Starters gone wrong. Or something.

oscar
Hello everyone,

Been reading the forum and found it full of useful information. So, I'm starting with sourdough baking and am having serious problems with the starter.

A year ago I bought two italian cultures from Ed Wood (of Sourdo.com), threw it to the refrigerator, and wanted to start them a month ago. I followed the instructions pretty carefully (100% hydration, 27-30ºC, 24 hour for 1st feeding, 12 hour subsequent one) and got nothing out of it. The first one didn't have a single bubble, the second one got a bit bubbly on the 1st feeding, but nothing after. I thought it might be because of the long time on my refrigerator, so after a week I throw both away and bought new ones — also, the starters had a milky/cheesy aroma at the first, the more I feed them, the more alcoholic ("acetonic"?) they turned, which didn't look good to me.

The day before yesterday I received the new cultures and decided to start one of them right away. So I mixed 1 ounce of the culture with 220 grs. of organic (bleached) flour and 250 ml. of warm (not hot) bottled water and put it into a closet at 30ºC.

Here's a photo of the starter just after the mix:

[img]http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5205/startrq7.jpg[/img]

After 16 hours the starter was reallly active, full of bubbles and more than doubled its size, and I was pretty happy. I couldn't do a refeed at that moment, so I did the feeding at 22 hours (yesterday, late at night). At that moment the starter did show a bit of recession and a layer of hooch in the middle. Here's the photo:

[img]http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1815/24hoursad7.jpg[/img]

To do the feeding, I threw away half of the starter, replaced it with 50/50 flour/water and put it back to the closet. This time the temp for proofing was 25ºC, though. And this morning after getting up, the shock:

[img]http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2301/30hourslo7.jpg[/img]

The starter seemed not to be active at all! Just like the previous ones, it had a layer of water (don't know if it's hooch of simple separated water) and no signs of activity.

This morning I've thrown away half of it and replaced with 50/50 flour/water again.

Do you know what might be happening? Am I doing something wrong?
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Replies

davo 2008 November 18
Just having a guess here, but your recipe as described uses about 50 g starter in about 500 g bread dough, in a one-stage dough. That's about 10%, which I would have thought was low. By comparison, when I expand a starter volume into a levain, and then a levain into a bread dough, each time I am using active femented stuff at about 25-30% of the "dough" weight. Then the other thing is you have given it one hour only before fridging - I would notmally "bulk ferment" for say 2 or so hours THEN shape loaves, and  THEN pout them in the fridge. Also once out of the fridge, I would leave them for say 1 hour or so to come back close to room temp before baking. The way your recipe/method reads, I think:

There weren't enough active bugs to make your bread dough even with normal ferment/prove times, and then your ferment/prove times before and after the fridge step seemed low. SO it was always going to struggle on two fronts.

Just my take, and I may have mis interpreted what you have been doing...
davo 2008 November 18

Also, don't go shaping it when it's about to go in the oven!

Once you are making bread dough either from starter in a one-stage dough, or from levain in a two-stage dough, you mix/autolyse/knead, then "bulk ferment" with folding, then shape the loaf/loaves, then prove. The loaves are already shaped before they are proved, and are not at all shaped after proving - they are simply turned onto an oven stone, or onto baking paper on a tray, or whatever - I basically never touch the dough with my hands once it's bedded down to prove, other than poking  a finger in a tiny bit to see whether it's proved enough.
oscar 2008 November 18
Hi davo,

[quote=davo]Just having a guess here, but your recipe as described uses about 50 g starter in about 500 g bread dough, in a one-stage dough. That's about 10%, which I would have thought was low. By comparison, when I expand a starter volume into a levain, and then a levain into a bread dough, each time I am using active femented stuff at about 25-30% of the "dough" weight. Then the other thing is you have given it one hour only before fridging - I would notmally "bulk ferment" for say 2 or so hours THEN shape loaves, and  THEN pout them in the fridge. Also once out of the fridge, I would leave them for say 1 hour or so to come back close to room temp before baking. The way your recipe/method reads, I think:

There weren't enough active bugs to make your bread dough even with normal ferment/prove times, and then your ferment/prove times before and after the fridge step seemed low. SO it was always going to struggle on two fronts.[/quote]

Good catch here. I have been reading through all the recipes of Ed Wood's book "Classic Sourdoughs" and would confirm what you say: in my two last breads I've probably been using too little culture and letting them proof for too little time. In fact, my first attempt, though bricky, looked much better (though I still don't understand why it didn't work, maybe my flour had too little gluten, as has been said on the thread).

In his recipes, he uses always almost 1/3 of liquid culture, and lets it proof longer times than I did.

[quote=davo]Also, don't go shaping it when it's about to go in the oven![/quote]

I had not really formed the loaf before taking it into the oven, I just took it out of the plastic container I had put it in a wooden peel with great care — I had to stretch just a bit, though — and slashed it.

[quote=davo]Once you are making bread dough either from starter in a one-stage dough, or from levain in a two-stage dough, you mix/autolyse/knead, then "bulk ferment" with folding, then shape the loaf/loaves, then prove. The loaves are already shaped before they are proved, and are not at all shaped after proving - they are simply turned onto an oven stone, or onto baking paper on a tray, or whatever - I basically never touch the dough with my hands once it's bedded down to prove, other than poking  a finger in a tiny bit to see whether it's proved enough.[/quote]

OK, this is more or less what I have been doing.
davo 2008 November 19
OK, so try with more culture and longer bulk ferment (from kneading up to shaping the loaves) and proof (once loaves are shaped, up to going in the oven) times, and see how it works. And post a pic.

