Dear everyone,
I am in the process of making my first sourdough starter and am looking for help. I followed the instructions from Bread on Earth by Lexie Smith (https://bread-on.earth/Sourdough-Starter-From-Scratch):
Day One
In a clean glass with room to spare, mix:
25g flour* see note
30g water
Cover loosely and rest for 24 hours.
Day Two
Stir lightly and add:
30g flour
40g water
Mix and cover loosely. Rest for 24 hours.
Day Three
Stir lightly and add:
30g flour
40g water
Mix and cover loosely. If your mixture is already bubbling and rising/falling, move to the next step after 12 hours. Otherwise, rest for 24 hours.
Day Four
You should see evidence of life (bubbles, funky smells, rise). If not, continue anyway,
Stir and discard all but 25g of the mixture.
Add:
30g flour
40g water
Mix and cover loosely. Rest for 12-24 hours, depending on activity level (if it is very lively you need less time between feedings).
Day Five
Stir lightly and discard all but 15g.
Add:
50g flour
50g water
Cover and rest for 12 hours. If it is rising and falling predictably, you’re ready to begin regular feedings.
If you don’t see signs of life:
Continue feeding anyway, using this same process of building and discarding:
Combine 15g starter with 50g flour and 50g water every 8-12 hours for a few days, discarding the excess. It may feel like a lot of waste, but remember this is a small part of a process that will result in endless potential for sustenance. For some, it will take up to two weeks to develop a robust and reliable starter.
Once you see consistent activity and the mixture doubles (or close to it) in 4-8 hours, you are ready to bake with your starter. After Day Five the discard can be saved in the fridge and added later to flatbreads, focaccias, pancakes, and other baked goods that don’t require a lot of leavening.
I used whole grain rye flour from Farmer Ground. After day 5, I continued using the same ratio (15g sourdough, 50g flour, and 50g water) every 12 hours because it was not doubling yet (I did see signs of life: bubbles, moderate rising, sour smell). Around day 10, it doubled in about 12 hours. On day 11, I ran out of flour and could only feed it around 30g (but still added 50g of water and 15g of sourdough). After 12 hours, it had more than doubled. I then kept feeding it with the original ratio (15 g sourdough, 50 g flour, and 50 g water), but then on day 12 and 13, it didn't rise as much as before, but I decided to try and bake on day 13 nevertheless. I build my levain (30g sourdough, 30g whole grain rye flour, 30g water), but it barely grew. I observed small bubbles, but not as many as on day 10 and 11. I could not bake with this levain, so I decided to keep feeding it every 12 hours, using the original ratio (15g:50g:50g). This did not help. I read online that, I should try using a 1:1:1 ratio, which I have now done for two days. There is very little growth and only tiny bubbles. The smell is still sour. I should add that I'm in New York city and it's quite hot, so I don't think temperature is the issue. I'm assuming that the issue is my ratio. Is someone able to explain if I have been over- or underfeeding the sourdough and whether I was supposed to change the ratio at some point? How does one know when to change the ratio when building a starter from scratch? And how do you recommend I keep feeding the sourdough at this point?
Thank you so much for your help!
And I do it differently - but that's another story. Follow the instructions - eventually - emphasis on eventually - you will have a starter. Don't plan on anything (with the starter that is) soon I might add. Enjoy!
Dear Davey1,
Thank you so much, so you would just keep discarding everything but 15g and adding 50g flour and 50g water every 12 hour until it doubles in 4-8 hours?
How I do it isn't what you're doing so just keep going. Don't expect things to happen overnight - it takes time. The important thing is keep going. You'll get there. Enjoy!
Here's a little secret about creating starters - those ratios aren't important. Don't stress about them. There is only one thing you want to achieve as the new starter develops: getting the acidity higher and high until it's acidic enough that dormant yeast can wake up and start to grow.
At each acidity level along the way, different microbes are able to thrive. Some of them give off gas, some of them smell bad, some of them don't. The acidity drops because lactic acid bacteria (LAB) naturally in the flour produces acid as it metabolizes. Once the acidity, as measured by the mixture's pH gets down to 4.6, nothing will be growing but the LAB (as the acidity gets higher, the pH reading gets lower). When it gets down to about 4.0, the yeast will wake up. Then you have a mixture of LAB and yeast. That's a starter, but it may not have enough yeast yet to be usable. After one or two more refreshes it probably will.
If you refresh the mix early on when the concentration of LAB is low, you can dilute it so much that undesired microbes can start to grow again. Later, when the pH is below about 4.6, the LAB can be doing their job but there's nothing much to see. Periodically refreshing the mixture at this point will supply the LAB with more nutrients, which is good.
Now, how to apply all this to your case? It's a little unclear to me. One factor is the heat. You said it's hot in New York. What is the temperature in your workspace? If it's been hot, all these reactions will happen more quickly, and may favor other types of microbes.
Whole grain is not necessary no matter what the post says. Mixing by hand isn't either. I use a strong chopstick, but a table knife should work too. The guidance on keeping the top airtight but not too much - that's not something to stress about either.
