Peter Reinharts Seed Culture
I began working with yeast last year and have gotten pretty good at every day regular breads. Now, I am trying to get started with sourdough and hope someday to be able to do what you can do! I wrote to this forum several weeks ago with my first failed attempt. My problem is this: I am working from Peter Reinhart's book "Artisan Breads Every Day" and I have tried his seed culture to starter (Pages 37-41). It is a different formula than his seed culture in the BBA. This is my third failed attempt. I am using pineapple juice (fresh can every time), spring water, new rye flour, and new wheat flour. I can get the first stage and even the second stage of the seed culture, but when I get to stage 3 it seems to always become most active in the middle of the night--no matter what time I started it in the morning! On all three attempts I have moved forward to Phase 4 with something that looks like it was active but has slowed down. Stage 4 never moves--EVER. I have worked it three or four times a day for 8 days, and nothing happens except it starts to smell really nasty. I am not familiar yet with various levels of hydration, so I cannot understand why the Stage 4 never moves. I do understand that it is a drier formula--but, still nothing happens. Not in the middle of the night, not during the day--never--nothing! It just sits there in a hard ball. Please help. Thank you, |
but the two or three times I had to start a starter from scratch (having accidentally used all of my mother starter) I just followed the simple "flour/water/that's all" method I found in the "French Farmhouse Cookbook" 2001:
http://hanseata.blogspot.com/2009/10/wild-yeast-seed-starter.html
This always worked like a charm! Since your attempts didn't achieve anything so far, you might as well give it a try - even though veteran TFLers might frown on it (no juice, no frills.....? Tsk, tsk!)
Karin (sourdough heretic)
Hi alpenrose, I can commiserate with you, as I, too, encountered this problem when I attempted to make my sourdough starter two summers past, using Reinhart's method in "Artisan Breads Every Day". I'm now convinced it's from too infrequent feedings. Back then - and I may have been reading it wrong - but I was waiting for some bubbling before I would feed my starter.
I gave up and turned to the web for some insight and that's how I found this wonderful site and Debra Winks's method using rye flour and pineapple juice. This is what worked for me:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1
LOL, Karin, you're not a heretic, it's just that many of us love the pineapple method because it bypasses the yucky bacteria stage. My starter, which has been going strong now for 17 months, exists only on all purpose flour and water.
Good luck!
Mira
My best advice:
It will eventually work.
Best wishes,
Frank
Make sure the seed is stirred at least 3 times a day, the wild yeast like a little air and the stirring will also move them to new food source. A wet chop stick works well. Once the yeast take hold and multiply it is not necessary to stir.
Jim
Hi All: Your thoughts are much appreciated. I have another question for you: when the recipe says "whole grain" I believe that it means most of the outer layers are left on-- is that correct? In my first efforts I was using Bob's "Stone Ground" Rye flour. I also have Bob's "lite rye flour". My question is this: did the fact that the previous seeds were using "stone ground rye" have anything to do with the failure?
thank you again,
No, I don't think the stone ground rye had anything to do with the failure. But it's interesting that you're noticing no activity with the drier batch. I'm hoping somebody can comment on this as I seem to be experiencing the same problem with a new starter.
My original starter, which as I had mentioned is based on Debra Winks' method and is still going strong, is 100% hydration (ie. 50 g water and 50 g flour). I recently received Richard Bertinet's CRUST book from my sister and want to try his breads so just this week I converted a bit of my original starter to form a new, stiffer starter at 50% hydration. This new starter has been sitting on my counter and I've been feeding it the new ratio of 50g starter + 50g water + 100 g flour. I have not seen any bubbling activity since yesteday which concerns me!