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Advice: Struggling with Sourdough Starter

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Advice: Struggling with Sourdough Starter

Hello everyone,

Firstly, apologies for the extremely long-winded post. I just want to include as much as possible to help troubleshoot this issue. 

For a month now, I've been trying to get a sourdough starter going and am running into issues. I have searched the internet to near unhealthy obsession and am noticing that the issues I'm experiencing are not common. 

A short background: I have a moderate amount of experience baking yeast breads. I was an all-grain home brewer (beer) for many years, so I have a good understanding of temperature, enzymatic activity, yeast needs and behaviours, etc... I'm no bread expert but have had good luck baking bread with yeast.

After a few years low-carb eating, I have been itching recently to get back into bread. I decided I wanted to up my baking game and learn to make "wow" loaves. I made some great baguettes, some awesome ciabattas and some superb pizza doughs. Next, I wanted to try my hand at sourdough. This is where it went downhill fast.

I found this video by Brian Lagerstrom that shows how to start a sourdough starter. (I love his videos!)

The way he suggests it is as follows:

CAPTURE STAGE:

DAY 1 (hour 0)

Into a tall container with a lid, measure 150g of filtered or distilled room temperature (68°-78°F or 20°-25°C) water and 100g of whole grain rye flour. Stir. Place a lid on the container, loosely, and let sit at room temperature.

DAY 2 (24 hours later) 

Remove/discard 1/2 of the rye flour/water mixture from yesterday (you don't need to be super precise at this point). Into your container with the remaining 1/2 of the mixture, add 150g room temp water and 100g whole grain rye flour. Stir to combine. Cover loosely and let sit at room temperature. 

CULTIVATE STAGE: 

DAY 3 (24 hours later, 48 hours into the process)

Measure 75g of your flour/water starter mix from yesterday and discard the rest . Return only the 75g of starter to your jar and add 75g of room temperature water, 35g of all purpose flour, and 35g of rye flour. Stir and cover with a loose lid. Let sit at room temperature. 

DAY 4 (24 hours later, 72 hours into the process)

Repeat process from day 3.

DAY 5 (24 hours later, 96 hours into process) 

Repeat process from day 3.

MAINTENANCE STAGE: 

DAY 6 (24 hours later, 120 hours into process) 

Your starter is now ready to use for baking. To maintain it (from this point through forever), measure 25g of starter from the day before and discard the rest. To that 25g of starter, add 50g room temp water and 50g ap flour. Stir, cover with a loose lid and let sit at room temperature. Do this daily, every 24 hours, to maintain your starter if you're a casual baker. If you bake a lot OR if you've had your starter in the fridge and you need to get it ready to bake again, feed once every 12 hours. 

So for me, days 1-2 worked exactly as described. After the first 24h, I saw a little bit of activity, and the 2nd day it was already rising well. On day 3, when I started to introduce AP flour, activity slowed considerably. I continued that routine for about 7 days, because I was not rising much overnight. The most I saw was maybe a 25% rise. I decided to follow through to the last step of going to only AP flour for feedings. That's when the starter stopped rising completely.

After looking at many FAQs on different sites, the consensus seemed to be "just keep feeding it". So I did, with AP flour for the next two weeks. It just continued to do the same. Some bubbles, very sour smell, and no rise.

So at this point, I decided to try and revive it with the rye flour. I fed the starter with 50% rye and 50% AP flour and it took off like mad. It now was rising more than triple its size and smelled great. (Boozy, nutty etc...)

At this point I thought the starter was ready and I tried to make a tartine country loaf using this video as a guide. The first sign that something was wrong was the leaven. It hadn't risen at all overnight, and it had become very runny. Foolishly, I continued anyway. When doing the folds, the dough became nice and tight and felt good. After the "bulk", it felt slack and hadn't risen at all. There was no alcohol smell. I shaped it anyway, thinking maybe this is just how sourdough is, proofed it in a banneton in the fridge and baked it the following day. It came out flat and dense and tasted overwhelmingly sour. (Much like Finn Crisp crackers.) I knew something was wrong with my starter.

