Sourdough starter?

[Alix]

Hey philso, my kitchen can be pretty toasty during the day, but sometimes in the evening and at night it can get pretty chilly. I suspect that was the issue as we had quite a cold snap that week and I didn't do anything to insulate the container. I do suspect the tap water was a factor as well. I'd been using distilled (I have a distiller) and it was working fine. I forgot on the last feeding and used tap and kaput. Oh well, next round will be the one that works. I'm not going to start it til the weather warms up and all is calm in my brain. LOL.

 

[FrankZ]

I have been using tap water for mine. Seems to be moving along happily. I suppose I need to feed or make a loaf today though. Hmmm... fresh baked bread with almost 50 inches of snow on the ground.

 

[FrankZ]

I have a concern about my starter.

Last week I made two loaves in a row (something I had not done before) but I also only replenished it as if i had done one loaf.

Tonight I made a loaf and after replenishing it like normal it hasn't puffed back up. Does this mean I am going to loose this one? Can I feed it another teaspoon of sugar and save it?

Thanks.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

i've read of tap water being harmful to sourdoughs, but i've pretty much always used it myself without the starter dying.

i'm wondering how warm or cold your kitchen is at this time of year. if you're sure the starter was active before, it could be that your cool kitchen was just making it take longer to work.

if worse comes to worst:

Classic Fresh Sourdough Starter - 1 oz.
French Sourdough Starter - 5g
or
Sourdough Cultures

I just now pleaded with DH to get me the King Arthur sourdough crock...It should happen, after all I got him a Harley!

 

[philso]

I have a concern about my starter.

Last week I made two loaves in a row (something I had not done before) but I also only replenished it as if i had done one loaf.

Tonight I made a loaf and after replenishing it like normal it hasn't puffed back up. Does this mean I am going to loose this one? Can I feed it another teaspoon of sugar and save it?

Thanks.

so, i'm not too sure how much (or little) you had left or how much flour & water you added to it, but if the remaining starter was still alive, it should still be fine. it'll just take a while for the little amount of yeast to multiply and get "lively" enough to use again. if you've just given it some water & flour, leave it out somewhere not too cool for a few days. it'll probably be fine. in my experience, sourdough has been pretty resiliant and takes some serious neglect to actually kill it off.

 

[philso]

I just now pleaded with DH to get me the King Arthur sourdough crock...It should happen, after all I got him a Harley!

1) if he doesn't, why don't you consider dumping that loser and move in with me. bring the harley, too.

2) don't give up entirely on doing your own starter. maybe wait for warmer weather & use some coarse dark rye or add some locally grown organic fruit peels as a yeast source.

3) if you buy some starter, let us know which you get & how it turns out. some of the ones from that other company sound pretty tasty.

good luck

 

[philso]

I have a concern about my starter.

Last week I made two loaves in a row (something I had not done before) but I also only replenished it as if i had done one loaf.

Tonight I made a loaf and after replenishing it like normal it hasn't puffed back up. Does this mean I am going to loose this one? Can I feed it another teaspoon of sugar and save it?

Thanks.

frankz - a little extra reading for you:

Use an Active Culture
As you know, when you add flour and water to the culture, it will go through a typical cycle where the culture froths up then recedes. For good results, it is not necessary to catch the culture at the peak of frothing, so long as it is used within a few hours afterwards.
The high level of activity in a culture can be maintained with storage in a refrigerator for 1-2 weeks. As the time in refrigerated storage increases, the effort to regenerate also increases. After a couple of months in storage, it can take a couple of days to regenerate. With several months of storage, it can take much longer.. If it has been sitting dormant in the refrigerator for many weeks, a continuous process of re-generation may be needed.
Using all purpose flour, add equal volumes of flour and water to the culture repeated for several days. To begin, add the flour and water to increase total volume about 3 fold, and let it set at room temperature until there is some sign of activity. It may be a couple days if the culture is really dormant. Typically at this stage, the activity may only be evident by the formation of a few relatively large bubbles (about 2-3 mm). The culture will likely taste strongly acidic. Dump out about ⅔ of this, and again add flour and water to bring it up to the same volume. As the activity of the culture begins to pick up, this process will be repeated daily, and then finally twice daily. In a strongly active culture, there will be significant frothing within a few hours of adding new flour and water. However, it may take 2-3 weeks to achieve this from a strongly dormant culture (probably because the balance of yeast to bacteria is way off).

from Sourdoughs International: sourdough bread starter, sourdough bread recipes, bread machine recipes recipe page.

 

[DinaFine]

I am making a hops starter. I boil hops for twenty minutes, strain out the liquid and then mix that with mashed potato and corn meal. The corn meal was cooked before adding. That ferments for 48 hours, then I make bread with it. Has anyone ever made this?

 

[PrincessFiona60]

1) if he doesn't, why don't you consider dumping that loser and move in with me. bring the harley, too.

2) don't give up entirely on doing your own starter. maybe wait for warmer weather & use some coarse dark rye or add some locally grown organic fruit peels as a yeast source.

3) if you buy some starter, let us know which you get & how it turns out. some of the ones from that other company sound pretty tasty.

good luck

1.) LOL...he got me the crock.

2.) I do have my own starter, I just got the crock. My starter belonged to my great-grandmother before she shared with me. I was the only one interested.

 

[FrankZ]

I added some flour this morning and it looks like it is starting to perk up a bit. Will be feeding again tomorrow morning and see if we can her moving along all healthy again.

