starter rises, bread doesn't
I have a young starter, who is just lazing about. It is only three weeks old or so, & I am new to sourdough so I have really no idea what I am doing. I made a loaf of bread using the 1-2-3 dough last week, came out really nice. No problem. This week, nothing will rise, except the starter itself. It doubles just fine in about 8 hours, but when I go to use it in a recipe- little or no rise. (pancakes were lovely).
I am keeping it at about 80% just because it seems less messy to me, & somewhere on the board someone mentioned the stiffer starters rose bread better so there we are...
a.I take the stuff out in the evening, feed to get up to size so I have enough for a loaf plus enough left over
b. sit 8 hours until doubled (or overnight)
c. mix into dough of choice (so far have tried 1-2-3 & a buscuit)
d. allow to rise for 4-8 hours (currently we are waiting w/ baited breath for nothing much to happen)
e. shape loaf allow to rise for second time, maybe retard in the fridge for several hours but we haven't managed to get to this point to have to make this decision yet (tried on the loaf of bread, but wasn't really worth wasting the propane to bake it)
g-bake & enjoy....
I realize I am oversimplifying, I'm leaving out all the kneading etc, but where am I going wrong- seems like the beasties are as active as they are supposed to be? So why are they 99lb weaklings? Am I timing this all wrong? I would really like to get past step b. & down to step g....
Hi -
A 3 week young starter should be able to raise bread, but it's still not very stable. A lot of variables there depend on how you started it, and whether or not it went through all of the 'normal' phases. Also, whenever I talk about a 2-3 week period, it's from the point where it starts reliably doubling and it's obvious yeast is there - that can add another week, or less, or more. Everyone's starter 'starting process' is always a little unique. So where I'm going here is, it's really tough to tell what a problem might be without knowing for sure that your starter is healthy, and we can expect it to raise an entire loaf.
>somewhere on the board someone mentioned the stiffer starters rose bread better so there we are...
On this board, you could find advice and counter-advice for the same exact topic, so that's just kind of a warning, if you will... but to clarify, stiffer starters do not raise bread better, they don't do a worse job, either. All of these things depend on your starter maintenance schedule, how you store it, and if it's stored in a refrigerator, how you handle it before a bake. It has nothing to do with stiffer versus more liquid. At 3 weeks of age, I'm assuming you aren't refrigerating it yet, and if you are, STOP that immediately until you can absolutely bake reliably with it, and are getting the flavor(s) you want from it. BTW, I keep my starter at 85% for a few reasons... a.) It's a trade off between liquid (100%+) or firm (75%-). I find that I can use it pretty much 'as is' for any recipe without much fussing, if any. And b.) It's extremely easy to maintain - the excess is easy to fork out of it, and the new flour is fairly easy to mix back in (just barely). So keeping a lower hydration starter is more of a personal choice, rather than a finished product choice. If you learn to effectively maintain, store and use ANY hydration of starter, then that's what will work.
The biggest piece of the puzzle we're missing from your problem is your maintence schedule and feeding ratio. I'm assuming your starter is at fault for your issue here, so we have to try and figure out if, at 3 weeks of age, it is a starter that can be expected to work, and how you maintain/feed it (which will -vastly- affect the former). Once you give us a little more info, we can probably get you more concise answers.
- Keith
I was guilty of putting in the fridge, but it has been back out of the fridge for the last week & fed daily. I have been keeping about 4oz starter, adding 3oz water & 4oz flour when I feed. When I went to use it, I added 8oz flour & 6oz water to what was there so I would have plenty to work with.
As another aside, when things are hopefully going better, if I want a ton of starter to bake a lot with, I see threads about 1:10:10 etc, pros/cons of doing that vs several feedings over several days, will it take longer for the starter to double if I have 1T of starter & a lb of flour (an exaggeration-but some of the threads make it seem possible....)
4 oz +3 oz +4 oz = 11 oz let stand for 12 hours. (equal amounts of starter and flour by weight) (so far sounds good)
Then this 11 oz starter is fed with 8 oz of flour (which is less than the starter weight) plus water. And this is matured in about 6 hours before being used in a recipe. correct?
Are the maintenance feedings only once a day, equal amounts starter & flour? What is the ambient temperature where the starter stands?
