May 16, 2017 - 7:32pm
First loaf with new starter. Not a brick, but would appreciate suggestions
Hi all,
it's the beginnings of winter here (10-18C), and after a few attempts I've finally got a starter. Sadly, it's a bit of a slow grower!
Ended up taking 3+ weeks to get a starter which doubled in 12 hours, and was able to make a couple of Norwich-recipe loaves :)
As you can see, they're not bricks but don't have an open crumb. They taste nice, but as you can tell, they are a little dense.
My starter has decided to slow down, too. I'm keeping it in my pantry, as the temperature is more stable there. I feed it every 12hrs. 30g starter, 30g filtered water, 30g unbleached organic white flour. It doesn't double any more.
I would guess that I should be encouraging the faster-growing yeasts (As suggested by MiniOven here)?
Thanks in advance!
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That's a very nice bake for a first attempt. The factors that go into successful bakes--handling and shaping skills, recognizing proofing, scoring, steaming, etc.--take time to learn and build.
cooler temps!
I would suggest that you find a way to get some warm for your starter, for at least a while until you can get it built back up. Once you've got it firing on all cylinders, then you can stiffen it up and store it in the fridge between uses / feedings (see dabrownman's NMNF starter here:http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter ).
I find that the easiest way for me to maintain the "growing temp" that my starter likes is to use the microwave oven or a portable cooler as a "proofing box". I heat up 2 cups of water in a heavy pyrex measuring cup (usually 1-1/2 minutes on high in the microwave), and then put my starter in beside it and close the microwave door (or put them both in to a cooler if I need to be using the microwave for other things). Another good choice can be your oven, turned off but with the light on (double check this first, though, to see whether you might need to prop the door open to keep the temp where you want it --- I have to keep the oven door propped open at least an inch). I also make sure that the water I'm using to mix with the starter is heated to be in the mid-90's F. Starting with warmed water and keeping it with the heated water as a heat source keeps my starter in the prime temp range for about 4 hours - so I use the oven / light if I need it to be longer.
Once you get the "warm" figured out, then Mini Oven's suggestions in the thread that you linked are spot on.
When my starter starts getting slow, then I'll use the build schedule outlined in the NMNF post, starting with 4g, and just keep discarding and re-doing the second feed until it is doubling (or more) in four hours. I leave it at room temp for 8 hours overnight to see what it will do. I'll then continue on to the third feed still at 100% and use it as a levain in a loaf (keeping aside 4g to rebuild the "mother" for the fridge) to make sure that it'll raise the loaf, and then rebuild it and stiffen it up to 67% hydration to live in my fridge for the next couple of months (or until it gets slow again).
I use the same warming tricks for building the levain for a bake, and have done the same for bulk ferment or proofing if I am not retarding it in the fridge for that stage.
You managed some really nice results for a first attempt and with a "slow" starter, so I have no doubt that you'll just keep getting better and better once you get that starter warmed up and racing!
What is the temperature in the pantry?
Where I'm going with this? You could go to a wet starter with a large gallon jar. It's mostly water and one uses more of it in a recipe replacing most or all of the water to make dough. Keep it half full at all times and just remove what you need and replace what was removed. Temp plays a big roll in feeding and fermenting so need to know the pantry temp first. Instead of a 1,1,1 feeding, at first up the water amount to encourage more fermentation then use and feed when it has the aroma and effervescence.
I see you are another kiwi! are you discarding half your starter each time you feed it? if yes, you will be diluting the yeast and thus slowing it down. Maybe give it a feed and then wait for it to double, maybe find a warm spot, although that is harder now we are heading for winter. Mini Oven has a huge wealth of knowledge so her advice to very good to heed.
I also use dabrownman's no muss no fuss system and store my starter in the fridge, refreshing a small sub sample whenever I bake. My starter seems to be getting better all the time so hang in there. there is lots of help here. I use a large plastic bin with a heating pad when it is really cold when bulk fermenting dough.
happy baking from Bay of plenty
Leslie
Sorry for the reply delay! On Thursday, I'd started putting my starter in the hot water cupboard. I immediately noticed an acetone-like smell :( And the starter stopped rising, and would become a thin paste with tiny bubbles.
Reading up on the forums, I found out that I'd inadvertently encouraged the wrong type of bacteria :( Out of curiosity I followed the revival instructions (salt, and 2:1:1 feedings) for the weekend, to no avail.
Fortunately, I'd been saving my discards to make pancakes, so all is not lost.