With the overwhelming sourness of the bread and lack of fermentation, I figured my my starter is just not building enough yeast cells or there is too much acidity. (Uneducated guess). I went back to the 50/50 rye/AP flour feedings and the starter came back to life and looked / smelled very healthy. I decided to try the same loaf again, and the leaven was better this time, but still nothing like I see in videos or pictures. After making the dough, it felt great, folds instantly created good strength. After two folds, the dough was a taught ball and I set it aside to bulk. When I came back to the dough 3 hours later, it looked like a bowl pancake batter. I tried to pre-shape it, and it just wouldn't hold any shape at all. At this point, I threw a cover over the bowl, threw it in the fridge and went to bed. This morning, the dough is a liquid mess, zero structure, I can pour it out like batter. It smells like raw dough, not even a tiny hint of yeastiness or alcohol, it just smells like raw flour and water.

So I really don't know what's going on anymore.

Some people have suggested I just keep my starter on a steady diet of AP and RYE flour. While sure this works great to keep the starter rising and healthy, the problem is that if it won't run on AP alone, how will it leaven a bread made mostly of AP flour?

I have tried Robin Hood unbleached AP, Five Roses 'never bleached' AP, Robin Hood Bread flour, Filtered water, bottled water, tap water. None of these appear to have any effect on the starter's ability to ferment AP flour. 

Tried keeping the starter on the counter (around 18°C / 64°F) and later on top of warm base at around 26°C / 79°F, definitely more activity on the hotter end of things. The water is kept at the same temperature.

Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas? Again, really sorry for how long this. I appreciate you taking the time to read it.

Thanks so much!

Edit: I forgot to mention, I'm starting to suspect the rye flour may be the culprit. I am using whole grain dark rye flour from Bulk Barn. I don't know anything else about it. Maybe the yeast/bacteria culture I am harvesting from this rye flour simply isn't capable of metabolizing AP flour? 

Abe's picture
Abe

That's a lot of info but the more info the merrier! You've run into problems which are common but your expertise has paid off. All your assumptions as to what is going on seems to be on the right path. 

I don't believe it's make or break but distilled water isn't recommended. Not that it should cause these issues but it just lacks minerals starters like. 

It seems to me that your starter does lack a good yeast population, it's mainly bacterial and just breaks down your dough instead of leavening it. 

AP flour at that hydration will not rise as much as whole rye flour simply because it'll be a lot thinner. Perhaps for AP flour lower the hydration to 80% and see how it reacts. 

For now keep up feeding your starter as per instructions. Take a little off (from the discard) and try an experiment alongside your starter. 

Find a small jar, add to it 20g discard and feed it 32g water + 40g AP flour. If it bubbles up within 12 hours then feed it twice a day. If it doesn't but bubbles up within a day then feed it once a day. If it goes quiet then skip a feed. In other words feed according to the activity of your starter. If it bubbles up and peaks within 12 hours then don't wait for 24 hours. If vice versa then don't feed too soon. Keep on repeating the same feed till it's strong and predictable. Try to keep it on average 78°F. 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Thank you for the warm welcome!

It seems to me that your starter does lack a good yeast population, it's mainly bacterial and just breaks down your dough instead of leavening it. 

This seems accurate. It's especially weird that the dough goes from a strong, taught ball to soup over a few hours. I've never seen anything like that when baking with yeast.

For now keep up feeding your starter as per instructions. Take a little off (from the discard) and try an experiment alongside your starter. 

This is something I actually started doing and forgot to mention. I have an offshoot starter that is being fed 50/50 rye/AP, and this one is doing wonderfully. It triples in size in like 5-6 hours and smells wonderful. But then when I tried to make a leaven with it using AP flour, it didn't take off and that's when I got the super flat loaf. This is the part that's really baffling to me, because it seems so healthy in the jar but then stops working when I use it with 100% AP flour.

Thanks for the tips with the feeding schedule. That makes a lot of sense about the feeding according to the activity. I'll keep at it

Benito's picture
Benito

Hi Mark, I’ve used most of the flours you have mentioned and they’re all fine for making bread and will feed a starter or levain just fine.  In fact, I use that whole dark rye from Bulk Barn all the time.  I initially created one of my starters from that exact flour and that is what I feed my starter on a weekly basis so I know there is absolutely nothing wrong with that flour.