Have you tried doubling the feed amount for the 24 hour/once a day feed or tried feeding every 12 hours with equal amounts of starter and flour? This might strengthen the yeasts in the sourdough culture and solve the rising problem. The trick is to feed enough to keep the yeast numbers up to raise the dough. The water amounts is personal prefference.
I have often gone 1:10:10 but with a well established starter and allowing about 12- 16 hours for the starter to grow. (depends on the temperature) I prefer 1:4:5 (starter:water:flour) for best results. Usually 20g starter, 80g water, 100g flour -- overnight for best results. Starters increase exponentially so one could figure it out. It doesn't take long for their numbers to double.
abient temp has been about 80 during the day & 50 at night. Twice a day feedings just are going to add too much to an all ready hectic schedule- job, horses, chickens, children, house, my husband is already asking me if this is worth it... but since the kids have named it, & my daughter was defending it when I called it lazy last night & reads it stories at bedtime, I figure we had better keep on at least for a little before I give up completely.
80° can be rather good for increasing yeast numbers but the beasties need more food to stay active the 24 hours. Try reducing the starter to feed just one oz. That will save on flour too!
1 oz starter + 1.5oz water + 2 oz flour for maintenance and 24 hours.
Use larger amounts of starter when building for a recipe and always feed equal or more amounts of flour than starter, giving it time to mature (rise and begin to fall in volume.) If you feed at 12 hour intervals for just a few days, there should be a big improvement in the "lazy starter." Or better yet, one day with 8 hour feedings (by the clock)-- the first rise won't be so drastic but the third one should make up for it. This gives the faster producing yeasts a better chance at out-numbering the slower producing yeasts. The sourdough culture is full of a variety of yeasts, and the way it is maintained determines much of the starter's characteristics. By feeding every 24 hours with a minimum feeding (1:1) the starter is being trained to survive for 24 hour rises for only the slower reproducing yeasts that tolerate a more acid environment are being encouraged. So it is not "lazy" in that sin, the starter culture is just conforming to its given surrounding. In other words, to be blunt, it was fed that way.
The majority of yeasts are doubling their numbers about every 1 to 2 hours converting the flour into sugars for food. Their discards lower the pH value (increasing the acid) of the culture. When they've been munching on the food long enough, the acid level reaches a point to speed up gas production but then continues dropping to slow down and eventually stop the yeast reproduction. We see the result as the starter rising with gas production and then as the gas production falls off, the starter falls in on itself as the gas escapes and gluten deteriorates. In nature, as the pH drops (the little guys can't read or tell time) in the culture, the yeasts that feel threatened with existence (for lack of food) will look for a way to preserve themselves, often by reverting back to spores. Then it takes them days under ideal conditions to awaken, start feeding and get on with reproducing again. So we don't want to trigger the faster reproducing yeast to stop and preserve themselves. If we give them enough food, they can keep reproducing and be ready to work when we want them to. The idea is to let them reproduce for a while to develop a protective pH (enough acid to keep invading beasties out of the culture) and then slow down but not stop their reproduction activities.
we'll give it a go. but since I can't feed 2-3x/ day forever, is that where the refrigeration comes in? once the fast producers get going, then is when it is refrigerated to keep them "asleep" so I don't have to go twice a day for the rest of my life? I've already dropped back to 1oz, figured I won't try any baking for a couple of weeks... just feed, & feed & feed....
Goodness gracious! I'd feed it only one day 3 times (equal amounts starter and flour) and see how it perks up. Then, go back to a generous once a day feeding of twice as much flour to starter. Then try baking with it. Don't wait weeks, just a day or two. After it shows it can raise a loaf, feed it, let it stand out a few hours to get going and then pop it into the fridge for a few days of slow reproduction. Refresh before you want to bake if it stands longer than 5 days in a cold fridge. The beasties will hold up much better and your pressure and feeding stress is off. (yeah!) Just don't forget them too long in there... put their jar up front where you can see it and write something on it so it doesn't get thrown away.
I'd really try to do the twice-a-day feedings if you can. You could make the second feeding relatively easy by not bothering to discard. It only takes a minute to simply add some water and flour. You'll need to feed it more flour because you're not discarding, but it's the cost of convenience. And if you maintain a small amount of starter, it's not that much more flour.
