April 21, 2009 - 8:01am
Day three of the pineapple juice starter.
I really enjoyed reading along here for some time, been lurking. So I liked what I read about the pineapple juice keeping out most of the nasty buggars from giving me an immediateraise, and I am on day three. Tomorrow it is flour and water, with twice daily feedings....hoping by the end of the week to have an established colony. Anyone add their starters that are thrown away as part of feeding to another recipe, like pancakes, or dinner rolls or something, maybe bagels...I dunno!
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At least once the starter's more mature. Unfortunately a starter that's only 3 days old isn't going to have much lifting power or flavor at all though.
It's better to feed only once a day until your new starter begins to expand and smell yeasty :-)
ok, and ty for replying
I think your mix is a bit young for you to expect much from it at this point.
My "pineapple starter" is now four weeks old and just beginning to reach the point where I believe it's fully useful. The first week it was OK, but it just gets better the longer I let it develop. After completing the initial phases or development I cut back on the feeding to 2 Tbsp. water and 2 Tbsp. flour once a week. It's worked just fine and I don't find myself with an abundance of starter beteen baking days.
I have not added "left over" starters to my pineapple mix but I have added the pineapple mix to other concoctions of which I have small amounts left and it's worked just find. I guess it's a matter of semantics (adding other starters mixes to the pineapple or vis versa) but I want to keep the pineapple mix unadulterated so I focus on adding it to other mixes instead of adding other mixes to it.
My pineapple starter is a couple months now. It was ready to raise bread in about 2 weeks, but it seems to have more oomph now, and more sour flavor. I've been feeding it with either spelt or whole wheat, which seems to help, and gives a nice bit of flavor to otherwise all white loaves.
it took my pineapple starter about 2 weeks to come good as well. The first I tried grew mold, however I am certain this is because I didn't stir it as often as I should have. The second attempt I stirred as often as feasible, around 2-3 times per day (as per the instructions in Peter's wholegrain's book), and it worked like a charm.
I use most of my discarded stiff starter to make pizza dough. It makes pretty good pizzas (my wife loves the crust) and I don't have to throw anything away. I keep a stiff (50% hydration) starter. I adapted Michel Suas' pizza dough formula (Advanced Bread and Pastry, page 263) to use 60% starter (60% of flour weight).
The proportions are: Bread flour 100%, Water 87.8%, Yeast 0.26%, Salt 2.8%, Malt .64%, Oil 7%, Stiff starter 60%.
It lasts well in the frig for 3 or 4 days and quite awhile in the freezer. I generally mix 60 oz. at a time and make 12" pizzas with 10 oz. of dough.
This even works for starter that has been in the frig pretty long and has started losing its elasticity. After all, pizza dough shouldn't be too elastic.