I'm baking my way through Ken Forkish's book, Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast, and attempting to create a starter. I followed Forkish's starter instructions, but scaled everything down to 1/10th the amount since I want to maintain a small starter.
Today is day 10, I've been discarding and feeding each morning, and the starter has doubled every 24 hours for the last 3 days, but I suspect it's not really vigorous yet. It's not growing as fast as strong starters I hear people describe, and Forkish himself mentions a mature levain tripling or quadrupling in 24 hours.
Should I stick to my current routine, or do I need to make adjustments? Here are my notes.
- Day 1
- mix 50 grams whole wheat flour, 50 grams 90°F water
- room temp: 77°F, finished mix temp: 84°F
- Day 2
- discard all but 25 grams
- add 50 grams whole wheat flour, 50 grams 86°F water
- room temp: 77°F, finished mix temp: 78°F
- Day 3
- very pungent smell, unpleasant, overwhelming bad cheese
- discard all but 20 grams
- add 50 grams whole wheat flour, 50 grams 88°F water
- room temp: 76°F, finished mix temp: 80°F
- Day 4
- smells milder, like strong cheese/yogurt
- no activity, stir and leave alone
- room temp: 75°
- Day 5
- no growth since day 4, but very liquidy
- discard all but 20 grams
- add 50 grams whole wheat flour, 50 grams 89°F water
- room temp: 74°, finished mix temp: 76°F
- Day 6
- discard all but 15 grams
- add 40 grams bread flour, 10 grams whole wheat flour, 40 grams 85°F water
- room temp: 77°, finished mix temp: 80°F
- Day 7
- discard all but 15 grams
- add 40 grams bread flour, 10 grams whole wheat flour, 40 grams 85°F water
- room temp: 79°, finished mix temp: 79°F
- evening: nearly doubled, small bubbles, sweet white wine smell; see how it looks in the morning and consider bumping up the feeding ratio
- Day 8
- doubled; past peek; liquidy but no hooch; smells like white wine
- discard all but 15 grams
- add 40 grams bread flour, 10 grams whole wheat flour, 40 grams 85°F water
- room temp: 79°, finished mix temp: 82°F
- Day 9
- doubled; past peek; liquidy but no hooch; smells like white wine
- discard all but 10 grams
- add 40 grams bread flour, 10 grams whole wheat flour, 40 grams 85°F water
- room temp: 80°, finished mix temp: 82°F
- Day 10
- doubled; smells like white wine
- discard all but 10 grams
- add 40 grams bread flour, 10 grams whole wheat flour, 40 grams 85°F water
- room temp: 81°, finished mix temp: 82°F
Use it. Enjoy!
I continued the same routine on day 11 (kept 10 grams starter, added 40 grams bread flour, 10 grams whole wheat flour, 40 grams 85°F water), and got the same results (doubled in 24 hours).
So today, day 12, I kept 15 grams of starter rather than just 10. That slight increase in the starter:water:flour ratio appears to have helped -- it has doubled in volume in 12 hours. I'll see how it looks in the morning.