I decided I didn't have much to lose and I'm rather new to baking in general as well as sourdough, but I started a starter sometime about half a week ago. I've been using TJ Whole Wheat flour, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup flour, and feeding it about every 12 hours with same. I did not use any other ingredients to start it off, just trying to let the natural yeasts do their work. It smells rather like sourdough, and (though risky and probably stupid to do this) tastes rather like sourdough as well. However, it has not been rising much anymore. On the first day, about 12 hours in, it doubled in size, but has failed to do this since.
I am a biology guy, and I think the lactobacillus have pretty much made themselves at home. The yeasts, I think, are there, but they don't seem to be doing terribly much. I see some turbulence and some air gaps (it's a glass bowl), but nothing nearly as dramatic as the first time.
It's fairly hot around here, my house is not air-conditioned, and it has been in the low 30s celcius (high 80s-low 90s fahrenheit) during the day, and for the past 24 or so hours the bowl has been in a water bath. This did not correct the problem yet.
Any suggestions?
Any suggestions?
Replies
If you have been only at it for three or four days then I think you just need to be patient and it will most likely come good. It could take several more days yet.
I'm a bit surprised that you reckon you got so much activity on day one but anything is possible I guess.
One thing might be to try adding some rye flour to the blend as this has some goodies that seem to help things along particularly in the early days or if you want to give it a boost at any time.
I routinely use rye in my culture but I am sure that it would be fine without it. I just like the bit of colour that it gives to the bread if you are using only white flour for dough preparation.
All the best
Farinam
I'm on my 6th starter and each has been different, but as it is winter here I think the temperature is a major factor.
I also use the water bath as well as the oven overnight.
Generally activity accelerated by day 6. I use pineapple juice with 1/3 rye and 2/3 baker's flour.
While all loaves have been eaten with great delight, the dense texture was not quite what I liked.
In the last batch I added 1/2 packet of yeast at the sponge stage. That gave it a bit more aeration but still a firm texture, and with the rye it had a beautiful crisp thin crust.
I'll do that while it is cold here. Next lot will be with stoneground wholemeal with white.
I'd agree with above-just wait a bit and see how it goes by day 6.
If still not so good, add a little yeast.
I find it easier to go on weight, as a cup of flour is a very variable thing depending on how compressed it is. Equal weight of flour and water works well to get a starter going.
That first flush of activity you saw is very common (I forget the exact nature of the bio reaction that's happening at that stage), but it's very far from being a workable starter, and after that it does go to sleep and appears to be doing very little for a while.
In warm weather, you might have a stable, workable starter at around 6-7 days, though normally I would expect closer to 10 days to 2 weeks before it's completely active and stable.
And sorry terri7, I have to strongly disagree with the advice to add commercial yeast to a starter - a sourdough starter is all about wild yeast, and there's no reason that a sourdough starter won't work if given the right conditions (suitable flours, time, reasonable sterility, temperature, hydration). Commercial yeast and wild yeasts thrive in different conditions, so there's nothing to be gained and everything to be lost by adding commercial yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae). I'm not saying there's no place for commercial yeast in baking, just that it doesn't belong in sourdough starter.
I had a similar problem with my starter. I also recently got into baking and this is all new to me too.
The problem I had was that the starter was bubbling away happily on day three but a few days later on Sunday when I was going to bake it had gone to sleep and had become very acidic. It smelled and tasted like natural yoghurt.
I have read that the reason behind this is that the flour has a lot of bacteria called leuconostoc which is similar to yeast in that it produces carbon dioxide, but it also produces a lot of acid. After a while this bacteria produces so much acid that it kills its self.
To fix this I have change to feeding my starter with a bleached white flour so that any yeast in my starter don't have to compete with the leuconostoc bacteria. When it looks like it is healthy I will change back to bread flour.
Of course all the advice I have read says that the starter isn't really ready until at least 7 days after it is first started. Sometimes it is not good to ignore the advice of people more knowledgeable than myself.
I hope with some patients both our starters will be making great tasting bread in the near future.
I say be patient! I also agree with Kymh do not add commerical yeast to your wild yeast. I believe your error was to put it in the fridge to early, because you thought it was ready when it doubled. Yeast takes on a different life several times from beginning to when you use it. What I mean is that it will smell like fruit, then like alcohol then appear to die with no activity, right before it is ready. so be patient and things should go well for you.