Help with sourdough...
Hello everybody!
i have been looking at this site quite often and I have some questions. I have a sourdough starter which I made myself about two years ago. Every-time when I want bake I take it out of the fridge and start to feed it. First 1/4 cup starter + 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup of flour. I leave it for about eight hours until it starts to foam. Then I add 1 cup of water + 1 cup of flour, mix it and let it rest for about eight hours again until it foams. After that the same but then with 2 cups of flour and water.
When it is foaming nicely and it smells like beer I start Making the dough. I have a wheat grinder and I grind my own grain, use some vital wheat gluten and start kneading, until I can stretch the dough for the pane test. Everything is ok so far The thing is that when I only use the starter for rising the dough does not seem to rise as much. The bread stays rather dense. Sometimes I have to leave it for more than 24 hours before I notice a rise. If - on the other hand - I add just a tiny bit of dry yeast to the bread, alongside the starter, the bread does rise nicely in about eight hours. The bread then is nice and soft. However, I do miss that distinct sourdough taste which you get when you buy sourdough bread in store. I have tried everything, using more or less starter, white flour purchased in the store or whole wheat flour grinded myself. using more starter or less starter, wetter dough or dryer dough...
The only thing I read it that with other people the starter it self rises when it is being fed. Mine just foams and the smell is OK. What am I doing wrong? Does anybody maybe have a good sourdough recipe which I may try?
Thanks a lot,
The baker's yeast you're adding competes with the lactobacillus for the available maltose in the dough. The lactobacillus is what gives the bread its tanginess. That explains the loss of flavor.
Big commercial bakeries now make "sourdough bread" with baker's yeast and the flavor is all gone. It proofs more quickly and makes for a nice rise and crumb but at the expense of flavor.
Thanks a lot, so no more yeast. But how will I make it rise substantial within like 24 hours? The starter is all bubbly and foamy bit it does not expand. The dough starts only to rise after about 10 hours.. This all despite good gluten. I have done the pane test...
I notice your starter is very high hydration. Something like 400% hydration (i'm guessing that 1 cup flour to 1/4 cup water = 100% hydration but since I only work in weight I cannot tell you exactly). Your starter will not rise too much and will foam more, like you said.
Your percentage of starter for your dough is also very high. You'll easily over proof your dough.
Why don't you create a 100% hydration starter and follow a recipe?
Dutchie
I think you have conversion problems. Many people maintain 100% hydration starters which means the same WEIGHT of flour and water are put into the mix. You are using the same CUP SIZE of flour and water which is very different.
1 CUP bread flour typically weighs 125g-150g depending on the flour and humidy etc. Let's call it 132g
1 CUP water typically weighs 237g
So with that in mind let's review what you did:
"First 1/4 cup starter + 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup of flour"
So you added 59g water and about 33g flour so flour was about 50% of the water ! I guess your original 1/4 cup of starter here weighed about 46g so in total you now have 138g of starter.
"Then I add 1 cup of water + 1 cup of flour"
So to the 138g you added 237g water and 132g flour, again about 55% of the water
You now have 507g in total
"then with 2 cups of flour and water."
To that 507g you added 474g water and 264g flour.
Overall you are gradually starving the starter by not using the same WEIGHTS of flour to the starter. What you need are feedings (with no discard) like this:
46g starter + 46g flour + 46g water = 138g
138g + 138g + 138g = 414g
and so on.
I don' t know how often you are baking nor how much starter your recipe(s) call for so can't advise you on how much starter to keep and how to build it up. More info there would help. In short though, use WEIGHTS rather than CUPS for everything.
EP
Doesn't 132g of flour + 237g water = 180% hydration?
Didn't mean to say hydration. Was refering to flour content vs water. corrected now thx.
I knew there was no mistake and more something I misunderstood. My comment was just reconfirming my own understanding on hydration :)
Right... off to feed my starter (turning it back into while rye) and start planning my next venture.
Thanks a lot everybody. I started to feed some starter from the fridge and I am using measurement by weight as suggested. I also try to feed it at least four times before making dough. See how that works. Will keep you posted. Thanks again for all the tips!
as far as I can tell.... It is just a very liquid one.
Which means you need to use a lot of it to hydrate the flour and have plenty of yeast in the bread. First try making a loaf using only stirred ripe starter to hydrate the flour. Compare that to the last loaf.