The new/old starter is not doubling in 24hrs, yet. I'm feeding 2:1:1 (40g:20g:20g) every 24hrs at the moment. Organic stone-ground, unbleached flour and bottled water. The starter is smelling nice, and has a bit of an effervescent taste.
That is a poor feed with little fresh flour to starter ratio. Feed 1:3 (starter to fresh flour) and watch it at least double. Thicken it up too for even better visual results. So make it 80% hydration.
See what happens.
for yeast growing. Temperature plays an important role so be keen on checking it. Still curious about room temps, are they 10 to 18°C? If they are, there is no need to discard at all. Just build your starter until it gets big enough to be half the size of bread dough. Remove part of it for continuing the starter and then add the rest of the bread dough ingredients.
That it took 3 weeks to get the starter going tells me that the environment is cool and so rushing the feeds and bread dough rises in a cool kitchen just won't work well. This requires a lot of patience not to rush things along. It can be done, just at a slower rate. At least Double or triple the fermenting times of normal sourdough starters and bread recipes.
Lets try a few ideas at the same time, several starters jars, keep covered. Stop feeding the starter until it smells yeasty. (bacteria can also raise starters) Stir it to encourage yeast growth. On a side, Leave some of the collection of discarded starter in a jar under a thin layer of water for a few days and let it ferment enough to cloud the water on it's own and smell yeasty. (no feeds or discards) Make up another one to put into the heating cupboard. Check the air temp in the water heating cupboard (if under 28°) and try again. Let the starter work thru the bacterial changing phase with very little or no fresh flour (and no discards for a few days).
When you smell yeast, then wait another day before adding more flour and water (no discarding) to the culture. Once you smell yeast, add more flour and water to increase the size of the culture. Keep rough track of the flour and water (some will evaporate) to figure into your bread recipe later.
Any warming over 23°C will speed up the fermentation exponentially.
My hotwater cupboard experiment has started growing mold on the edges of the water, and doesn't smell like yeast yet :( I'm thinking I carefully pour the liquid and mould off then feed it a little to see what happens?
My pantry ones smelt a little yeast-like on Saturday, so on Sunday I have them each 30g of flour/water (no discards). The water-topped one had a small ring around it, which I suspect is the early stages of mould. Guess I'll see what happens to him. He'd not risen much this morning. Neither smelt very yeast-like. Gah, cross fingers for us!
bottom of the jars to feed and place into clean jars. Will be interesting when you remove a sample to inoculate flour and water. You might want to try a feeding of 10g starter, 20g water and 30g flour.
My pantry attempt went bad, I went to stir it this morning and it's grown the acetone bacteria. Fudge.
I have a mixture of 10g starter : 20g water : 30g flour and it's 36hrs old. It's living in my hotwater cupboard (25c) Some bubbling, but not much. Photos here: https://imgur.com/a/9XUy9
Should I be stirring, or feeding, or what? White stone-ground, unbleached flour or go back to organic rye? I'm feeling a bit frustrated, and wish I knew what I was doing wrong!
Carefully stir the starter and cover that paste with a half inch or so of water. Now cover the jar and set it back into the hot water cupboard. Wait until 48 hrs or 2 days (from first moment of starting) can even wait 3 days. Check to make sure the starter is under water and not drying out.
On the third day give it a stir and add a level spoon of rye flour and enough water to make a soft paste. Do this everyday until it starts to smell yeasty. You can stir as often as you like or think to remember it.
Once yeasty, thicken up the starter just a bit and watch it. If it starts rising, wait for it to peak, then remove a tablespoon to start a second jar. Feed that tablespoon two tablespoons of water and enough rye flour to make a paste or soft sticky dough. Watch and repeat increasing the amount of starter. (have a recipe handy) Use at peak or a few hours after saving some starter to feed and keep it going with a 1,2,3 ratio feeding starter, water, flour.
Pantry starter: Feed it anyway after a 12 hour warm it up in the hot water cupboard. It might just surprise us.
I missed your reply, but I'm now wondering if I should start again.
I took the hot water cupboard starter and carefully took some 10g of starter out from the bottom and fed 20g water and rye. Over the last 4 days, I was stirring it morning and night, feeding every 2 days, and not discarding. Last night I had acetone smell :(
After reading your instructions, I took 10g of that and fed it 20g water and 30g rye. This morning it had bubbled, but was not yeasty. I can still smell the slight tinge of acetone. I stirred it down, and left it. Will add more food at this ratio tonight, and hope.
