Questions On Reviving My Starter
It has been an interesting project. Greetings, all. I'm a brand new poster here, although I have been reading for a couple of months now. What a wonderful treasure trove of knowledge and gracious help. Thank you to you all.
I have baked mediocre yeast breads for many years, but only recently have I become interested in sourdough. Blame Daniel Wing and Alan Scott. A chance encounter led me to meet someone that told me they were building an outdoor bread oven, and I realized it might actually be possible. So I started reading. That led me to try to develop my own starter, and that could be a long story. A quote from my private notebook tells much of it: "It turned out there was a good deal more to learn about it than just that brief bit in that book! ".
After a couple of nasty failures at baking bread with that starter I started researching and reading: Here at TFL, the Sourdough Doctor and others that I thank profusely for sharing their wisdom and knowledge. About 10 days ago I decided to try to revive my starter. Finally, yesterday, my starter doubled in volume in the first 12 hours! Wohooo! I fed it last night, and it doubled again overnite, so this morning I fed it, and began hourly observations and pictures (Fear not! I'm not going to post 12 sets of hourly pictures of my starter, but I will post a couple).
My point is this: I'm so new at this sourdough thing that I don't have any instincts to go by, so I am hoping some of you that have some will share, and help me develop mine. I want to assess the condition of my starter now that it seems to have developed some vitality. I really want to bake some bread with it, but I'm determined to not produce any more wheat-rocks, if I can help it. So please, tell me what you think, and why you think it. If you want more details on the abuse this starter has already endured I'll tell it, but I guarantee, it is not a pretty story.
At 9:30AM this morning I refreshed my starter as usual (1:1:1) with 100g of starter from the mother, 100g water from the tap at 85F by thermometer, and 100g of flour (30g Red Mill Organic Dark Rye + 30g KA Bread Flour). It has been on the kitchen island counter all day, where the temperature ranged from a low of about 71F this morning to a high of 77F this afternoon before things started to cool back down. Here are three photos of the starter, from right after the morning refresh, after 8 hours, and after 11 hours:
At 0930 this morning: 
At 1730 this evening: 
and at 2130 tonight: 
It seems like the starter has good vitality, but it has only been this active for 36 hours now, after several days of only 10-20% growth at best. Can I start to bake with it yet with high expectations, all other things being equal? Or, should I just get used to being more patient with sourdough, starting right now, and just feed it and strengthen it for a few more days?
Your comments are not just welcome, but anxiously awaited!
Thanks in advance to all, and... What a great place this site!
Sourdough is fun and not so fun. Your starter looks great but remember that it is such a young thing. Try it and be patient as sd doesnt respond as quickly as 2 T of instant yeast.Emjoy the ride,have fun and share your story. It will not be long and you will be posting award winning bread photos. Patrick
Thanks for the encouragement Patrick. I just finished refreshing it tonight, and tomorrow, I think I will take your advice. I'll start a small batch of sourdough, and see how it goes. It's either that or more sourdough pancakes. Hmmm... Tough choice! I think I'll bake.
Just one thing, and I don't know thhe "truth" here. Your jar looks pretty well sealed. I generally grow my starter in a jar with a loose cover but not a seal. I don't know whether that makes any difference.
Also, lots of places say to feed 1:2:2 and you are doing 1:1:1 although again, I have no idea whether in the long run it makes that much difference. Short-term, your starter will run out of food more quickly.
Jeremy
If it is growing that way consistently then you should be able to start making bread. In my experience the starter will continue to develop and change for anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months before settling down into its final state and flavor, but once past the stinky stage the various growth stages don't actually taste bad.
One thing you could do to build confidence and avoid bricks for the first few weeks is to boost your recipe with 1 tsp of bakers yeast added to the final dough. That is actually a technique that many commerical bakeries use to get more consistent timing from their sourdough formulas. After you have that process well in hand you can eliminate the yeast and see how it works on its own - noting that rising times will generally be longer.
sPh
If you find you're wasting too much, you could try cutting down a bit on ingredients. My starter is a few months old now so I feed it 1:3:4 (10g starter, 30g water, 40g flour). That yields enough left over to experiment...without discarding too much. As the other poster said, try using it! Your breads may not be pretty in the beginning, but they will taste MUCH better than any store bought bread....
for the encouragement. I have taken the plunge. This morning I started a first leaven from some of my starter (40g) before refreshing it. I plan to take however much time it takes at each step, and give my starter as long as it seems to need to do it's job. I'm figuring on two expansions of my leaven at 10 to 12 hour intervals, before I can finally mix my dough, so I'll come back tomorrow with a progress report.
Jeremy, you are correct. My starter jar is tightly sealed. I've found instruction all over the park on that. If this does not work out, I'll try a looser cover, but where I live there is a lot of stuff in the air all the time. I'm hoping this will avoid contamination.
sPh, thanks for the idea about boosting. I had not considered that option. I'm going to try this first time with straight sourdough, though, and if that does not look at least promising I'll consider "boosting" it, but I'd much prefer not to do so.
Jackie9999, and others too: It sounds like you think my starter is too big. I've wondered about that. I'm not wasting anything though. We eat a lot of sourdough pancakes, and I found a wonderful sourdough blueberry muffin recipe here on TFL that I also make a lot of. As for the size thing though, could that be having a negative impact on the vitality of my starter, and if so, how?
By the way we don't eat store-bought bread. I have been baking all our bread with yeast for years. I have a picture of a loaf from this past weekend over in the photos forum if you want to see how it came out. :) (Yes, I guess I am bragging.)
I doubt contamination from airborne sources is a concern. You will be adding lots more foreign bacteria and yeast just by regular contact with your mixing spoon. And the colonies of microorganisms will be able to fight off any "infection" since they are present in much greater numbers. Don't let it dry out, but don't cover it air-tight or you will blow up your jar!
As for using it immediately, go ahead, but don't be surprised if your sourdough lacks consistency. You may even go flat and seem like you killed in in a few days from now. That's normal; there are probably many strains of yeast in it and it will take many more feedings for the predominant players to overcome all the other strains and become the dominant colony.
The different strains are all competing for the same food at this point and they each have different characteristics. Their numbers will increase and decrease until things get balanced out. If your starter suddenly loses power, just temporarily slow down your feedings and give time for the yeast to grow.
I promised to report back on my results, so here we go...
First, the loaf.
and then the crumb...
I must say, I'm relieved first, and very pleased second. Relief because know my starter is good. Pleased because this bread is wonderful! An excellent sourness, a nice crisp crumb, and a slightly under done crumb. I'll do better next time.
I'd say you have every right to be pleased; that looks wonderful.
Jeremy