If not I haven't named it yet so if I loose it I won't cry or anything, but I will have to start another which just delays having more bread.

 

[FrankZ]

Ok.. so after all this time with feeding and discarding it just won't even hardly bubble. I had evidence of about 3 bubbles this morning. Ugh.

So...

I started a new seed with whole wheat and distilled water, then thought I would experiment so I have whole wheat and tap water and AP flour and tap. Let's see what happens.

I have also switched from Pillsbury bread flour to King Aurthur.. I am not sure if the Pillsbury is bleached or not but the KA says unbleached.

And away we go...

 

[Alix]

Can't wait to hear how it works out.

 

[FrankZ]

Update time:

Starter #1 (Wheat flour and distilled water) is showing bubbles but isn't increasing in volume as much as I would like yet, but it is still early. A light yogurt type smell under the wet wheat flour smell. This has had its first discard and second feeding.

Starter #2 (Wheat flour and tap water) No real bubbles and smells like wet flour. This is about 24 hours younger than #1. I fed it but have not discarded yet.

Starter #3 (White all purpose flour and tap water) Showing some bubbles and some volume increase. Has a slightly more distinct yogurt type smell than #1. This one was started at the same time as #2 and has had the same care.

I think the kitchen might be a tad cool so it might take longer to mature the starter. Will keep updating all three starters for a while to see how we end up. If #2 shows no action in a few days it will be tossed, but it is too early to give up on it as of yet.

Will be feeding everyone again tonight and #2 and #3 will get their first discards I suspect.

 

[FrankZ]

Just did maintenance:

#1 - Smelling more yogurt like. Definitely showed signs of volume increase, though not quite as much as I would like. But it does seem happy and on its way. Tomorrow it gets white flour.

#2 - This one is about in the same place as #1 at the same point in time. It will get wheat again tomorrow. I did a discard out of it tonight.

#3 - More distinct yogurt smell than #1. That could be the lack of the wheat smell that #1 has to help mask. Pretty bubbly and had increased its volume nicely. Seems happy and moving in the right direction. I did a discard on it as well.

Some things I am taking away from this:

1) The water doesn't seem to be an issue for me. Tap or distilled doesn't seem to matter.
2) Starting with wheat flour may not have given these as much of a head start as one might expect. It could be hard to say as they weren't all started together so kitchen temperature might have played a part.

The kitchen was warmer today than yesterday as I baked some bread. I also moved the starter to the living room for a while (let it watch some TV) as it was warmer in there until I fired up the oven.

Will post more updates as they become available, film at 11.

 

[Alix]

What did you let it watch? Clearly my starter died of boredom as it was confined to the space behind my coffee maker and never allowed to watch TV.

 

[FrankZ]

Mighta been some of the Olympics coverage. Mighta been something else, I wasn't paying attention and made sure it couldn't order movies (not old enough for that yet).

 

[FrankZ]

So here I am giving #1 and #2 their first white flour feed. I completely misweigh the bin (oh yeah, yer supposed to use the tare weight) and I end up with 19g of #1 and dump 50g of water in before I say to myself "gee, that doesn't really look like enough gooey mess in the bottom"

#1 is now officially down the drain and out of our lives.
#2 has been fed white flour and I left #3 alone (did a discard and feed this morning) although I gave it a stir.

I hope they don't miss their friend too much.

I have also moved them to a warmer spot in the kitchen.

Now it is time to see if they want to go some work or just sit about blipping little bubbles.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

What did you let it watch? Clearly my starter died of boredom as it was confined to the space behind my coffee maker and never allowed to watch TV.

Ah, discovery!!! The perfect place for my starter would be near my coffee maker. It's a Buun that has it's reservior of hot water and puts out plenty of warmth to keep it happy. Thank-you, thank-you and it can watch TV from there, too!

 

[FrankZ]

So I am not happy with the progress.

#2 and #3 both have bubbles and the smell seems good to me, but they aren't actually rising. They puff a tad, but they aren't gonna make bread. I will give them more time as I have enough invested already.

I started two new ones last night. This time I am trying rye flour. So we have #4 and #5. I am following two different approaches.

I have also moved the starters to a new, undisclosed, location. Ok.. I took em upstairs and put them on my server in the computer room. Warmest place I have found that I can set things without it being too hot.

 

[Selkie]

Keep in mind that wild yeast is a terribly local creature! A particular strain can be localized to just a couple of dozen square miles or so, or as large as a small state. Some wild yeast is better than others, not only in taste, but it will behave differently as well. And there's no way of predicting it in advance. I happen to live in an area that has a very productive wild strain of yeast. It grows at a very fast rate... but it doesn't have a particularly attractive taste. It's very plain, and not pleasantly sour. In short, it's a crap shoot as to whether you can produce an attractive sour dough starter. This is a secret that no one wants to talk about, but serious sour dough/bread bakers all know.

For myself, I have searched for and now purchase yeast that works best for me and gives me a flavor I'm pleased with. (And it's not Red Star or Fleischmann's.) Just as with wines, there are regional brands that you may even have fun trying. I use the arrival of a new yeast as a reason to make my favorite breads and then share them with friends and family. Or if you want to dish out big bucks, order your sour dough yeast from San Francisco and be guaranteed an excellent flavor. Just don't think that you'll be able to keep that culture growing long term for yourself, because you won't! Your local wild yeast will invade it, take it over, and you'll end up with a distasteful mess. That effect is precisely what keeps them in business selling their particular strain of yeast.