Abe has given you excellent advice, if I may add something.  I do find that rye is excellent to create and maintain one’s starter with.  Once you get that starter of yours vigorous enough you’ll bet able to make any kind of levain with your starter.  If you want to see look at my blog here and you’ll see that my all rye starter makes all sorts of breads.  You could consider making that off shoot of your starter as Abe suggests from some of the starter when you are feeding using the discard.  Consider doing feeds at 100% hydration with just the rye.  So say 20 g of starter 20g of water and 20 g of the whole rye.  This is nice and thick and will rise well once it has a good population of LAB and yeast in it.  Keep it warm, I find that between 80-82ºF you get optimal reproduction of the LAB and yeast so that is the temperature I tend to ferment at.  Watch it rise, don’t feed it again until it peaks.  You’ll know it peaks when the dome starts to flatten.  When you see that you can discard and feed again.  You’ll soon find that the time to peak becomes shorter and shorter.  Once you find that this time is less than 8-12 hours you can increase the ratio of the feed to extend the time between feeds, so increase to 1:2:2 starter:water:flour or even 1:3:3.  If you’re starting to get tripling of volume with feeds at 80-82* in 6 hours or so your starter might be ready to bake.

Benny

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

I very happy to hear that you are using the same flours I am with success. That's a big help and I can scratch those off the list of culprits. 

My concern about using the rye starter to leaven an all-purpose loaf was only a based on my observations when I tried to create a leaven. I'm glad to know that this is supposed to work, but I'm baffled as to why it didn't work for me. In the novel I wrote above, I forgot to mention that I have been growing a 50/50 Rye/AP starter the same time as my initial one and this one triples in size within 5-6 hours. But when I try to make a leaven using only AP, there is only some bubbling and no fermentation smell. I tried to make a loaf with this leaven it turned out super flat and dense.

I really like your suggestions about the ratios and their relationship to rise times. I will go with this.

Interestingly enough, just before I sat down to write the initial post above, I decided to discard the rye starter because I was getting frustrated and confused while experimenting with two starters that are out of sync. I fed my original one (the one that failed to transition from rye to AP) and already it has doubled in size in the last 3-4 hours. I'm a little bit shocked actually because this is the first time I see this kind of activity with a 100% AP feeding. 

Now I will pay very close attention and apply your suggestions to this starter and see how it goes.

Thank you for your suggestions / advice. Much appreciated.

squattercity's picture
squattercity

hi Mark --

welcome to the sourdough journey.

first off, a rye starter can absolutely raise an AP or bread flour (or spelt or ...) loaf -- so that's not your problem.

Abe, who knows way more than me, is probably right: from your description, it sounds like your batch is producing lots of acids but not much in the way of yeasts.

My suggestion is to adjust your expectations and allow your starter to take the time it needs. When I first mixed my all-rye starter, about a year ago, I expected things to be great after a week, just like the books and websites said. But my starter remained anemic for weeks. And even after that, while it would sometimes bake good breads, it was hit or miss. It took months for me to understand it. And even now, it sometimes surprises me.

Keep the faith. As Abe prescribed, perhaps try splitting it in two and going for the different feeding schedules. Give it time. It will come good.

Rob

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Thank you! And for me the starter took off hard with the rye, but stopped once I transitioned to APF. But reading all the posts here, I'm starting to understand what I did wrong.

Thank you!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

the starter was a few days old, it was just beginning to go into a quiet phase (normal) when it got fed with AP throwing the progress back a few steps.  One very important thing to pay attention to is the temperature.  If the countertop is cool at night or lower than 75°F, then you can count one day as only a half day. Fermentation will slow down a lot. And it helps the yeast to feed before the warm part of the day and skip feeding for cool nights.

 The rye perking up at day two/three or so was most likely bacteria activity. It can be prolonged and get stuck in this phase if the starter is overfed at low temps.   Cool temps can work (it takes longer) to start starters but discarding and feeding until the yeast have arrived requires days between each feed.  Anyway,  I'm betting those first instructions didn't include temperature.  I would keep this more active starter between 75° and 78°F to favor yeast over bacteria.  As already mentioned.  At least for now until it becomes predictable.  Then you can gradually lower the temps between use and feeds.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I thought my post was the last reply but after it posted, the rest of the replies showed up. Na ya......

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

That's okay! Thank you for chiming in. That is very helpful. I think my main mistake, as you mentioned, is that I mistook the active rye bubbling for evidence of active fermentation. 

Since starting this thread yesterday, my starter is going nuts now. It can't even be contained in a large jar. So I guess I'm on the right track.

