Strange behavior
Hi there, I wanted your insights on something very strange I'm noticing with my starter - Starting the bulk by mixing the starter and the water then adding the flour (instead of adding the starter after an autolyze) doesn't work for me, the fermentation stalls and only reach proper pH after it's too late.
My usual process typically starts with an autolyze, either overnight in the fridge or a 2-hour one at room temp, then I mix the starter , etc etc. I follow the bulk evolution with a pH meter (bulk until 4.50 ish) then shape and final retard in fridge. I bake WW/AP SD loaves with between 50 and 100% WW, about 80+% hydration, with a 100% rye starter, on the stiff side.
But when I start the whole process without autolyze and by vigorously mixing the starter in the water (until very foamy) and adding the flour, the following bulk then becomes very sluggish. It's like the starter has been drown and is no longer as active. By the time the proper ph is reached it's been a very long time, much longer than usual and the resulting loaf is a sour flat goopy mess. I tried with and without retardation during the bulk.
I've had this behavior several times before but with different environments/ flours but this time it's exactly the same setting so I know this is a factor.
But this seems to defy logic … Any insights ??? Thanks
think something is going on in the autolyse preventing the sourdough starter from breaking down the protein matrix when compared to starter added directly Into flour and water without an autolyse?
What is the pH of the autolyse before and after the flour has "soaked?"
are forming when thinning the starter with water. Try a site search for "pesky thiol, wink" and see if that could apply. If so, a bit of playing with the starter straightens it up.
Thanks a lot this is fascinating, ! Didn't know about thiol. I'm not sure yet that it applies here as my problem is not so much the dough turning very liquid and sticky very quickly - It becomes sticky, but after a while, most likely due to regular proteolysis, and because the hapless baker has been waiting too long for a fermentation that never really took off. But I'll keep reading and might try the starter fix. Thanks again
"It's like the starter has been drown and is no longer as active."
Let's think of what could be in water that might kill, or inhibit, yeast and LAB.
What's the temp of the water into which you mix the starter? Could it be hot enough to start killing off some microbes?
I forget the exact temp yeast die at. Maybe around 130 F? Since you're not getting the pH that you want, maybe it's the LAB that is dieing off due to high temp. (I don't know LAB's upper limit.) Whereas maybe the cooler flour brings the water temp down to where they don't harm the LAB when added to the cooler dough.
Second thought. Are you using chlorinated tap water? Maybe straight tap water has enough chlorine to slow the LAB, but when the water is "diluted" with flour first, the concentration of chlorine is low enough so as not to harm the LAB when it is eventually added.
Third: Are you in Florida, USA? Florida has some weird water in places.
Thanks for the good points ! but I'm not sure the water type or temp is to blame here. I use filtered room temp (21C ish) water for every bakes, and to feed my starter. (Montreal, Canada FYI). When my process works the autolyse can be either cold (Retarded in the fridge) or at room temp for a couple of hours.
I think Mini might be closer to the true answer, but just for the sake of completeness, let me ask if you are using filtered tap water, or buying filtered water in bottles?
If it's filtered tap water, weird things can still happen. I might suggest using _bottled spring water_ for a test bake where you first dissolve the starter in water. That's a shot in the dark, but it may rule out, or rule in, water as the problem.
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Another tack... did this recently start happening? What else happened at the same time? A new starter? A move to a new house? Was a new water-treatment device added to your house? Did the municipal water utility change anything? (Like changing from chlorine to chloramine.)
Well thinking of it - It also happened a while ago when I was away in France for vacations, where I was using bottled water. That was actually where I tried this method first, and it failed with the same symptoms. I had put that on the different flour used. It's only now that I realize that the initial starter mixing is the main factor (As everything else is equal)
I'm not sure how you meant everything else is equal. The "good" method has a no-starter autolyse before bulk ferment, and the "less good" method has no autolyse before the starter begins to ferment the dough. So the difference between the two methods is that by autolysing the flour without the starter, you then have more sugar available for the yeast when you do add the starter.
Flour + water slowly makes sugar out of the starch. But the speed depends on how much amylase/malt/enzymes there are. WW has the enzymes or naturally occuring amylase in the bran. White AP flour has very little amylase/enzymes, so flour companies sometimes add amylase/malt to white AP and white bread flour. But, not all the time -- you have to check the package.
This bit of info above (experience in france) now leads me to believe it's the flour acting with the autolyse, because EU flour generally doesn't have amylase or malt added, and therefore needs an "autolyse" to make some sugar.
I now suspect more strongly that your Canadian AP flour does not have added amylase/malt. It will say so in the ingredient list if it does.
So now, I'm leaning towards agreeing with clevins' comment.... It is the autolyse (without starter) because maybe your Canadian AP flour has no amylase/malt. Please let us know when you find out from the bag, or from the flour company website.
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Let me word it another way.
- AP flour without added amylase/malt needs an autolyse (without starter) to make enough sugar for a normal/good fermentation.
-AP flour with added amylase/malt does not always require an autolyse (before starter is added) because the added amylase/malt speeds up the sugar-making process and makes sugar quickly enough to feed the microbes in the starter.
"It's only now that I realize that the initial starter mixing is the main factor"
No, you're also comparing an autolysed mix with a non-autolysed one. As I noted above, the yeast aren't damaged at all by being mixed in water first.
If you want to do an experiment, do the same mixing the yeast with water, then flour using an autolyse in one loaf and not using it in the other while holding everything else constant.
So let's go back to this point - yeast don't have lungs obviously so they can't drown, i.e. just being immersed in water won't hurt them assuming the water isn't too hot or somehow toxic to them. So adding the yeast to water, stirring it, then adding flour can't be causing this without the water being an issue (temp, chlorine/chloramine etc).
I'd try two things - 1) as above, use bottled spring water but mix the way you describe (disperse starter in water, etc) and see what happens (ensuring that the water is well below a temp that would kill yeast/LAB) and 2) with your regular filtered tap, try mixing the flour and water, then adding starter, then mixing.
PS: You're also changing two things - "...when I start the whole process without autolyze and by vigorously mixing the starter in the water...". It could simply be that the autolyse causes bulk to be much more efficient. So, what I'd do is eliminate one of the variables and NOT mix the starter in water as described for a bake where you choose not to autolyse. If bulk is still inefficient then you know it's the absence of the autolyse.
clevins brings up a good point. The autolyse makes sugar via the enzymes in the WW breaking down the starch. That sugar feeds the fermentation.
But you say you use 50% AP flour. And in Canada, some AP flour doesn't have added amylase or added malted barley flour like in the US. (This is one reason why we need to know where people are located.)
So without the autolyze the low enzymatic activity of your AP flour may not be making sugar fast enough for proper fermentation. But the autolyse gives sugar-making a headstart before the acid in the starter can work at cross-purposes.
Could you please check your bag of AP flour and let us know if it has amylase or malted-something flour in the ingredients? Maybe check online if you no longer have the bag.
So, if you don't want to spend the time for an autolyse, adding some diastatic malt powder may "fix" the AP flour's lack of amylase/malt, if that's the case.