I seem to be having a problem with my starter. I'm wondering if anyone can help. When I first started this starter it was well able to double its size. It even overflowed out of its container at one stage. At this point I put it in the fridge. I'm thinking this may not have been a good idea. With in a short time it developed a sharp yoghurty smell. Kind of like the smell of natural Greek yoghurt. I also tasted it and it tasted very sour, like sour cream or natural yoghurt.
Since this Sunday it has been living on the kitchen bench. It hasn't been inside the fridge since. I have been feeding it twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I have been feeding it with bread flour and water in the ratio of 2:1:1 starter:flour:water.
But the smell and taste are not what is worrying me. When I first made this starter it was able to double in size. But now it is barely able to make a few bubble. It doesn't have the strength to rise itself, let alone a loaf of bread.
So does anyone know of a way to save this starter or should I throw it out and start again?
Thanks for any help anyone can give me.
Replies
This is basically the exact problem I had over here: http://sourdough.com/forum/another-oblig-first-starter-help
Mine seems to be doing better now. I might have done something to jog it though...I used less water and more flour, making it almost dry. This seemed to encourage the growth. However, it might have just been timing, these things take time to settle in sometimes.
I am a newbie as well, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Worth looking up sour dough recipe C/- Reader's digest and too search for Richard Bertinet's bood, Crust.
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The fridge is a good place to keep it and it keeps with a feed when you feel like it, once or twice a week, indefinitely, re membering to toss out some each time, but if you bake once a week then there is little need to toss any away.
I made some the other day and it was fantastic, 18 hours on third rise before baking. I had only scrapings of ferment left but within hours on the bench top the new ferment was bubbling away like mad. Straight to the fridge for a few days before another (tossed some out this time) feed. Leave on bench top for a couple of hours and back to the fridge, today, 3/8/11, will use on Friday night for a Saturday noonish bake off.
Have a look at my no knead bread on
www.kdafford.com
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It sounds like it might have become very acidic. Try reducing the proportion of starter - something like 1:2:2 starter:flour:water, which will reduce its acidity and give it a chance.
Also maybe don't feed it twice a day unless it's showing signs of life.
Are you using the same flour as always? That could be another factor.
I did some reading and have learned a few things. First I believe that the culture that first started frothing away was not actually yeast. It may have been a bacteria called leuconostoc. I have read that this bacteria produces carbon dioxide just like yeast, but also produces a lot of acid. So much that it kills its self. That would explain why my starter was so acidic with a yoghurty taste and smell. It would also explain why it was bubbling away so well in the first few days. At one stage it even over flowed from its jar into the bowl it was sitting in.
So I figured if I picked this bacteria up from the bread flour it wouldn't do any good (and didn't do any good) to just keep adding more of this flour and this bacteria before I had a healthy collony of yeast. So I have switched to a plain white flour which the packet says is for making steamed buns (They don't make a lot of bread here in Thailand, but they do make a lot of steamed buns)
Also, I am only going to feed it in the afternoons and then only if it is looking like it is active.
So today I came home from work to find some bubbles and the thing that makes me feel like I may be getting somewhere, it now smells like bread instead of yoghurt.
As fermentation goes on in your starter, bacteria also produce lactic and acetic acids. This is normal as yeast and bacteria live in a symbiotic relationship.
Basically the trick is to learn how your starter reacts to different feedings and temperatures. Lactic acid producing bacteria prefer room temperatures while acetic producing bacteria’s prefer colder temperatures. By maintaining your starter in the refrigerator the acetic producing bacteria’s how grown making your starter very sour. On the other hand if your feeding 2:1:1 using this highly acetic starter their isn’t enough water and flour to dilute the acid and feed the yeast. If you used it to make bread you can bake nice looking bread, but it won’t have the best volume and you'll get what I call the pineapple effect, 30 minutes after eating the bread you can still feel the sourness in your mouth.
Try this experiment and see how it works out for you. Take some of your starter and feed it 1:3:3, leave it covered at room temperature, even if your starter has high concentrations of acetic acid you should see some good bubbles after about 5 hours. You could do this overnight and it can be done starting with a tablespoon or more if you wish of starter, it all depends on how much levain you want to end with. If you get a nice structure of bubbles after the resting period then you'll have a good young levain ready to be used in your recipe. If not, it means your starter needs a little more time to mature. Keep feeding it, but discard most of the starter before feeding it, thus keeping the acid at low levels and giving the remaining starter lots of food.
Once you've reached this point you're ready to bake. Just remember the longer you ferment your dough the more acidic it gets. So if you retard you're loafs in the refrigerator for 24 hours your bread will be more sour than if you didn't retard at all. This sour note will depend on what you like, for me because of schedules and flavor profile 12 hours are what I use.
Good luck and good baking.