Looks and smells OK but it never seems to get really lively. It always stays about the same height in the container.
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Looks and smells OK but it never seems to get really lively. It always stays about the same height in the container.
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The amount of bubbling looks just fine but I’d like to see a picture of the side of your jar. What is the percentage hydration of your starter? If hydration is very high, the bubbles escape and it won’t be able to "spring" up. I hope you are calculating your ingredients by weight and not volume. A cup of flour and a cup of water won’t account for 100% hydration; in fact, flour is often 3 to 4 times lighter than water for an equivalent volume. Also make sure your flour is not protein-poor, which would create a poor medium for cultivating bacteria and won’t have enough structure to keep bubbles. I’ve made an experiment: transferring a sourdough culture to potato starch and corn starch; the culture died, probably by lack of available proteine and nutriments.
Hugo, what amount of water do you suggest for each 100g of flour? I am now on day 7 and my starter rises lovely in the first 3 hours after feeding but falls very quickly :(
I have been using 50g flour to 50ml water or 100g flour to 100ml water. The side view has no 'height to it! Part wholemeal and part unbleached white, bottled water and jar left slightly open, as I have had some cracked jars!
i use the same ratio as you steve, mine doubles in height almost, but falls just as quick :/
My starter has never doubled in volume but froths quite well for a couple of hours. I am trying feeding it more regularly and with with all wholemeal every other feed. I will see what happens!
Another 4 hours gone by, dumped half and this time added 50g wholemeal flour and 50ml bottled water. Looking lively again.