January 3, 2015 - 3:48pm
Bringing back an over ripe starter
Hello,
We were traveling for the holidays and I left my starter in a sealed glass container the refrigerator for two weeks. A grey watery layer has risen to the top, and the flour mixture has settled on the bottom.
What is the best way to revive my starter?
Thanks for the advice!
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toss all but 1/4 of the starter and feed it that same weight in both flour and water and let it sit in a place that is 82 F. No worries, Then, after it peaks, just treat it as you normally would.
Happy baking
I have been there. I mix it up, then feed it regularly until the activity returns. I suspect it will only take 2-3 days.
Ben
Thanks for the advice. I had 400 grams of starter, so I dumped 3/4 and it and have started building it back with 100 grams of remaining starter, 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water.
That leads to another question. What is the most popular percentage of members' starter? I have been using 60 grams of flour to 100 grams of water. It's pourable, and I start a 500 gram loaf of bread with 160 grams of starter (60 grams of flour). I bake one loaf every 3-5 days.
mass quantities of liquid starter since I only keep 100g of rye stiff starter in the fridge for 12 weeks with no maintenance at all. I'm a No Fuss, No Fuss Starter guy:-)
Not sure where I should be posting this but I have noticed I get good growth double or triple when I feed my starter getting lots of bubbles etc. and each time I have baked a boule, getting a reasonably good rise, My problem is I find I'm not getting a noticeable sour taste or smell from the bread. Can you tell me how to improve this. I am keeping my starter in the fridge and then I take it out and feed it before I bake. Sorry if this is in the wrong spot, I'm new to this.
Thanks for your help.
white flour starter to lose it's sour after a while. To get the sour back you can do several things or a combination of them until the sour returns. First switch it over to whole rye or whole wheat flour. Whole grains mean more sour. Temperature plays the biggest part in making a starer and resulting levain and bread sour 82-84 F is the temperature that yeast love the best but The LAB that make sour prefer 93-94F. So when out of the fridge building the starter or levain at 93 F will make for more sour and a high temperature gluten development and bulk ferment will help. A long cold retard of the dough will make for more sour too . The LAB outproduce the yeast at a 3 to 1 rate when keep at 36 F for a long period of time.
I keep a 100 g stiff rye sour starter at 66% hydration for up to 16 weeks at a time with no feeding in the fridge using small amount of it to build a levain for bread every week. The bread gets more sou every week the starter is retarded. Building a 3 stage levain at 92 F over 12 hours total and then refrigerating it for 24 -48 hours is the next best way to get and keep the sour in bread.
Happy SD baking in 2-15
I really appreciate your help. I have been looking for an answer to this in all of my texts and elsewhere and no one has spoken of it. Thanks sooooo much Dabrownman. I will immediately take action to fix this. I'll let you know how it goes.
Regards.