Starter, starter question
Finally decided to post after lurking for a few weeks.
About 4 weeks into getting my starting going. Using a 1:2:2 ratio (30g , 60g, 60g) and refreshing daily with 50:50 whole wheat and bread flour. This lives in a proofing box at 80°
The starter seemed extremely sluggish. A week back following a recipe for a bake, the blogger mentioned using rye flour exclusively for starter feedings so I decided to give it a go and switched. The starter became significantly more vigorous. I get a doubling in about 9hrs.
Here is where the problem emerges.
Seems like when I attempt to build a levan for break making and feed it bread flour it is still super sluggish. Is this at all plausible? Do you think my start needs more time? The levain build was about a 1:2:2 ratio of starter to flour and water, which I inoculated when my start was at peak. After about 13hrs of fermentation my levain only grew about 10%. Was out of time, so I built the dough and unsurprisingly my bulk fermentation is taking forever.
Any thoughts or tips or resources to ruminate on would be great. Glad I found this community.
Cheers
a 1:2:2 feed should not take so long to peak. Taking 9 hours to double in 80F is a sure sign it's not firing on all cylinders. And that is your starter speeding up to-boot.
Not sure why it's taking so long. Can you give us some more history of your starter? How did you make it? Where do you live and what water are you using? Usually I don't think water is a big issue. More often then not it's impatience or over-feeding. But 4 weeks in and being this slow we need to look at something else and perhaps it is the water.
My process. Started 4 weeks ago.
75g flour 75g H20 from a cooler jug (which I assume is chlorine free) lived at room temp. (71° ish, winter in Ontario)
Waited 3ish days until I saw the foamyness subside (from what I understand this is the "burning off" of more of the undesirable organisms.
Started a 1:2:2 (150g total) with hard bread flour. Never really got a bubbly rise for about a week. Opted to go 50:50 bread and whole wheat. A bit more action, moved to my 78° proofing bag, but still not that cavernous, bubbles and stringyness. Could kind of get a 3/4 rise and it would take a full 24 hours.
Somewhere in that time I went a about 5 days 1:3:3 feeding every 24 hours. Couple failed loaf attempts here.
In reading a recipe/blog for the tartine country loaf the blog mentioned success with a starter only fed rye. As my start still seemed lacking, I tried. 1:2:2. It worked pretty fantastically well. That recognizable doubling and then some, still after about 14 hours. Fed every day for about 5 days. Another loaf attempt and when I built the leavin with bread and whole wheat, again sluggishness. Attempted to pitch again with a longer bulk fermentation to compensate, and again pickled over-fermented dough. Blegh.
Noobie guessing. I'd say there is something with the balance of lactic acid bacteria and yeast population relationship. No good rise action, strong ability to sour. I thought having a controlled, slightly on the warm, 76° proofing box for my start, would select for a pro yeast environment. Unbleached, organic flour. Non-chlorinated water.
Current feeding approach is a 33/33/33 bread, whole wheat and rye. Sticking to 1:2:2 and going to feed peak to peak as opposed to time. From my understanding a 4-6 hour to double is good indication of starter vitality. Thus far on the nose somewhere between apple cider vin and a super slight almost boozy almost acetoney note.
Sorry for the dump of details. Please give me your wisdom. Appreciate your time.
The golden rule to bread baking. Watching the dough and not the clock. So too for a starter.
If you had managed to get it to double within a few hours but then waited to feed it once a day then perhaps you have upset the balance. Acetone is normally an indicator of a starter being hungry. The 1:2:2 feed isn't a bad feed as such as long as you feed it when it peaks. If you can't and wish to feed once a day then you'll need to increase the feed to match.
Keep it at 75-78F where yeasts are most happy. Try another feed of 1:2:2 but this time aim to feed again when peaked. Then slowly increase the feeds the stronger it gets. Once you've caught it peaking and it's been fed on-time and it has no trouble bubbling up (you may have to feed it every 4-6 hours then go onto 1:3:3 and then 1:4:4 and so on. This should help with yeast population within your starter.
