Starter Woes
Suspect have a starter issue, but not real sure. Starter is keep in fridge & fed daily from throw away if in bread making process. Otherwise, will feed/refresh fridge starter 1x/wk. Over last couple of months the starter has become very thick & doughy. Starter is made with 80% bread & 20% rye flours.
In preparation for bake days, will remove small amount of starter from fridge & feed it 1:1 couple times per day until ready to bake. Typically this process generates a nice airy starter, but lately it is very sluggish & doughy. Bread has been coming out, not flat, but not much spring. Crumb on all my breads is rather tight for lack of terms.
Sure, there are a lot of factors that have been left out here that could be adding to difficulty. Wanted to first figure out the starter & if there is an issue or I need to reboot.
Thanks
place 10 grams of your old starter, 30 grams of water and 40 grams of your flour mix. Stir well, cover loosely and leave on the counter for 24 hours. Report back with results.
Your process sounds very similar to mine and the one described here as the "no fuss no muss" starter. I keep a very thick starter (closer to dough) in the fridge in a jar. Pull out a few grams and use that to build a lavain over a few feedings to have just what I need for baking. The jar itself stays in the fridge for months without being fed (again it was a very thick starter with plenty of food). I find that around month 4 or so for me that sometimes it feels like the starter just is getting lazy or not as strong as I would like. Which also sounds like your current experience.
In that case I will take some out...feed it a few times over a few days even discarding until the fresh starter is performing as expected (doubling or better in 4 hours or less). Then I convert that new starter into a thick starter and put it in a new jar. I take the old jar and use that thick starter to make pan bread or other things so there isn't waste.
No need to toss out what you have and start from scratch...you haven't killed it...it's just lazy and needs a good refresh. If I remember I'll follow up with the ratios I use for my thick starter when I get home tonight.
- Steven
Edit: The thick starter I use starts with 41g of strong starter that has doubled or grown past double in 4 hours. Once it is at peed I mix that with 16g water and 53g flour. This gets mixed and kneaded together into a thick dough. I then keep that in the fridge for months and don't do anything with it. When I want to bake bread I pull out 5 or so grams and use that to build a levain over a few feedings for the bake. Then toss the jar back in the fridge. No feeding the jar in the fridge...just take out a bit each week to make the next bread. When it starts to feel week after 3-4 months I grow up a levain for baking...do a few extra feedings...then go back to the ratios above.
Thanks on both comments. Starter on counter has grown 2x so moving well. House cooled down overnight
Yes, that describes how my fridge starter is now. Just has been "off" for few months & troublesome not seeing much response in the the daily baking starter. As mentioned typ feed routine for 2-3 days until bake is to feed, 2x per day 1:2:2 then 1:5:5 overnight.
I don't want to step on the advice given above, just touch two points not addressed so far.
"Otherwise, will feed/refresh fridge starter 1x/wk."
When you do that, do you let the fed starter sit at room temp for 2 to 4 hours, or do you immediately put it back in fridge? Putting it immediately back in fridge will degrade yeast, and boost LAB, over time, maybe even making it proteolytic.
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also, if you could please clarify: "& fed daily from throw away if in bread making process."
That's not a phrase, or wording, that I've seen before.
Are you feeding it what has previously been "discarded"? I've only been here 2+ years, but I have never heard of that.
Yes, starter that is maintained in fridge & "refreshed" is left on counter for few hours.
Throw away as in discard from the daily starter regimen. If trying to build up the amount of discard starter for a batch of muffins for example, will put the daily discard into the fridge starter. Otherwise the starter in fridge is refreshed about every week.
"If trying to build up the amount of discard starter for a batch of muffins for example, will put the daily discard into the fridge starter."
If I correctly understand your procedures, then I think that's your problem.
It's okay to put discard into muffins that are being leavened by baking powder or baking soda.
But discard, even just the "daily discard", when put into the "main body" or "mother" starter that is kept in the fridge, if done that way, it does not count as a "feed" -- it's just adding spent fuel to spent fuel, combining two hungry starters.
If you're feeding that room-temp levain/starter twice a day, then its discard has been going 12 hours at room temp, and has insufficient fuel left over to be used as "feed" for what's in the fridge.
To word it another way, If the fridge starter is going to be fed once a week, it needs fresh fuel, not used fuel.
To put it another way, adding spent fuel into the fridge starter does not "reset the feeding clock" -- you would still need to feed fresh fuel (flour) to the fridge starter within 7 days from the last time it was fed fresh fuel/flour.
I hope that makes sense.
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And a hearty welcome to TFL. I hope you can share your bakes. We love to ooh-and-ah over photos.
after 24 hours your 10g:30g:40g experiment should be peaking or peaked or subsided. You have 80g of fed starter. Add to this another 30g water and 40g flour (mix) for a total of 150g and let it go for a few hours. When this batch is peaking/peaked/subsided, then harvest 100g for your bake recipe and put the remaining 50g back in the reefer for next bake.
Thanks DC, will proceed tonight with your follow up directions
On the starter maintained in fridge, do not consider placing discard into that container as feeding. Plus, do not place every discard into the fridge, just random amount to maintain a uniform amount. The "feeding" occurs about 1x per week w/flour mix. The discard does promote some reaction in the cold starter, but not much.