If you are using whole grain flour and adding equal weights of water and flour, the mixture will probably be a sludge or paste rather than a kind of liquid. I hardly ever see bubbles on the top of these mixtures, and I don't see them rise all that much either. But I see plenty of bubbles through the side of the container. If you get them, the starter is probably in good shape.
It's possible for a starter to get sick. I think that's unlikely in your case but it's possible. I'd like to know about the temperature in your workspace but if it's in the low to mid 70s that's fine. If it's in the mid 80s, that's pretty hot. Without knowing the temperature, I'd suggest taking a clean container with sides you can see through - a pint deli container with its lid will do. Put in let's say 10g of your starter, 50g of the rye flour, and 50g of water. You don't need to be very precise in weighing them out. Stir it up, put the lid on, and check its appearance every so often. The time scale will depend on the temperature, but if after 5 or 10 hours or overnight you see a lot of bubbles through the side, maybe with some of them pea sized, that would indicate that you've got a working starter.
TomP
Dear TomP,
Thank you so much for your detailed instructions.
Are you suggesting that the pH level increased too much after the sourdough more than doubled, which led to a deactivation of the yeast?
In terms of consistency: yes, it is certainly a bit stiff, but when it was doubling, it got more liquid. Here is a picture of day 10/11:
It looked so healthy, so I was surprised to see that it suddenly stopped rising in the following days.
As for the temperature, I'll check when I'm home, but I think it's been in the 70s.
- Luisa
No, not at all. Once the yeast has come out of a dormant state it will thrive at much higher pH values. In fact, too low a pH can inhibit yeast activity. Your job in creating a starter is to get to a point where the yeast will become active again. After that, your job is to maintain the starter in a state where it has a lot of both yeast and LAB, and where both can grow well when supplied with food and water. Fortunately that's easy to do.
Your picture looks to me like a rye starter that has acted well after being refreshed. Possibly it hasn't arrived at its end state yet, but it looks pretty good. The only idea I have about the apparently weaker performance after this time is that you may have refreshed the starter much too soon, time after time. If you did that, you would end up with smaller and smaller concentrations of yeast and LAB. IOW, after a feeding those concentrations are smaller and you have to let them build back up to where they were before the feeding.
If that's what happened, you can simply leave the starter alone for another day or two. Even if it were to use up all the nutrients and become quiescent, when it gets fed again it should spring into action if you just give it enough time.
Thank you so much for the clarification, TomP! It makes a lot of sense. I’ll leave it for a bit before feeding it again. I just checked the temperature and right now it’s 74. It was probably a bit warmer in the weekend, but nothing extreme.
hi Luisa Minopoli
greetings from a fellow NYC sourdough baker who uses Farmer Ground Flour's rye. Perhaps I can make some suggestions:
So my advice would be: next time, try a 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 feed. Let it sit for as long as it takes to bubble & come close to doubling in size -- but at least for 24 hours. Do this again a couple of times. Then write back to us & let us know how it's going.
Enjoy the journey!
Rob
Dear Rob,
Thank you so much! Happy to hear that you also like Farmer Ground. Your suggestion makes a lot of sense. I will follow your advice and write back.
- Luisa
also, from you photo, I would say your starter needs to develop a few more days, In my experience, those big ragged holes next to the tiny pin like ones are a false hope. A fully yeast infused starter will have more rounded regular bubbles. No worries, though, with patience and a few more days, your starter will get there.
Thank you so much, squattercity!
Hi again,
I’ve now waited 24 hours and it has not risen at all. Should I just keep waiting and not feed it? The smell has changed from sour to sweet/yeasty, and I only see a few tiny bubbles:
Give it a very good stir for now and see what happens over the next 24 hours.
What you might find over the next day or two is it breaks down, becomes more liquidy and then begins to froth a bit as the yeasts begin to wake up. Then you try a small feed and see what happens.
Perfect! Thank you so much.
It's possible for a nascent starter to stop developing even though it hasn't shown signs of activity for some time. I know this because I had that situation and measured the pH. It was around 4.5 and didn't change for about 6 or 8 hours. So I did a feeding and soon the new starter was ready for use.
You don't need a pH meter to make a starter! Hardly anyone has one. In this case it helped me to understand what was happening. Without the meter, I would have tried stirring the mixture, because that can re-distribute unused nutrients and introduce a little air. After that if there was still no visible activity I would have fed it. So I would have gotten to the same place but it would have taken a little longer.
TomP.
Thank you, TomP! I have stirred it and will wait for another 24 hours and then perhaps try feeding it.
Instead of:
and the accompanying instructions should be feed when you see activity. Not by the date and time. If you see a large amount of activity then feed more. A small amount of activity then feed less. No activity then skip feeds.
It's trying to ferment. You're just there to give the microbes food as and when they need it and an amount depending on how strong they are.
Thank you so much, Abe! I have a much better understand of what went wrong now.
You have a pet dog and you fill its food bowl.
But what you don't do is check up on it and then empty and refill the bowl come what may.
It takes time to get used to the process. I'm sure you have everything you need now to make an informed decision when it comes to feeding.
