Starter starts nice, goes iffy, then bitter. Help?
Hello again...
I've had the same thing happen twice now. I start the culture with half AP half WW/rye, gets going, increase % of white flour and feed more each feeding (every 12 hours), after a week or so strong rise, nicely sour and lemony, makes good bread. After another week, loses a lot of the sourness, smells neutral but not offensive, few days later bitter, makes bitter unedible bread, though it still raises the bread well.
So, I don't know what's going on here. I live in Minnesota, so maybe my climate isn't suited to sourdough, but plenty of cold nastly places have traditionally used sourdough, Finland, etc. So I don't think that's it.
Sigh. On another note, what are some trusty places to order sourdough starter samples from? Assuming I can't find a bakery with one in my area. But then I'd be worried that it would go bad as well. Oh bother.
King Arthur sells their starter as a 1 oz semi-stiff sample in a small plastic screwtop container. I like it in part because you don't have to put up with the uncertainty of reconstituting a dried starter (i.e., from Sourdough International - which is another option and they have a large selection as well) and the KA product is less expensive by half. Oh - and it makes great bread!
Doc
The symptoms you describe might be a classic case of Thiol invasion, except that you say it still raises your bread well.
It's sounding more than likely that your new starter is just unstable, as it takes a good 3 weeks to a month or more to have a starter that not only raises the dough, but has the right balance of other organisms for the flavor. You say you have started a new starter twice, so I can only assume that means from scratch, and that's what I'm basing my assumption of it just being too immature. Even after a starter shows strong yeast activity, you are far from 'there'. It takes quite a few more days, up to another week or two, before the other organisms populate in sufficient numbers to keep out unwanted ones. Creating a starter is an act of patience. Trust me, I know how hard that is, but it IS the only way if you intend to raise one from scratch.
In addition to the suggestion posted by Doc, there's the Friends of Carl, who distribute an 1847 dehydrated starter, for free. Just send them a SASE. You might want to contribute a donation too, as it is a fantastic service that lives on in the memory of Carl Griffith.
All the details you need can be had at: http://carlsfriends.net/
Should you continue to try and raise your own starter, I just simply think some element of impatience is causing you to try and bake with it too soon, as well as then dumping it too soon. You should just keep feeding it every 12 hours. It's a biological process that really doesn't fail too often, as long as you're patient. : )
- Keith
I had figured that since my starter does, temporarily, get to the point where it bakes just fine, that further weirdness wasn't natural instability.
I haven't tossed my second attempt yet though, so I'll wait and see.
And, thanks for the suggestions in case of failure.
Can you give exact measurements of your starter size, feeding and the temps involved? Oh and taste the flours and see if any of them are bitter or have aftertastes. Lemon? interesting... Please also include info on discarding and reducing the size of the starter before each feeding.
Okay.
At the moment I'm feeding 1 oz of starter with 2 oz water and 1.5 AP and .5 oz rye. From which you could guess, I discard 4 oz of each feeding. I'm keeping the numbers sort of low since I don't want to burn through flour too quickly, but I'm willing to change that if it would be helpful. As for temperature, it's hard to say, but it probably never drops much below 70 F. The flours haven't gone off as far as I can tell.
And not -really- lemony, but niceley sour in a vaguely similar way.
Keeping the quantity as a whole manageable for you is quite ok, but I think you're not keeping enough old starter in relation to the feed. You're on a schedule for a very healthy and stable culture, not a new one. You're currently doing 1:2:2 (1 part starter, 2 parts water, and 2 parts flour [split between two flour types]). You should probably be at 2:1:1 right now, and if you can verify yeast activity, you can probably drop the rye (unless you want to keep it). So, don't change the new flour and water amounts, but instead keep 4 oz of the old starter versus only 1 oz. Feed every 12 hours. If this doubles and/or triples nicely for at least 4 feedings (48 hours), then switch to 1:1:1, which means, don't change the new flour/water amounts, but keep 2 oz of the old starter. Do this until the starter can not only be baked with reliably, but tastes good every time. That will be anywhere from 3-6 weeks, depending on your sourdough palette.
- Keith
Try some unsweetened pineapple juice in the next few refreshes.
Jim
Puzzling. Of the different ways to trial and error a starter into being a good one (as we're not set up with microscopes) the most common ways are fooling with temperature, food amounts, and type of food or water all of which involve pH and how long the beasties take to "burp" or produce gas and by-products. What do you know about your water? I'm wondering what by-product your beasties could be producing that would taste bitter....
If your starter is at 70°F, you might want to warm it up a little bit just after the feed for a few hours and then let it sit at room temperature to just get good and ripe and choke out the offending organism. When ripe (the starter has begun collapsing on itself after peaking) how long does this actually take? The starter has to build a certain amount of acid in order to defend itself from being invaded by not-so-tasty organisms. On the other hand we don't want the acid levels to build so much as to trigger the yeast into a dormant state. Right now watch your starter and feed it when it's ready to be fed and not on a strict clock schedule. With each feed, the peaking time will shorted just a little bit. From all the comments, there's a hint that your starter is being fed too soon, could that be true?
How is your starter coming along?
Mini
Hi Mini,
My water is rather hard, probably need to mess with the softener.
I've experimented with keeping the starter warmer, and this seemed to increase the unpleasant qualities. Normally the starter peaks maybe after 8-9 hours, I'd say. I wouldn't think I'm feeding it too soon, just every 12 hours, but I suppose I wouldn't know for sure.
In the past few days the starter has unfortunately gotten worse, it's completely bitter and rancid, though it still rises well, I could probably bake with it if I wanted to. I've mostly lost hope for it and I've ordered a KAF starter for the meantime.
Peaking at 8-9 hrs and feeding at 12 sounds right. Hmmm. Hard water is also good. Hand your starter to someone who doesn't know what it is and ask them to describe the smell.
Meanwhile drop the ww out of the food flour. Keep a little rye mixed with AP. How old is the starter now?
Thank you for your help, but after all this time I decided to drop this starter. It might have been a good learning experience but I no longer want to burn up flour on it, it seems to be beyond help, or if not, I don't have the patience to nurture it.
The smell was somewhere between eggs and a wet sock. No good. Oh well.