Thanks again!

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Either get a bigger jar or feed smaller amounts.  Four to five times the starter volume for head space.  :). Lol

Glad things are working now. :)

mariana's picture
mariana

Hi Mark, 

the source of your trouble is that you found a recipe for the starter that doesn't match conditions in your kitchen. It asks for an average 23C in the kitchen (20-25C) and your kitchen is kept at 18C on average. 

18C is OK, but I know only one starter recipe that uses that low a temperature to create a starter: desem (made with whole wheat kernels). It is so low a temperature that  desem starter is refreshed/fed once every five days! In your case you feed it so often, daily, yeast just never takes off. 

Distilled water is also OK. In fact, I only use distilled or demineralized water in my starters, but it is not what the recipe asks for in your case. It only mentions distilled water in the first step, when it is pure rye based. Distilled water mostly works for liquid and very liquid starters, especially non-wheat based, because gluten in AP flour dough is not forming as well as with normal hard water. So, it won't rise. 

Whole rye is not the best source of yeast cells. Normally, it has some but not too many. AP flour has even less. So, at 18C you stand a very low chance to propagate yeast in your starter. That you probably know as a brewer. 30-33C is the best, 26-27C is the lower end limit. 

You can try once again using that recipe as written. You have a place in your kitchen that maintains 26C? That is way closer to 20-25C range requirement than 18C and will be better for your starter. And use tap water. You can use distilled as well, but then add either some minerals or/and vitamin C to your water to harden it and to help with the gluten when you move on to AP flour phase. 

Several months ago there was a person with the same situation as yours: low temperature conditions and APF+rye combo starter. The solution was to add whole wheat as a source of yeast cells and to raise the temperature and the starter took off. Please, see if that helps:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/68012/please-help-my-starter-i-feel-ive-tried-everything-no-luck

Maybe the yeast/bacteria culture I am harvesting from this rye flour simply isn't capable of metabolizing AP flour? 

- Unlikely. Once your starter is ready, its microbial culture will work with any flour, even switching to feeding it with bleached cake flour would work, let alone FiveRoses unbleached APF which is awesome for starters. Temperature is the key. Even 26 is sort of low, but 18C is simply not what this recipe asks for. At 18C I would feed the starter every 2 or 3 days, not daily. 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Thanks for the detailed reply. Lots of good tidbits here!

the source of your trouble is that you found a recipe for the starter that doesn't match conditions in your kitchen. It asks for an average 23C in the kitchen (20-25C) and your kitchen is kept at 18C on average. 

This is something I thought about after the first week. I had it in a cupboard with the cabinet light on, and it was around 18 in there. I have since moved it to the top of my toaster oven, with the oven set very low. It seems to maintain about 26 degrees on the top of it. I'm definitely seeing much better results with this change.

Whole rye is not the best source of yeast cells. Normally, it has some but not too many. AP flour has even less. So, at 18C you stand a very low chance to propagate yeast in your starter. That you probably know as a brewer. 30-33C is the best, 26-27C is the lower end limit. 

Okay good to know. In brewing, we try to ferment on the lower end to limit ester production, so the yeast pitch rate is very important. Point taken!

And use tap water. You can use distilled as well, but then add either some minerals or/and vitamin C to your water to harden it and to help with the gluten when you move on to AP flour phase. 

Though the recipe did call for distilled, I didn't use it, just like in brewing, I thought distilled might be "too clean". I used tap water, filtered tap water and bottled water in my tests. 

Unlikely. Once your starter is ready, its microbial culture will work with any flour, even switching to feeding it with bleached cake flour would work, let alone FiveRoses unbleached APF which is awesome for starters. Temperature is the key. Even 26 is sort of low, but 18C is simply not what this recipe asks for. At 18C I would feed the starter every 2 or 3 days, not daily. 

Okay, I'm very happy to read that.

Thank you all for being so generous with your knowledge. I will take what I have learned here and report back soon.

Happy holidays!

mariana's picture
mariana

Happy holidays to you too, Mark!

In your conditions it might be better using a heating pad instead of the toaster oven set to low for days and days. Especially if you are going to use your starter for bread dough as well. Especially if you are planning to bake with rye which requires an even warmer sourdough environment, closer to 35-40C.