If you go with Mini's suggestion of a big once-a-day feed, you might want to give it a stir after about twelve hours simply to redistribute the food so the yeast can get to it.
Ok, well for future reference, you are at 75% hydration maintenance, not 80%. That's pretty firm, realistically kneadable. The way to look at it is, each oz represents 1 part. You are retaining 4 parts old starter, adding 3 parts water, and 4 parts flour. Our hydration is based on the flour representing the total parts available, which is 4. The water is 3 of a possible 4 parts, so it's 3/4ths, or 75%.
Does your scale do grams? It is much much easier to do all this with the smaller resolution grams gives us. If you were to convert your current maintenance directly to grams, you would be retaining 113.40 grams of old starter, adding 85.00 grams of water and 113.40 grams of flour (all figures rounded, the old starter and flour could also be further rounded to 113.00).
What would be ideal to achieve is a method that allows you to accurately control the refreshment (water + new flour) to old starter ratio, so you are doing a 'normal' feed, or a double, etc. A normal feed is water + new flour (at appropriate hydration) that equals the weight of our retained starter. Let's say we round up the old starter retained to 115g. Now we need 115g of 75% refreshment. We add up the percentages of our needed ingredients (water and new flour). Flour is always 100%, and we need 75% water, and so 100 + 75 = 175. We have now broken down our needs into individual parts, 175 of them. Now we divide the weight of our needed refreshment by the parts to calculate a 'per part' amount, so 115 / 175 = 0.6571. Now we multiply how many parts we need times our 'per part' calculation.
Water - 75 parts times 0.6571 = 49.28g
Flour - 100 parts times 0.6571 = 65.71g (just move decimal over 2 places)
Now to validate our calculations:
49.28 + 65.71 = 114.99 (our total refreshment weight - check!)
and 49.28 (water weight) divided by 65.71 (flour weight) = .7499 - move decimal over 2 places, and we get 74.99%, and rounding up 1/100th, we get 75% hydration - check!
Roughly rounded, we have 115g of 75% hydration refreshment, and our math was good. We can further ease things by simply rounding the water and flour to 49.30g and 65.70g respectively. 115g of total refreshment added to 115g of old starter would be a typical 1:1 feeding (done every 8-12 hours). This is a useful refreshment for a young starter, or one being refreshed for the first time out of the refrigerator. A very mature, healthy, and happy starter usually thrives well on the counter with a 1:2 refreshment, which is achieved by cutting the amount of retained starter in half (57.5g), or doubling the refreshment figures. Use the latter if you are building upwards on purpose.
Using these formulas, you can easily do anything to your starter. You can change maintenance ratios, hydration, build it up, reduce it down, it's all there now.
I would suggest picking a hydration if you didn't intend on 75%. Simply plug in your target hydration into the above formulas. I would do the 1:1 for a minimum of 24 hrs (2 feedings 12 hrs apart). If the starter at least triples within about 6-8 hours for those 2 feeds, then I would switch to the 1:2 maintenance. If it again easily triples within about 6 hrs (assuming around 72 degrees F), it should be ready to bake with. It should smell like alcohol, slightly sweet/buttery while climbing (between hour 2 and peak), and slightly bitter/acidic after it crashes (between hours 8 and 12). If you go any further than about 15 hrs past any refreshment point, your next feed will not climb quite as high as before (the starter is NOT happy). If you go beyond the refreshment point several times, your starter will be weaker if used in a dough. This is why we always suggest you have a minimum of 2, preferably 3 or 4 feedings that are right on target before baking. This ensures the most robust yeast culture, and we can pretty much eliminate that from a problematic rise.
Should you at some point choose to refrigerate as a storage choice, I would suggest that you remove it from the cold, refresh using 1:1 twice, then one more at 1:2. If it responds well to all 3 refreshments, use. These are only suggestions... a lot of people claim results without this much hassle. I keep mine on the counter exclusively, and feed 1:2 at 85% hydration. Every time I use my starter, I get the exact same expected results and the exact same expected flavor (depending on recipe). It's tremendously reliable.
- Keith
What is your ratio/percentage of starter to the final dough? That is; weight of flour in starter, relative to the weight of all the flour in the formula.
Jim
this would be higher math....