Pantry starter is eye-wateringly acetone, so he has gone to a watery grave.
sniff of it myself. The funny thing about your comment is that you mention the starter as "eye watering." i have never had acetone water my eyes but I have had mature (very hungry) sourdough culture do that. You may be just misinterpreting the aromas. Repeat the feeding a small amount of starter and try 5 times the weight in flour. And watch it carefully. Note hourly changes. Compare the aromas you already have directly with vinegar, yoghurt, and acetone nail polish remover that you may have at home.
To eliminate some variables: pour out some tap water into a pitcher or large jar and let it stand 24 hours or more covered with a thin cloth to use with the starters and starter builds : taste the rye flour to make sure it isn't rancid. It will show up as a bitter after taste after spitting out the flour. If you have unsweetened orange juice or unsweetened pineapple juice around use that for the next attempt if it comes to that.
I wish you could smell it too, haha! My poor husband has a good nose, and he's subjected to sniff-tests every day (haha!) The starters start to smell vaaaaguely yeasty, but it never gets further than that.
I'm considering moving the jar from the top shelf (25C) to a lower, cooler shelf but will try different liquids first. I've using store-bought water, from a bottle thus far. I'll switch to 24hr tap water tomorrow, and see how we fare.
I am unable to work from home, sadly, but will try to take some photos of the starter during its first 4 hours post new feed :)
Rye flour tastes fine, almost sweet after I'd spat it out. I think it's fine.
I took 15g of the starter, and added it to 50g of bottled water. Let it sit in the water until I could mix it, and added 50g of rye flour and put it in the hotwater cupboard.
Here is my album of starter photos. http://imgur.com/a/haQf9
Started out smelling sweet, then went to sweet and almost herbacious. This morning it was stronger smelling, I really have no idea what to describe it as. It's not like vinegar, nor is it like acetone. There's a faint sweetness, and yeast-like smell underneath the initial smell.
I kept the remainder, and fed it 20g water: 20g rye last night and this morning again. No discards. It hadn't doubled, but it had expanded. Didn't smell yeasty.
Yay! :)
And I think discarding before feeding is good unless building starter for quantities used in making bread. The 20g water and 20g flour most likely was an underfeeding and so there wasn't much action in the yeast department.
At 25°C in the water cupboard, I would expect 15g of starter to eat thru 50g of flour in about 8 hours or less. After 8 hours the matrix in the rye starter will fall apart (no matter what the temperature) so not much rise can be expected from tired rye. A good deal of fresh flour (at least half the weight of the starter) has to be added if your goal is to trap the gas forming inside the starter. When it peaks,or soon after, that's when to feed it for growing more yeast. And that is what we want to do. But we want to give a good feeding of at least the same weight as the starter or more. It is economical to reduce or discard the feeding down to 15g with 50g of water and 50g of rye flour. At least for the next few days and after a few days of we can take advantage of the cool pantry to help save flour.
To do this we feed the starter and put it into the warm hot water cupboard, after it peaks and gets that interesting light yeasty aroma, wait an hour and then reduce to 15g and feed again. You can put the discards into a jar and use but keep them chilled. You should be noticing that with each feeding the starter is peaking sooner and rising higher.
After a few days of this you will become a slave to the starter so.... now to tame the beast! Feed the starter and after 6 hours or when it peaks (what ever comes first) move the jar to the pantry for the rest of the night or day and get into the habit of feeding once a day. Feed, add warmth for growth, remove to pantry (or fridge) and cool the starter to slow it down.
When do you see yourself baking your bread? Evening? Morning? Afternoons? and how often? every day? once a week? twice a week?
You can manipulate the starter to grow and slow down to when you want to use it. There is a direct relationship between how long you let the starter grow in the warmth of the cupboard and how soon you want to use it. When it peaks it can be use right away into a recipe or within that day if put into the pantry to slow down. If you want to bake only once a week, let the starter rise in the water cupboard only about 1/4. to peak and then move to the pantry for the remainder of the half or whole week without feeding. If the starter ferments too long and starts separating then it desperately needs a feeding. Feed before it gets too beery smelling and separates. (Instead of the pantry, the partially risen starter can be put into the fridge for several weeks without feeding.)
If you want to use the starter sooner, remove a portion, let ferment a little bit more, feed placing it into the hot water cupboard to grow and be ready for your recipe. There will be some playing around with the times and the amount of flour you feed the starter. Learn to rely on the aroma coming off the starter when the starter has been fermenting longer than 8 hours as the starter will find it difficult to trap any gas forming.
In a few days save some mature fermented starter for "back up" in the refrigerator. First thicken it with a little rye flour into a stiff dough ball and roll into rye flour, then drop into a small jar for the back of the fridge. Tighten the lid after a few days to prevent loss of moisture. Label it well and replace once a month. Or dry some peaked starter on parchment, spread thin, dry thoroughly, crumble and put into a jar in the pantry.