I use this one. It is very good and helped me create many starters successfully over the years.

https://www.amazon.ca/Sunbeam-Standard-Heating-Arthritic-Controller/dp/B086ML3ST6/ref=pd_bxgy_1/143-9029868-8275343?pd_rd_w=zrqO8&pf_rd_p=8c482a45-7c0...

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

You can see here how the 10% / 90% Rye/APF starter isn't rising at all here. But I'm realizing now it may just be because they are out of sync and I feeding both in the same time, but according to the activity of the faster moving 50/50 Rye/APF starter.

You can see how the 10/90 Rye/APF starter just isn't rising

Abe's picture
Abe

We've all given advice but have forgotten to ask you your sourdough recipe? 

Do you build a levain? How much do you use? How long is it left to ferment? etc...

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

I followed this video but cut the recipe in half. I can only handle one loaf failure per day. 

Starter:

- night prior, mix: 

25g sourdough starter 

100g flour

100g water (room temp)

 

Dough: 

350g 95 degree water (plus 25g when salt is added, not shown in video)

100g ripe starter (10-12 hours old) 

450g AP or bread flour 

50g whole wheat flour 

10g salt

 

1. Mix water, flour and starter until combined. Leave to autolyse for 60 minutes.

2. Add salt and mix slow speed for 2 mins, then mix on medium speed for 2-3 minutes. Leave for 30 minutes.

3. Strength building folds, rest 30 mins

4. Strength building folds, tuck bottom, rest 3 hours

5. Pre-shape, rest 30 minutes.

6. Shape, transfer to Banneton, put in fridge overnight.

The first time I tried this recipe, it was starting to get slack after the 3 hour rest. It did nothing overnight in the fridge, then it rose a tiny bit in the oven (dutch oven method.) 

 

 

Second time I made this, (picture posted earlier), I ran out of time and put the dough in the fridge in its mixing bowl at the 3 hour bulk stage, and the following morning it was that wet mess.

 

 

mariana's picture
mariana

Rye flour starter would bubble and double even at 40-45C where there is no yeast propagation at all. Its bacteria that is gassing. Rye is full of bacteria. 

In short, if your wheat flour jar is not showing any rise and does not smell typical of yeast fermentation, then you have no yeast in your starter. You know that. You've baked with yeast. There is even a  picture of yeasted bread in your avatar. When there is yeast, wheat dough will rise.

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

EUREKA! This explains everything for me. My 50/50 rye/apf starter smelled of sweet alcohol big time, it smelled like a good beer actually, but I never tried to bake with it, because I mistakenly believed the starter had to be running on APF to bake bread with it. My APF starter always just smelled sour. 

I have learned tons in just this one thread. Thank you!

 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

And this is the sloppy mess I woke up to this morning. It was a nice taut ball of dough just yesterday. Not sure what caused this... Edit: Edited this for spelling, didn't realize it would update the post date...

Abe's picture
Abe

How much starter to how much flour? At what temperature and how long for?

If you mixed up a dough the day before and left it overnight, unless it was very little starter i'd expect it to look like that. And we also need to look at what stage you used your starter at. I think it is "possible" there's something going wrong in your recipe as well. 

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Greetings Mark!  It looks like you are in very good hands with the others who have already posted, but I'm going to include a link that I found helpful in the early days of my own sourdough journey.  I'm a visual person so I find having the pictures (like the video you link above) to be very helpful .  I don't know if you have run across Maurizio's blog before...apologies if so.  But, there is much wisdom on his site as well as here at TFL.  After having failed with the pineapple method years ago, it was the info on Maurizio's blog (and others similar) that resulted in a very successful starter for me.

He points out what others here have already mentioned as far as the importance of warmth.  I also have a pretty cool kitchen so take little steps to keep my starters happy, like keeping the jars positioned on a very thick, woven 'trivet', never in direct contact with a cool counter.  I nearly always use warm water for my starter feeds, unless I am busy cooking, which keeps the ambient temperature in the kitchen warm for those few hours.  Further, I typically will warm up the jars I am going to use for the starter with some hot water so that I'm creating a toasty environment before I place the newly fed starter inside.  All these little tweaks help with creating a warmer environment but one that isn't too warm.  You do have to be careful with not going overboard with the heat, as you can also turn the starter into a soupy, thin mess that is too acidic if you take it too far.  Good luck on your journey and have patience! You will find what works best for you and your environment!  

