March 5, 2015 - 7:00am
Yet another beginner baker question - is my starter ready?
Hello,
I've started on my starter last week, following instructions on the KA website. I'm on Day 6 right now and by the time it is time to feed it, it is full of bubbles and has a nice aroma (not sour). However it does not rise at all. I'm a bit confused if starter is now ready or if I should continue 2x daily feedings...
Attached picture is how starter looked in the evenings for the last two days, after 12 hours or so from being fed (in the morning, when it's time to feed it, there are less bubbles on the surface - but I assume it is because temperature drops a bit during the night).
Thank You!
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How much flour and water do you feed it?
It does get liquidish (not as liquid as pancake batter, but not that far off) by the time it's time to feed it after 12 hours. Mixing it as per KA instructions - 4oz starter, 4oz AP flour and 4oz water.
Feeding twice a day. Before feeding, I mix starter thoroughly and then pour out 8oz - to be honest I never weighted how much I pour out (so it's my assumption that 8oz is being removed as this is what is being added each feeding), but I do use scales to make sure I'm left with 4oz starter prior to adding flour and water (both get weighted on scales as well).
Thanks!
Whole rye flour for my starter. Produces a much thicker paste and rises well. You are using AP white flour so will be more liquid and therefore won't rise as much. But I see you are weighing correctly and you haven't made the more obvious novice mistake of equal amounts by volume.
I'm not sure how much an Oz is but I think it's around 28g.
So you have 336g of starter. When feeding you take off around 224g then feed 112g water + 112g AP flour.
Well the method is sound! Not sure you need to work in such large quantities. But don't worry about rising. Looks healthy enough to me. 6 days is young so carry on for a few more days and you should be ready to bake.
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I draw a line here to not confuse you. If you're happy with what you are doing then ignore what I'm about to say but here are a few thoughts.
If you want a good visual of it rising as an indicator you'll either have to use less hydration or, to keep it simple, use whole rye flour. Or even a strong white bread flour will do. Or whole wheat.
I like whole rye because it makes a good starter.
I wouldn't create huge amounts and discard huge amounts either. I'd find a smaller glass jar and feed it 1oz:1oz:1oz
But the rest I'd do exactly how you are doing. discard 2/3rds then feed again 1:1:1 every 12 hours for the next few days.
Thanks a lot for your help! I'll see if I can find rye flour in local supermarkets (I actually checked my 2 local stores and they don't carry rye flour for some reason) and then use a portion of discarded starter to spin another one off by feeding it with rye flour as you mentioned.
Also, thanks a lot for the tip about the amount of starter as that was my other question. Throwing away almost 500g of flour every two days was really starting to annoy me and I was wondering if it is possible to half the amounts I'm working with (just as you mentioned).
Let us know how you're doing. Yes, it's a big waste and many recipes for creating a starter use barrels full when you really don't need this much. If you can't find whole rye then even bread flour will create a thicker paste than AP flour. Or wholewheat is also good (or a mix of bread and wholewheat). Rye just seems to be really good for Starters.
But rest assured your starter looks healthy and is going in the right direction.
Anymore questions don't hesitate to ask and hope to see some lovely sourdoughs soon.
Thanks, do you think keeping just 50g of starter (and adding 25g of each, water and flour) is enough? Or would 100g of starter be a better starting point? Just trying to figure out if there is an 'optimal' amount of starter to have...
Would mean keeping 50g of starter and feeding it 50g flour + 50g water.
It's up to you how much you'd like to keep and work with but that sounds good.
Don't discard the original till you're happy the new one is doing well.
Thanks a lot for taking your time to answer all of my questions!
I am assuming you have 100% hydration or something similar, so liquid. Abe helped me w my starter which was no where as good as yours. After it got going I split it off and have also a nice mostly 100% white flour starter, which, when ready looks a lot like yours at 6 days. Good luck.
because I bake with it twice a week. I do keep the starter in the refrigerator most of the time to slow it down a bit, or lower the hydration to have the same effect. Often I bake because my starter, "needs something to do." Family and friends don't seem to mind. : )
Although I just recently made my way back to baking bread and am far from using the exacting methods of some of the folks I am reading about here, I have been getting some really good results in my baking. Family and friends can't wait for the next thing to come out of the oven! And just this week my husband tells me "my parents are out of bread"!!! What??? They don't know where the store it???
I started my "white" starter back in October for a recipe I wanted to bake. It has never been in the fridge and I feed it every couple of days with equal water and bread flour. My husband calls it my "pet." I also never discard any of it as I'm baking at least once a week.
This week I wanted to make a Jewish Rye so I started a rye starter which I will now keep as Pet #2.
As I said I'm new to this site, but I plan on blog posting as the spirit moves me.