Starters showcase #1: Djinn Carne (black rice, lactose, and butter starter with freezing treatment)

So, weeks ago I kinda promise to make starters showcase posts. God knows I've been beating myself a lot lately and couldn't conserve extra energy to make dedicated posts about my starters.

Then I said to myself, why does it have to be so structured while you know exactly you don't have the energy to do anything? And you know what has to be done regardless you have the willpower or not? Feeding starters.

I decided to document my feeding regimen instead. It's been a lot of work fine tuning the starters.

These will be 2 posts series, covering the rationales behind my lean and enriched starters. They have been finalised, and I have no intention to refine them further.

Disclaimer, this post is not a mean to establish rights and wrongs. It's just to showcase what I do, and why I do what I do. Feel free to start a discussion in comment section if you have something to add.

I named her Djinn Carne after Jean Carne (or Jean Carn), my all time favorite jazz/soul/disco vocalist. I like her works mostly during her Black Jazz Records era, together with her ex, Doug Carn.

One of my all time favorite records, Doug & Jean's Spirit of the New Land

So it started out about 2 years ago. I decided to revive my sourdough baking routine. At first my starter was stiff white, then stiff atta. Then I had this random idea, what if I do black rice starter?

To my surprise it worked really well at that time, it can ferment wide range of substrates. And because my main goal is to effortlessly do pain au levain style of fermentation, I push the starter even further by adding sugar at 2:1 ratio of water:sugar.

Then I learned something at that time, it can ferment anything but whole wheat and bran bread. I had this idea of making something resembling Desem in principle, but not quite Desem. What if I give more room for pentose fermenting yeasts to thrive by using only bran, instead of whole wheat?

Then there was it, the very first formalised form of Djinn Carne. I used her in that state for more than a year, with exceptional flavor and speed. She always give sweet tasting bread, despite no added sugar (except for trace amount from herself). 

Then came my desire to optimise her for enriched baking. By putting butter, powdered milk, various sugars and sugar alcohols. The goal was to make it as stressful as possible for her to grow. It was going really well especially with lactose, but going downhill since I switched to fructose. From there, it was a constant battle to get her old self back to life.

I finally figured out ratio that perfectly fit my wants and needs. I'm all about effortless enriched sourdough baking under harsh tropical weather. I ended up with 4:2:1:1 ratio of black rice:water:lactose:butter.

In a way, I simulate a dystopian scheme where milk is grown on paddy fields, or rice comes out from cows' udders (what?).

I use black rice because I feel anthocyanin is nature's litmus paper. It turns blue when alkaline, and red when acidic. It is a helpful trait to have when you are into fuss-free starter maintenance. Technically purple sweet potato puree can do the job as well, but I found since it started as fresh produce, the color can inconsistently be somewhere from blue to purple depends on how fresh it was the time you bought it. 

I use lactose to make starter more efficient at fermenting milk. That way, I can use powdered milk in levain to artificially increase PFF (because then milk becomes fermentable, but technically not flour). This will help to reduce the use of excessive VWG.

I use butter simply as ankle weight, since Cariah had difficulty with fatty dough in the past, but no more.

I give her freezing treatment, so whenever I feel too tired to do anything, I can effortlessly freeze mature levain, and use it later whenever I feel like doing it. I freeze her at her peak. I determined her peak by making indicator white dough, than ferment it side by side with her. I freeze her when the white dough is at peak. This way, she will always be at her peak before use.

Here are pictures of her, 30 minutes before peak.

Djinn Carne, 30 minutes before peak, top view. Notice the convex surface with cracks on it. The color also has shifted from deep grayish blue to bluish purple, suggesting decrease in pH. The jar is warm to the touch, and there is a pleasant smell, a mix between esters, alcohol, and acetone.

Djinn Carne, 30 minutes before peak, side view. It got aerated after being tightly packed before fermentation

Djinn Carne, 30 minutes before peak, bottom view.

Here is the peaked indicator white dough. It still has trace of bran (Djinn just transitioned back to black rice). It had 2 hours of lag phase, and 4.5 hours of proofing time. The ratio was 1:4:2:1 starter:flour:water:lactose.

Indicator dough at it's peak

If you feel like replicating, here is the timeline I'd recommend:

1. Make bran starter 2:1 bran:water to let pentose fermenting yeasts to thrive first, for a more efficient whole grain fermentation
2. Add lactose 4:2:1 bran:water:lactose to develop osmotolerance and efficiency at breaking down lactose into glucose and galactose.
3. Switch from bran to black rice, to introduce starch.
4. Add butter 4:2:1:1 bran:water:lactose:butter to develop tolerance toward fatty dough.

For enriched baking, I don't feel using salt to control osmotolerance in starter is a good idea. Yeasts need to produce glycerol to equalise osmotic stress, and they need sugar to produce glycerol. In an osmotically stressful condition and low in sugar (because salt is used instead of sugar), it will give too much room for amylolytic yeasts to thrive, producing to much amylolytic enzymes that break down starch, making dough sticky and weak. This will lead to potential over reliance to VWG.

I have tested her leavening power with various table sugar (sucrose) saturation (sugar/water x100) (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%). I found the rates of peaking in order are 30>50>0>20>10>40. I usually prefer 50%. Despite being slower, it makes effortless hot weather enriched fermentation more feasible.

Happy baking!

Jay

(to think about it, she looks like cookie dough. Could be angel biscuits/ yeasted scones in another life...)