I have been baking dough with the standard store bought yeast for a couple of weeks now, and decided that I wanted to go the more traditional ,not to mention flavorful, route. So I took the last 3/4 cup of some stoneground whole wheat flour I had and mixed it with water till it became a thick pancake batter like paste and added a tablespoon of raw honey. I put it in a clean plastic container and put a black sock out of the drier around it. Afterwards I set it outside at about 2 o'clock. Once night came I brought it back in and set it on a warm surface (it already had tiny bubbles at the top and sides).
I woke up late today at around 10:30 and went to check on it first thing. Much to my surprise it had doubled in size with large bubble evenly distributed, and an extremely strong blue cheese smell. I stirred it down and came back at 11:30. The starter had doubled in size again. I poured off half of it and mixed some new paste in before setting it outside.
I was under the impression that it generally took a few days for starter to form bubbles. Is the early rising and smell something to be glad about, or should I start over?
Replies
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Thanks for the reply. Now that I have checked on it again it seems like I need to put it in either a larger container or multiple as it seems to be more than 3 times the size it was when I last checked it. It also smells like a more tart then before. The sock is effectively ruined; I believe that next time I do this I will be using cheese cloth and a couple of glass jars under different light and temperatures to see if I can get different bacteria dominances.
What you were getting in the first 24 hours is the initial fermentation of your flour. Flour naturally contains a wide variety of yeast and bacteria spores some are good some are not so good. When wheat flour contacts water the enzyme amylase starts breaking down the starches in the grain. This initial rise will not raise bread and would definitely produce bad tasting bread... Most likely the gas produced in your starter the first day is caused by Leuconostoc species of bacteria. See this article by Debra Wink over on The Fresh loaf, she does a great job of explaining the science of sourdough baking http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1 She even describes the blue cheese rotten milk smell you experienced. She also explains why these type of bacteria don't survive in a sourdough culture once it is established.
If you really want to build a successful starter please follow the instructions found here on the sourdough companion. I don't want to criticise the way you are going about making a starter but after reading your comments I did a little research. I found several sites with a lot of mis-information or partial mis-information about starting a sourdough starter. I would highly recommend starting your starter with instructions from here or one of the other dedicated sourdough sites. Sites like this one that support traditional sourdough bread and baking.
Using honey will be detrimental to achieving the right blend of yeast and bacteria in your starter. You may be growing a culture but not specifically a sourdough culture. The reason some put honey in their starter is so give the yeast something more to eat off of. The problem with adding honey is that it encourages yeast instead of lactic-acid producing bacteria which would give you an alcoholic fermentation. Although it is okay to add honey later to a dough you should not be using it for your starter.
By definition sourdough is a sybiotic culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria and creates an environment for those friendly microbes to thrive. But rather than throwing your starter out, you may just want to start another starter using the instructions in the beginner's blog that SourDom started here on the sourdough companion. http://sourdough.com/blog/sourdom/beginners-blog-starter-scratch Then you can find out yourself which one raises bread best.
You should only be keeping a small amount of starter to refresh the first week of starting a starter. If you don't discard the excess you will be feeding a kilo or more of flour to your baby starter in less than 10 days! Dom explains this in the beginners blog. Hope this helps!
Best Regards!
Terri
Keeping a smaller beginning starter keeps waste to a minimum.
Sourdom's starter instructions on this site are terrific. I had a couple of false starts/starters due to some dodgy advice/instructions, but thanks to the assistance of Graham (this site's founder) and sourdom's starter instructions, I developed a great starter that is still going gangbusters - and has resulted in many great breads, pizzas, pancakes...and even a wonderful SD panettone!
Go straight to the sourdoughcompanion starter instructions and you'll never look back!
Best of baking!
Ross