My troublesome Lievito Madre journey (aka i need some help)
TL;DR: 40+ DAYS CONSTANT FEEDING ; FIRST 20 DAYS NO RISE AT ALL ; DAY 20-40 LITTLE RISE ONLY AFTER 6 HOURS
This forum has been the main source for Lievito troubleshoting that I found, so I want to track my actual problem in a way to make it public, so someone else with the same issues could have it easy in their journey. I have the first 30 days literally recorded in my camera, with the pH's info for each day and after each feeding cycle.
I already had some very nice results doing panettone, bu I was using a lievito that Roy Shrapnelsincoksanuria (i will never memorize his name, but you know who it is) gave in a workshop here in brasil.
I'm using mineral water and Molino Pasini Panettone flour. The photos are from right now, the measurement was made with a droplet of deionized water inside a litle hole i made with the spear pH meter.
Photos from today, 6h after feeding.
Imagem do WhatsApp de 2024-02-14 à(s) 23.55.03_e43c5984.jpg
How i made the lievito
Following giancarlo montanari 4.1, but instead of using rye i used organic whole wheat, panetone flour and diastatic malt flour. Was not able to follow the exact schedule he suggests in the book because I was not getting enougjh activity to turn to the "production mode" (2 lactic feedings, 1 long acetic tied, milanese method). All the feedings until day 35 were done following 1:1:43% (Lievito, flour, water)
First 7 days: no leavening at all, but sharp decrease on pH, ending at somewhere aroound 3.8 after 20h. Normal consistency.
Days 8-14: Still the decrease on pH, but not as sharp, but the texture changed a lot. It got really sticky, the voices in my head told me that since the colony was not yet stabilized it should've been proteolitic bacteria that where not yet "purified" by the acidity. The pH would take at least 12h to drop below 4.2
Days 15-20: The stickyness decreased slowly, until it got to a point of getting to the pH dropping to the lowest point in "only" 6h. Then I started feeding more regularly, 2 x 6h at 27C and then a 16h+ at 17C. Day 20 was the last day using diastatic malt flour.
Day 21-37: First day with visible yeast activity, I was about to start over. From that day on I started feeding it when it reached the max volume, after 6h to 8h. The pH would be somewhere around 4 to 4.1, sometimes a little higher. At night it would go to acetic fermentation for 16h to 32h depending on my schedule. Sometimes if I felt that it was too lactic i would make 2 straight acetic fermentations, with notable differences on smell and texture at the end of them. If the pH was lower than 3.9 i'd made a bagnetto.
Day 37-now: I started to research everywhere in the net, including here, possible causes and therefore possible solutions.
Possible issues (source: my head and some posts) and how I dealed with them:
1 - TOO MUCH ACID IN THE LIEVITO / TOO MUCH OLD CELLS
I tought that maybe there was a acid carryover from all the days of previous fermentation, so I fed the lievito in a 0,5:1:45% and made the acetic fementation at 17C for 24h using the piemontese method (under water). After 16h the pH of the water was 3.9 and the inside of the lievito was 3.8.
I then fed the lievito at 0,5:1:40% at 28C, then 1:1:43%, smells nicer but still slow.
2 - TOO LITTLE YEAST POPULATION
This is the most probable one, for sure, so since I''m liking the smell a little more I will feed it at 28C several times a day, until pH drops to 4.0, and then feed and store in the fridge, meaning, doing only lactic fermentation until I have enough rise.
3 - MAYBE NOT USING VAN-OVER METHOD?
Since i work with little ammounts of lievito, I'm using a little food processor to mix the water and lievito first, and then the flour. I tought of it because my stand mixer needs a at leat 5 times the ammount of dough to properly homogenize it. Right now I'm making 23g water, 50g lievito and 50 water. The gluten ends up ok and after laminating the dough is pretty smooth, I've seen this kneading technique for the first time in Modernist Baking, from america test kitchen, but maybe it is not ideal foir lievito? Over oxidation of the lievito + water mixture?
This is my approach right now and I would love to know if anybody have any suggestion, like, should I change flower? feeding habits? I would love to hear something different. And I can provide media from any of the stages of the feeding journey if you guys think it would help to understand better my situation.