https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredible-sourdough-starter-scratch/

EDIT: forgot to mention that I maintain two starters, one rye/WW/AP and one strictly AP, and they both work fine and interchangeably if necessary.  They also rise at nearly the same rate after feedings although it is interesting to observe the differences sometimes, down to variables that I am not aware of.  Sometimes the AP rises vigorously and quite a bit faster while other times the rye/WW/AP mix (at about 50/40/10) jumps ahead.  Different flour brands, different temps/humidity, maybe more potent rye berries (I grind my own), who knows?  Once you get things worked out with your starters you shouldn't have any difficulty using them for all kinds of recipes, for either white or WW breads.

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

I've read through it carefully. Tons of great information here. Thank you so much. 

happycat's picture
happycat

I use Bulk Barn dark rye exclusively for my starter for years. Always worked very well at 100% hydration. Nice firm spongey starter, powerful leavens, lots of different breads, english muffins, croissants, etc. 

It will come roaring back from as little as a few grams left in a jar with no problem.

It's quite powerful so i have to be careful about scaling back amounts of starter and shortening length of fermentation time to avoid over fermentation. That helped a lot. I often do bulk fermentation the the fridge overnight which works well for me with a warm apt.

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

This is exactly the behaviour I observed with my rye starter. It seemed very strong and robust, but foolishly I never tried to bake with it, and it's gone now. Live and learn. Thanks for the info!

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Well, it looks like it's off to the races. I fed the starter 1:1:1 starter/APF/water and it took off like mad. Not sure what changed in one day. First picture was after 3 hours, and second picture was this morning, 12 hours later. Wowza! It smells boozy now, so I guess there is some yeast building. I will feed it a few more times to see if it stays consistent and will report back.

Thank you all for the great information!

mariana's picture
mariana

Congratulations, Mark! Your newborn baby starter is healthy and beautiful. Well done! 👍👍👍💕

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

YAY! Thank you! 

Benito's picture
Benito

There you go!  Congratulations on the birth of your sourdough starter.  Now get it into a rhythm and then you'll enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Benny

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Will do! Thanks again!

Abe's picture
Abe

When a messy kitchen is a pleasure. Looking forward to some lovely sourdough bakes. 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

So I thought I'd give a little update.

After observing very strong activity in my starter, I figured it was probably ready to bake with. I tried the same recipe I posted above, so it is my third attempt. Once again, during the 3 hour bulk fermentation step, the dough turned to soup. See this video I took: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trgqzdImu8g

The dough was very wet from the start, so I don't know if this is simply a hydration issue. When I watch the video where I got the recipe from, his dough looks much stronger than mine. I even mixed it longer than recommended in hopes that it would help with gluten development. The stretch and fold steps seem to help a little bit, but there was no way I could form any type of ball with it. After the 3 hours bulk, it was just completely runny. 

After I took that video, I felt like there was no point in continuing. It was about to go into the compost, but having nothing to lose, thought I'd try and save it. I threw it all back into the standing mixer and started adding flour while mixing on slow. It took about a cup and a half of flour for it to start coming together. I let it sit for a bit and just did a stretch and fold, and it feels like a dough should feel. Got nice and tight right away and is holding a shape. I will do another S/F and let it bulk more.

I'm really not understanding why my hydration is always off by so much. I have started to withhold some of the water while mixing and it has helped, but on this particular recipe, it's like I'd have to use HALF the recommended water just to get a workable dough. With all the flour I added, only now does the dough look like the one in the recipe video.

I'll updated later! 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

So the loaf showed a nice rise in the banneton before I put it in the fridge, and this morning I baked it. It did absolutely nothing in the dutch oven. I believe I am probably dealing with multiple issues. The dough had little strength, and the starter is probably not ready. Shaping the loaf last night was like trying to shape a bag of water. 

Abe's picture
Abe

To take two steps forward. 

What flour are you using? How high is the hydration? 

For a first loaf i'd go low hydration, use strong bread flour, keep it simple etc. And if a dough can't be shaped then into a loaf pan it goes. 

Just trying to bake more breads without sorting out the starter is not going to help. It'll only dent your confidence. 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

I agree 100% with you. Unfortunately I had started that loaf before seeing all of your advice on the starter stuff, it's a three day process this one. I am not planning on re-attempting it any time soon. I'm going to try your advice with the starter for a few days and see how that goes.

