April 20, 2020 - 11:53am
Too late for pineapple juice?
I’m in the middle of the Day 3 stink on my whole wheat starter, not unexpected. Is it too late to throw some pineapple juice in the mix to speed things along? Or do you think if you’re going to use that method, you need to start with it on Day 1? Thanks.
Steve
Share
Best to read theses, then you’ll know:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2
Thanks, Martin. I do look through those and while they explain how to do the pineapple juice method starting at day 1, they don’t really mention what happens if you start the juice a few days into the process. I’m guessing it couldn’t hurt to try it.
Yes that’s right - it’s just used to get the acidity levels up quickly, so that you skip the ‘stinky’ stage where the leuconostoc growth can occur, and the subsequent ‘dead’ stage due to the antibacterial compounds that they release. Not all starters go through this stage, but most do... and it’s worth avoiding because it delays things by at least a week.
So if your starter has not started stinking (which normally arrives after 1-2 weeks, if it’s going to happen) then yes it’s definitely worth doing and will certainly do no harm. However if your starter is already acidic to the taste, or has already started to smell REALLY bad then it’s either unnecessary or too late.
I have wondered the very same thing. Everything I have read, speaks to starting with the pineapple juice, on day one. I wonder, if you were to divide your starter in two, and feed one with water & flour; and the other with pineapple juice & flour, how it would change things? If you choose to try this, I will be very interested to know the side-by-side comparison/results.
I’ll let you know!
Thanks!
Won’t do any harm, and quite likely will save you at least a week (and a really unpleasant smell)... see my reply above :-)
Incidentally the only time I heard of the pineapple juice solution was after my nascent starter had already begun to stink, so I was too late to use it. I had to just keep discarding and feeding with plain water, which eventually worked; but OMG the stink of it was revolting.
I’m kind of a curious soul.
I have kept a starter for many years. I had not ever heard of the pineapple juice method, until I bought Peter Reinhart’s book, The Bread Bakers Apprentice, about five years ago. I have wondered if it could help with a struggling starter, that was started without it. Mine Is healthy & just didn’t need to be messed with, so I haven’t experimented...but, that said, I am always inclined to try something new, if whatever I am currently doing could stand some improvement, or I’m just itching to try something different. I do love a good experiment!
One of my favorite experiments, by the way, was prepping my parchment differently. I had a fine enough bottom crust, but I wanted something different. So, instead of sprinkling cornmeal, or semolina, I sprinkled a light 1/1/1 mixture of cornmeal/kosher salt/granulated garlic. I loved it! It didn’t change the crust quality, and the flavor was great! It was subtle & delicious.
Yes I love a good experiment - and I’m addicted to understanding the basic principles and then trying to find a different way of doing things... at the start I did a lot of side-by-side experiments to characterise the reaction of my starter to different levels of feed and hydration: I’d mix up five or six samples in drinking glasses and then make a time-lapse video of them overnight. Watching the results in the morning I was as happy as a kid at Christmas!
i got the Reinhardt book at some stage too - there’s a lot of useful experience in It of course, but I got very annoyed with his confident and completely incorrect assertion that “yeast can’t grow without oxygen”; which rather torpedoed his credibility on the basic science for me
Ha. Mine iis already very stinky. Since you are saying it’s too late at this point, is it not worth even trying it?
If you like, then I guess it won’t hurt... the leuconostocs won’t like it, so it could help move them on a bit quicker... just be aware that you’re next headed for the ‘quiet’ stage thanks to the antibacterial compounds they leave hanging around - but the good news is that your starter is coming along!
As @NewChapter said, the safest and most informative way to proceed would be to split your starter in half and use pineapple juice one and water on the other... either way, just keep discarding and feeding; but not too frequently because you want the smelly guys to drown in their own byproducts