If it continues to be too slow for you, then look into increasing the number of more rapid reproducing yeast.
1/3 C flour and 1/4 C water work well for me for a liquid starter, if you want to use cup measurements.
I'm not experienced with using fresh ground flour, so I don't know if that is affecting your outcome or not, but I've read on here that it can. Maybe use the search box at the top right of this page to find stuff about fresh ground wheat flour - the challenges, benefits, and recipes!
Also, do you use the fresh ground flour for your feedings? Unless you are really concerned about having a 100% home ground flour bread, you could substitute some good unbleached All Purpose flour, like King Arthur, for just the feedings. Yeast and lactobacillus don't need fresh ground flour to be happy.
What is the gluten content of the wheat you're grinding? Is the vital wheat gluten necessary? What about the fiber content? How fine is your grind?
With just the information you've already given, my first thought is that the starter is underfed. At my house, it would take less than 4 hours for my starter to be hungry again if it were fed those amounts. During the warmest months of the year, my starter would be long collapsed and starving by eight hours!
What temperature are you keeping your starter at while it is being fed? Have you started to feed by weight yet? How much are you feeding by weight now? I'd recommend trying it the way El Panadero suggested and see if it peaks sooner than 8 hours. With an equal amount of flour and water, it should rise to a point and stop. Where that point is depends on lots of factors, but it can rise to more than triple under the right conditions. Then, feed it again. If it takes 4 hours or if it takes 12 hours, feed it at the time when it needs it, not before, and not too long after, although there is usually a considerable amount of time after it peaks before it starts to fall, and some people don't feed it until then.
When you feed it with equal weights of flour and water, it should be the consistency of a thick pancake batter. It has enough flour in it that you may even see gluten begin to develop while stirring it. The rising and falling cycle helps you know what is actually going on, although it doesn't tell the entire story. Once you get your starter rising and falling in the same length of time at each feeding consistently, you can adjust the feeding amounts to get it to peak in whatever amount of time you need. I can get mine to peak in 4 hours if need be, or 12 hours, or whatever I need, by adjusting my feed ratios. But, use the starter to guide the clock, not the other way around.
Once you give us a little more details of what you're currently doing with your starter, what your flour is like, and your current bread recipe, someone can recommend some changes, or a new recipe to help you become more successful.
Wow, so much activity after four hours!? I think there might be some truth to your suggestion. May be the starter is too weak. Here is a picture taken twelve hours since the last feed. I am feeding by weight now. The smell is nice and seeing the bubbles and foam there is activity but may be not so much to really bake bread from. I'm using plain unbleached for the starter.
I don't see a problem here. You say it smells "nice", but can you smell yeast? Yeast is what raises the bread. Just bake a loaf and see how it turns out without worrying about gas bubbles, starter expansion, the number of hours, etc.
Thanks, what I mean is that it smells soury. I don't exactly know if it is comparable to yeast. The way it looks is exactly the way it always looks. The starter did not rise, it just shows bubbles with foam developing. And, it took 12 hours to see it like this since the last fed. If I make bread out of this I still would have the same issues as my original post. I think I just keep feeding it for a day of two more and see if the starter would rise by then.
Generally, there should be a beer-like smell at some point after the starter shows activity, and that usually indicates the presence of yeast; the bacteria are contributing the sour smell. So maybe just stick your nose in there regularly after you feed it and see if you can get a sense of the changes occurring based on smell and not just looks. It won't help your bread making right now, but it will probably help you understand your starter, which means that later you'll be better at gauging its readiness for dough.
Thanks cerevisiae. So likely it is that I smell the bacteria. Are these bacteria harmful or shall I just keep feeding until I get the smell of beer?
Sorry for the very late reply, but I just wanted to clarify that the bacteria are a normal part of the sourdough ecosystem. The important thing is to make sure that there is yeast present and thriving in there too. Looks like you're having some good progress!
Thanks! yes, I made the first batch with the new starter. This time with ordinary white flour and it turned out good, though the real sourdough taste could be more distinct. I should look for another recipe I guess.
Well I think that all your comments are paying off. The starter has risen more than twice in volume and I can definitely smell a difference. It is like beer as you mentioned. I will start making dough now. I'm pretty excited! Thanks so far everyone!!