I'd also guess if your first loaf didn't quite work but times/amounts were better, it might just have been an immature starter. They take a while for the yeasts to get in balance with the bacilli, I gather, and mine certainly changed how it made bread over the first 4-6 weeks (first loaves a bit heavy, fine after that, with all methods and recipes pretty constant), and has been pretty constant since.

PS I have a son called Oscar (and a brother called Lamp!)

Cheers
Wet's picture
Wet 2008 November 19
:o Maybe mine would be "lack of" :)

Good stuff David :)

I re-shape my loaves to get them side by side on the stone just before slashing and loading them, they wrinkle underneath but still work ok. Maybe with our new Bannetons they won't need re-shaping :D
lamp's picture
lamp 2008 November 22
[quote=davo]

PS I have a son called Oscar (and a brother called Lamp!)

Cheers[/quote]


Funny about that Davo....I actually suspect you might be my brother because I have a nephew called Oscar......
oscar 2008 November 30
Hey this thread is getting pretty familiar :D

OK, I've been finally able to test the new flour and the tips on timing that davo gave me.

This new flour is a lot different from the one I was using until now. It absorbs water like crazy,  I need to increase water percentages between a 5% and a 10% to get a similar dough consistency. I also made a starter with this flour, and at 100% hydration it is like a paste (i.e. not liquid), and it stretches like a bubble gum, as if it was kneaded (maybe I'll upload some photos).

This time I followed a recipe for plain bread from the ...Au levain! blog: Recette de base. The output it's been pretty good compared with my previous attempts.

I've encountered two problems:
  1. The damn toaster, er, oven: this time I didn't use the stone, I decided to use a baking sheet (it was a home-politics decision :P). I sprayed the crust before putting it into the oven, and then again at 5/10/15 min. After 35 min. the bottom started burning and the top was still pale, so I had to turn on the broiler, this gave the top the correct color, but a sense of wrongness in me.
  2. Chewiness: the crust is incredibly thin and the crumb is too chewy (I don't know if it is the right word, I mean it is gummy). I don't have any idea why this might be, any clues? The crust is incredibly thin, so I can press the top of the bread and will act like a sponge (I like thin crusts though).
Now to the visuals. This time take with a digicam, so they're not that crappy.

Here's the loaf:



Here's the crumb detail:



Apart from the chewiness, I can say that I'm am pretty happy with the result.
lamp's picture
lamp 2008 November 30
Well done Oscar, that bread looks pretty good and has quite a nice looking crumb. I think the new flour and Davo's tips have made quite a difference.  :-)

I'm not sure about the chewy texture but most sourdough has a body and texture to it that soft white bread does not. It may be due to a number of factors though like the recipe you are using, the temperature the bread was baked at, the time in the oven.....maybe your toaster/oven is cooking your crust before the bread is properly cooked. Try your next loaf at a slightly lower temperature for a longer time, but the crust color looks good and the bread looks cooked so I don't really know.
davo 2008 December 1

Oscar, that bread looks great to me. I'd do it hot at the start and then turn down and bake longer for a thicker crust. The crumb might seem a little "gummy" when the bread is warm or barely cooled. Try waiting til next day and it will have firmed but not at all gone stale. It's best 1 to 2 days after baking.

I have found you can even the heat  out a little by varying the height of the shelf that you put the bread on, and by inserting an empty baking tray on a shelf below (which can reduce the effect of the bottom cooking too fast...)
oscar 2008 December 1
[quote=lamp]Well done Oscar, that bread looks pretty good and has quite a nice looking crumb. I think the new flour and Davo's tips have made quite a difference.  :-)[/quote]

Yes, I knew this time it was different because the loaf had risen a lot before taking it into the oven.

[quote=lamp]I'm not sure about the chewy texture but most sourdough has a body and texture to it that soft white bread does not. It may be due to a number of factors though like the recipe you are using, the temperature the bread was baked at, the time in the oven.....maybe your toaster/oven is cooking your crust before the bread is properly cooked. Try your next loaf at a slightly lower temperature for a longer time, but the crust color looks good and the bread looks cooked so I don't really know. [/quote]

Thanks lamp, will try cooking at lower temperature next time.

I know sourdough is different than "straight" bread, but I have bought sourdough organic bread at a bakery and it wasn't this chewy...
oscar 2008 December 1
[quote=davo]Oscar, that bread looks great to me. I'd do it hot at the start and then turn down and bake longer for a thicker crust. The crumb might seem a little "gummy" when the bread is warm or barely cooled. Try waiting til next day and it will have firmed but not at all gone stale. It's best 1 to 2 days after baking.[/quote]

OK davo, I will do this 2 steps on my next loaf. I think this time I took out the loaf too soon because the bottom was getting too dark (almost black) and cut the first slice right away (hard to wait on your first breads :)), the crumb was still a bit humid.

[quote=davo]I have found you can even the heat  out a little by varying the height of the shelf that you put the bread on, and by inserting an empty baking tray on a shelf below (which can reduce the effect of the bottom cooking too fast...)[/quote]

I don't think I will be able to put the tray higher on the oven because the oven is really small, but I can put a tray below, and hope it helps dampening the temperature of the tray where the bread is sitting.

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