This is a good analogy, thank you.
i agree with you about sourdough, Abe, but that's a shaggy dog story🤣 -- Rob
which one can write a whole book about :)
As you read more, both here and in books and online, you will see a huge range of recipes and suggestions about how to make a new starter. Don't jump around trying first one and then the other. Instead, realize that so many different ways work because the process is incredibly tolerant. As long as you can keep the LAB metabolizing and multiplying, they will increase the acidity. When the pH is low enough, dormant yeast will start to develop.
Extreme temperatures can mess this sequence up(1). Bad luck with getting stuck with a disease microbe outcompeting all others can stall it. Chlorinated water might prevent microbial activity. Otherwise you are going to end up with a starter. Feed, stir, observe. Flour kind, feeding ratios and schedules, all of those things are very secondary.
(1) Once I tried to make two starters, using the same flour and water and two identical containers. The only difference was that I baked the flour gently before using it in Starter A. Starter B developed normally and was ready in about 6 days. Starter A never showed any signs of life. This experiment convinced me that the initial microbes come with the flour, not from the ambient air as is often claimed.
Thank you! I think my main goal at the moment is to develop a sense of when to feed. I just followed the instruction and fed every 12 hour without considering activity, which probably led to a diluted sourdough. I think I was also afraid of underfeeding it. When it more than doubled, I thought I should keep feeding it as much as before and as regularly as before because I assumed it had eaten all the nutrients and needed more.
Wait. The method you are using will take time. If you want to experiment - go ahead - but after the starter is created. 1 thing at a time is the only rule to follow right now. I should add - the wait is a killer. Enjoy!
Yes :-) Thank you!
I should have said change 1 thing at a time - period. Enjoy!
Hi everyone,
I followed your advice and left the sourdough until it had doubled (about 36 hours). It smelled very yeasty at this point. I then fed it using a 1:3:3 ratio and it doubled within 12 hours:
I left it for another 12 hours and then fed it again using the same ratio. Now 12 hours later it looks like this:
Should I keep feeding it every 24 hour or how do you suggest I proceed from now on? I would like to bake with it as soon as it’s ready.
Thank you for your help!
Best wishes,
Luisa
I think it looks very good, and its behavior seems to have stabilized. Go ahead an try a test bake.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
big congrats, Luisa!!! You did it! your starter looks great.
I agree with Abe ... find a ratio that works with your schedule and with your starter, one that keeps you both happy & healthy, and stick with it for a while.
After you get a bunch of bakes under your belt and you see how the starter works in lifting loaves, you can start to think about whether you want to keep the schedule or modify it. For instance, after more than a year of daily feeds, I changed things up & found that my rye starter was even happier with a new schedule. These days, it lives in my refrigerator and I only feed it once every couple of weeks at somewhere between 1:5:5 and 1:10:10. I feel like I save flour this way and my starter seems to like it.
But that kind of decision is for later: first get your starter on a nice healthy & regular track. Then you can think about the future.
Rob
You don't wish to underfeed it.
It's not good to overfeed it if it is underactive and it's not good to underfeed it if it is active.
Find a good ratio where it can peak within 12 hours and feed it twice a day.
I think a weekend bake is doable.
Thank you. And it won’t get diluted if I feed it twice a day? I’m a bit afraid of repeating the same mistake that originally made it under-active. But perhaps using a 1:2:2 or even 1:1:1 ratio could prevent that?
If your starter has been fed and has peaked within 12 hours then feeding it again will not dilute it as it can cope with the feed.
If your starter hasn't peaked, and is slow, and you feed again then it will dilute it.
So find a ratio where it can peak within 12 hours and feed twice a day.
It is also not good for it wo peak within 12 hours and you don't feed it for another 12 hours hours. Then you have another problem of too much acidity and the yeast population will struggle, with no food, and decline.
Once a starter is healthy and steady then it needs feeding once it has peaked.
If a 1:1:1 ratio peaks within 6 hours then you'll want to feed it close to it's peak (one or two hours after peak is fine but 12 is too much)
If you don't wish to feed too often then feed it 1:2:2 if that peaks in 12 hours and feed it twice a day.
Find a good ratio now for your schedule!
At this point - I would wait. I did say it's a killer. How much you feed in a day depends on how much is eaten. At this point all you want to do is get on a daily schedule - ie - it returns to the same point. I don't give feeding instructions except to return to the original. You can do that yourself. After it returns to a normal state - weeks after - you can adjust as needed. More to come - but wait - at this point the longer the better for both you and the starter. Enjoy!
Once the starter is up and running, you don't have to worry about too much dilution. The culture is stable and the acidity has prevented any unwanted microbes from growing. In your case, the whole grain rye will hold a lot of acidity and release it to keep the mixture acidified even for large dilutions. That further protects against the effects of large dilutions. The situation is different from what it was when the starter was first mixed up.
I routinely refresh my all-white starter at 1:3:3 or 1:5:5 without problems.
Thank you so much, everyone! For all of your help! I’m very happy about my sourdough and will be figuring out the best feeding schedule and ratio in the days to come.