Mini
That's pretty cool!
When I got home and smelt the starters they both smelt chemically (my husband exclaimed "they smell like paint!") with a sweet undertone. I'm hoping that's my "I'M HUNGRY" starter smell. I took both, reduced down to 15g, and fed 50g flour and 50g water. Pictures here http://imgur.com/a/ej2um
I'll keep feeding at that ratio morning and night for the next couple of days, hopefully this is yeast expansion rather than bacterial (how do I tell? I have been looking for that bread/beer smell. And this smells rather sweet?)
Crossing fingers!
and I see from the glass they have shrunk down. Try giving them less water and limit the time in the hot water closet so that they peak later if you feed every 12 hours.
Look up Flo's 1,2,3 sourdough or test the starter in a recipe.
Thanks for all the advice! Temperature-wise, the house is around 18°C (might get down to 12°C but the pantry is much more stable). I measured the hotwater cupboard at 25°C.
Following your advice, MiniOven, I currently have 3 jars...
1. Unfed starter, 36hrs since last feeding. Stirred morning and night. Lives in pantry
2. Unfed discards, been in fridge for a week. 7mm of water on top. Lives in pantry
3. Unfed discards, as above. 7mm of water on top. Lives in hotwater cupboard
And we wait. All taste effervescent. The older discards smell almost wine-like. The starter smells slightly sweet.
take a small amount of the pantry "eye watering" wet starter into a small bowl or glass, about 50ml. Now add about a forth a teaspoon of baking soda to it. Stir and let it stand a few minutes. Now how does it smell? Does it smell good? or does it turn your stomach to smell it? If it smells good, then taste a little bit. It should taste more like salty flour than anything else.
Another household item you can compare your ripe starter to is an all purpose white glue. :)
http://imgur.com/a/PW48y Bread and starter pictures in the album. Unfortunately slightly over-proofed (my husband missed the beeper, so the loaves were left in their bannetons for probably 2-3 hrs instead of 1.5 :/ I'm thinking that would that cause the larger holes in the bottom?
Loaves came out nice, they're certainly picturesque :P (Sadly I did break my pizza stone, I can't put ice on it, today I learn).
I've noticed that, following the 40g:50 water:flour ratio the little starters don't rise as quickly. If I understand correctly, this is my current "don't eat your food so quickly" technique. Looking at my pictures, I wonder if I should start putting them in the pantry first thing in the morning. As they look to be nearing peak, I think.
A massive thanks, I really do appreciate the help getting this all sorted :)
the bubbles seem to make a swirl making me think it has more to do with shaping. Try degassing a little more before rolling up especially that front edge that get into the middle of the loaf. The loaves really do look nice. :)
I had a crazy loaf yesterday. It was a plain white (not really.. 50g Einkorn 450g AP, yeasted with active malt) I used warm water (by all means stupid in my heat and 90+Humidity) and I was knocking the rise down left and right after the first 30 minutes of mixing. I turned on my oven with the final shaping and plopping into the banneton. I gave it a little extra time in the banneton to, nice a puffy. :) put it on my peel, put some proud slashes in it and then opened the oven. yup. :( cold oven.... yikes!!! Now what'???
I grabbed the opening slashes and put my hand across them like sutures squishing it back into the banneton cut side up. Looked very wrinkled and I bet it was scolding me gagging under my hand. Turned on the oven and waited 10 min. and shoved it in as fast as I could. It was spreading as if sutures broke and I was beginning to wonder if it would recover. (do I dust off the flour and reshape?) The loaf stopped spreading just short of the oven walls and then rose up in the middle. Whew! Baked in record time. Hubby was glad to have his big white loaf. Next one is a sd rye/spelt loaf. Too much excitement for me that white. I'm liking the slow pace of sourdough.
I've made no-knead rolls before that had a similiar stress-level. I'm with you on the sourdough! Slow, easy, and relaxed pace is best!
Bought a pizza steel last night, so I'm hoping it arrives this week.
Trying various slowing techniques with my two starters. Yesterday 2hrs in the hotwater cupboard, and remainder in the pantry. The rye seemed fine, the white was very chemically and didn't taste effervescent and lemony. I would guess it was 'hangry' hahah! Today we have 4hrs in the hotwater cupboard, overnight in the pantry, and the remainder of the day in the fridge. I suspect I'll skip the pantry step tonight, but we will see.
I'm still a bit paranoid, hence having a white and a rye starter. I figure this weekend I'll hedge my bets and put something deep in the back of the fridge.