I don't think there was anything too wrong per se in your approach and I do think your starter should be ok. The one downfall, it seems, was starving it between feeds once your starter seemed to be getting stronger. This upset the yeast balance. When you should have been increasing the feeds you slowed down.
Perhaps try to do this relatively quickly unless it really has problems bubbling up...
1:2:2 wait till peaked then 1:3:3 wait till peaked then 1:4:4. See if you can get it to 1:10:10 as long as you can get it to peak each time. Should it not react well at any stage then stop and wait till you see activity. Don't go further until it can bubble up on the feed you're currently on with no issues.
Thank you for the detailed reply. I appreciate your time and recommendations. I'm sticking at the 1:2:2 and currently it's taking about 14hrs to double (and this is barely a double, at that, if I'm reading the streaks in the jar correctly). I will continue to feed peak-to-peak, hopefully getting to it on time, and increase the ratio as the rise time shortens to 6-8hrs to double. I hydrated some w/w rye and waited for it to double (again, did I within 8hrs and quite vigorously) and split this with some start for an initial feeding, hoping this adds some yeast friends to the party.
Started a proper log of my feeding times and ratios to improve my troubleshooting. Will update in a few days if things don't pickup.
Appreciate all the guidance and advice everyone has given thus far. The lack of improvement in my starter and bulk fermentation game, I've made up for in my mixing, folding and shaping. I cannot wait for it to yield loaves instead of puddles 🤪
After it has peaked take a little off... and feed it 1:5:5. This will be a side experiment. Keep it next to the one you're working on. Report on your findings.
Will do
in a straight sided jar or something more bowl shaped?
500ml wide mouth mason. Straight sides
will be easier to tell when doubled. If bowl shaped it might not look like it has risen much when it has doubled.
That's a big jar for a small amount of starter. Can you find a smaller jar? Perhaps also do a feed with a before and after photo of when it has bubbled up. Will be easier to see what's going on.
I'd get it out of the proofing box. 1:2:2 feedings probably aren't enough at 80F and may be causing you to lose your yeast.
There is no yeast in your starter. If I had to guess, it is probably due to starving. At 80F once a day feeding schedule, you would need 1:5:5 or even 1:10:10 feeding to keep yeast cells happy. Either that or keep it at your proportion of 30:60:60 but add a tsp of sugar with that, for yeast cells to eat something to be able to multiply, to grow
Once yeast is there, it will leaven any levain or bread dough as we know from using commercial yeast. Yeast does not care which flour we use or how much water. It will work in any environment.
No. It needs more food if fed only once a day and kept at 80F, or to be fed at least twice a day if you feed it 30s:60f:60w at 80F.
She is generally usually right also :)
From experience, giving a large feed ratios (1:10:10, for example) really helps build the leavening power of the starter. Then 80F would be a great temperature!
And I also like using whole rye for my starter.
The starter was never! strong. It never really took off. I might understand the issue of 80F at 1:2:2 for a healthy strong starter but not in the case of a new starter that never had much leavening power. In fact a LM is fed 1:1:1 always and kept warm. 80F is well within normal range.
An LM is then fed very frequently, that's of course an option...
Maybe the TS can take some starter and feed 1:10:10 and see what happens, and also some starter and feed with a lower ratio. See what happens in the end.
This starter has always taken far too long to peak even from the very beginning. And if it needs feeding more often it should still peak at some point however quick. If this low feed and temperature were a problem it should have gone from being healthy and peaking within 4-6 hours to taking 13+ hours but it never did that. Many people feed and maintain their starters at 1:2:2 with no issues.
OK, then another question to the author. Does it smell sour? Taste sour? How sour?
It might be that the bacteria in the starter are producing too much acid, and it's inhibiting the yeast. So the acid needs to be diluted by a larger feed...
I think we need more info about the method used to make this starter. Everything from the flour to water used, how often it was fed at the beginning etc. Not much to go on here.
I'd be tempted to mix together 50g water + 50g rye flour and not touch it till it bubbles up over a 24-48 hours then add that into the original starter to boost yeast population along with some fresh flour and water. So they'll have some of their 'old' starter, 'new' starter and fresh flour. Or to be on the safe side to try it as a side experiment by splitting the old starter into two.