I realize I'm making things confusing by posting in both threads and changing subjects along the way. Apologies for that.

Just to recap, this particular loaf used strong bread flour, and the hydration is 75%. The big mystery for me is why it is always pancake batter from the get go. With this one, I actually was about to pour it into the compost after the bulk because it was soup. I then decided to throw it back in the mixer and see how much flour it would take to turn into an actual dough. It took 1.5 cups of flour to become manageable. I'm not too surprised that it didn't bake right considering the way I went rogue with the process steps. But something is definitely VERY off with my hydration. It is the third time I attempt this recipe, and the third time it comes out exactly the same. And yet, not a single person in the 300 comments on the original recipe video seems to have any issues baking it. So I dunno ... I'm starting to suspect my scale.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

how exactly are you measuring the flour and water!?  The more specific, the better. check scale settings. Grams, oz or milk.

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

I'm using a scale to measure ingredients in grams. I did mention cups near the end because when I decided to try and "save" the dough, I was just eyeballing it and throwing flour in the bowl.

What's weird, is I've had no trouble at all with pizza dough or french baguettes (yeasted). So I suspect it may be my sourdough starter that is causing the gluten to come apart due to high acidity (perhaps?). I'm going to try again at some point once my starter is better balanced.

Ming's picture
Ming

It does not look like your scale or the hydration is an issue if it did feel like a dough after a remix with more flour. Are you mixing it with a mixer at a high speed? I have discovered that my SD yeast would die if I mixed my dough in a mixer with a higher RPM. Once the yeast is death, the bacterial seem to do the work during fermentation and that is when the dough would break down with too much acid ending up with a runny mess. May I suggest that you do a test run with a no knead no stretch no fold dough and see what happen? Obviously, you will have to do a little bit of hand mixing and kneading to get everything incorporated but don't use the mixer and don't bother to do a stretch and fold. That is what I did to validate if my sourdough starter is good or not. 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Hi Ming, I did use a mixer for this recipe, and at first I could see there was some gluten development as the dough sticking was webbing a lot and stretching nicely, but it was too wet from the very start. I don't have enough experience to gauge hydration, whenever I think it looks okay, I'm left surprised how much it changed the next few steps. But maybe you're onto something with my acidic SD starter. It used to be very acidic, but I think I'm close to having it sorted out, with the help of the tips Abe posted in the SD starter thread. Fingers crossed. Thanks for posting!

Ming's picture
Ming

According to the pics posted, the dough/hydration looks normal to me. As long as you can handle the dough from one stage to another then I don't think hydration is an issue. Many "new" experts bake with a 80-100% hydration nowadays so that should not be an issue with the problem you are having. FYI, when I made the discovery as described, my dough were normal out of the mixer, I did not know my yeast was dead until many hours later during bulk fermentation. Anyhow, your case might be different, hope you will sort out the source of the problem soon. Have fun!!!

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

@Mark,

I saw your comment on Thiago's thread, but I just wanted to make sure you understand that you also need enzymes in the main dough's flour, if it's a white flour (AP or bread flour) recipe.

Having enzymes in the flour that you feed the starter is good, but if you are using an organic white flour for the final dough, and if it does not have amylase (or malted flour) added, you'll see the symptoms that you have been describing, ie., failure to rise.

Organic flour and unmalted flour are two separate issues, one does not depend on the other. But there seems to be some kind of correlation, in which millers sometimes decide to avoid putting malt/amylase in their organic flour.

I'll need to mention this to Thiago, as well. He'll end up with the same failure-to-raise-the-main-dough symptom that you are having, if his "main flour" is all white flour with no whole grain, rye, malt, nor amylase.

I'm not saying that this is _definitely_ your situation, but just something to check: Does the white flour in your main/final dough have amylase/malt?

 

 

Mark Stone's picture
Mark Stone

Thank you for the tips. I do see amylase listed in the ingredients of the flours I use. I'm seeing great rise from my yeast-leavened breads, I'm not sure if amylase has an affect with yeast breads? Thanks! 

Benito's picture
Benito

Both the LAB and the yeast need the sugars that amylase create while breaking down the starches so even commercial yeast breads need amylase.  

Benny