suspected it was oxidation but I'm a married man and therefore have been wrong many, many times in the past. : < ). This was the first time I'd worked with a starter at less than 100% hydration.  I'll just keep plodding along. 

just for looking up or wanting an answer.  Plodding pretty good for a married man!  :)

Hi, OG,

I don't have the answers for your first two questions. For the third, I usually use the gray part first to build my next levain and stir the remaining gray in the jar to make it disappear.  There have been no issues so far. 

 

I doubt if anyone's rye starter is grayer than mine but it had leavened the German rye I just made!

 

 

 

 

Yippee

 

starter of all time perfect for the husband is both always wrong and lazy which encompasses every married male who bakes bread or eats it.  The problem is that the top is drying out but no worries at all for us lazy folk who do not even know when we are wrong or care for that matter.  Two ways to cure it  is to bake bread every week and take 10 g from the starter to build a levain and then stir down the stored starter before returning it to the fridge but, before you do so, take a small piece of plastic wrap and cover the top of the starter. and make sure it is well covered with a lid.

Guaranteed no more hardtop but this hard bit does make a great, even fine, starting point when you need to refresh the starter.as Yippee says.  All we need, in the laziest part of the NMNF world, is a decent hard bit left over to make our world a rainbow..

Happy NMNF balking

Thanks dabrownman, I was mulling over the idea of trying to isolate the top of the starter either with a layer of flour - which I'm sure would have impacted the hydration by drawing out some of the moisture - or putting a 'skin' of plastic wrap on top of it. It does reside in a pint Mason jar with a screw-on plastic lid so I'll just give it a plastic topping. I am using home milled rye and that does seem to give the little microbes a voracious appetite.