I had a 80% starter & used the 1-2-3 recipe, (1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour) had a wee bit more water the make it a nice soft dough that felt right to me. So I don't know exactly, but I started out w/ 8oz starter, 16oz of water & 24 oz of flour. 1t of salt.
The first time I did it was the same recipe, but I started w/ 12 oz of starter, worked just fine, but was the world's biggest loaf of bread. Kids thought it was great. It actually made it through breakfast and lunch.... I think it was a 5lb loaf.... but it had a great rise, nice oven spring & crust baked it in the dutch oven. Nice crumb, I was really surprised for a first try.
Use the search feature here to discover Bakers Math or Bakers Percentages. Multiply, divide, add, subtract; it's not too difficult. It can be used to scale formulas up and down so your big loaf can be reduced and still bake as expected.
Jim
It's 15.625%. So what does that tell you?
16% is a little low. Though you could use whatever you like, 22-33% is considered normal.
The OP is using the 1-2-3 recipe a lot of people have used here, and the two sourdough recipes I usually use have ratios of 12.6% and 15.8%.
Did you really mean the weight ratio of the flour in the starter to the total flour in your previous post? The baker's percentage of starter would be higher because it includes the weight of the water. For the 1-2-3 recipe, for example, it would be 1/3.5 = 28.6%, with the assumption of a 100%-hydration starter.
With bakers percentages every thing is based on the weight of the flour, even the pre-ferments, as a percentage, use weight of flour. If the OP's starter is 75% as Keith's math shows, 16 % of Total dough is correct for the pre-ferm. I myself was confused about how to relate these percentages. Yet after reading and re-reading D DiMuzio and J Hamelman I'm quite sure all percentages revolve around flour weight.
If you need to find how much flour is in a piece of dough knowing only the weight and % hydration; here's the math. (I apologize if you already know the formula, others may find it useful).
Example; 1:2:3 starter equals 66% hydration (2/3) (I know it's 66.66 which could be considered 67, I save the decimals for salt and yeast measurement), dough weight 250g.
100 (% of flour) plus 66 (% hydration water)= 166 units.
Dough weight of 250g is divided by 166 (units) multiplied by 66 (percent hydration) equals the water weight. Subtract weight of water from weight of dough equals weight of flour.
250/166 = 1.5
1.5 x 66 = 99g of water
99 - 250 = 151g of flour ( this amount added to the other flours in the dough, is divided into the 151g. For example; 151/604 = 25%)
Double check; 99 divided by 151 equals 66% hydration.
Jim
I found that with my starter, I had to retard the dough for something like 48-72 hours to get decent oven spring. Also, I use the Jim Leahey method: use a cast-iron dutch oven to bake the bread in.
I weigh everything and start with 100% hydration (equal weight flour to water); add water to starter first, stir to make a slurry, then add flour, and stir very well; you don't need to need it.
1) 33 g starter+33 g unbleached bread flour + 33 g filtered water (yeastie beasties have a tough time surviving in a chlorine bath); you now have 100g; let sit on counter 24 hours (our place is about 65-70 degrees, so place someplace relatively mild in temperature);
2) To 100 g of above add 100g flour + 100 g filtered water; let sit 24 hours; you now have 300 g;
3) To 300 g add 300g flour and 250g water and 1.5tsp salt; you now have 850 g (you will add another 50 g of flour in the handling at the end)
4) Stash in your refrigerator for 2-4 days...seriously.
5) On baking day, remove your dough from the refrigerator and set on the counter, then get your small (4-5 qt) cast iron (or le creuset, if you're fashion forward) dutch oven. You may want to put foil around base of lid to form a tighter seal. Pre-heat oven to 525 degrees F. Put dutch oven and lid in the oven to pre-heat along with the oven for about an hour.
6) While oven is preheating, take about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup flour and sprinkle it down the sides of your dough bowl to make it easier to remove while working around your piping hot oven (remember I said you'd use that extra bit of flour?);
7) When oven and dutch oven are screaming hot, open the oven, and pour the dough into the dutch oven, cross slash the top (+) and put on the lid.
8) Reduce heat to 515 degrees F, cook covered (don't peak) for 30 min.
9) Remove lid and reduce oven to 450 degrees F and cook for another 15-20 min to brown top of crust.