February 21, 2022 - 1:25pm
Starter to levain, seems slugish
So I had a pretty active starter, doubling regularly, large and small bubbles. My starter was 50g mature, 50 rye, 50 AP, 100g water. Stored at 80F. With the flour to starter ratio i was feeding once per day. I used 35g of this starter for a levain which had 35g whole wheat, 35g AP, and 70 grams water storing at 80F. This levain has been sitting for about 3 hours and seems to be barely moving. Have I shocked the yeast or something by changing to whole wheat? Or should I just sit back and wait? I guess I’m wondering if I need to push off my bread making another day.
thanks
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What was the temperature of the water that you included? I always use my Thermapen to check the temperature of the water that I am putting into a levain and generally aim for something in the 85F area (depending on the ambient temperature too). If your water was not warm, then that will affect the rate at which the levain process occurs, and cooler water will mean a slower increase.
Happy baking.
Ted
Flour was around 70 and water was around 90, so I figured it dropped to around 80. I keep my starter in a temp controlled area at 80F, but room temp is around 70.
It’s still growing, just slow.
thanks,
So it’s now nearly 8pm and I’m still waiting for the levain ito peak. With all the other activities that still need to occur at what point do you write off the day and try for tomorrow?
One thing that happened to me is that I put the starter in the bottom of a container, put the flour on top, added the water, and mixed all of the flour and water, but -- and this is the important part -- neglected to make sure that the starter was thoroughly mixed into the rest. The result was that my levain did not rise, and I learned my lesson to plunge a wooden spoon all the way to the bottom and begin the mixing by making sure to stir the starter around amongst the flour and water.
Perhaps this is what you did (I certainly did that inadvertently and it was only later in thinking through what I had done that I realized my mistake). Of course, and this is why I titled this comment the way I did, it is only one possibility, and there are probably many others. Given what you have described, however, nothing else pops into my head right now as an obvious reason that your levain is not active.
It’s a fair question. I do have the starter on the bottom, then flour, then water, so it’s possible. But I do try to mix really well. So who knows.
Interesting, sounds like a plausible explanation, actually - with wheat the consistency of the mixture is different than rye, so perhaps you didn't mix as well as you thought...
I always put water on top of the starter, not flour, I think that helps to mix it more evenly.
I have always found that changing from rye makes my starter get grumpy. I think you will find on TFL most folks feed rye pretty consistently and if it is fresh ground one gets an even more robust response. When changing flours I usually feed small amounts every few hours for 2-3 small feedings and stir quite vigorously at each small feeding. Then leave in a warm place, my microwave with door ajar is quite warm. By morning all is happy in levain land. See if that works for you. c
I generally add the water to the starter, mix to “dissolve”, then add the flour.
Benny
my bet is that a starter fed 1:2:2 at 80° will be hungry quickly. What means "stored" at 80°F and fed only once a day? At that temp it will quickly eat up the available food and most likely need to be fed every 6 hrs or 4x a day unless chilled or salted. Sounds to me like the starter was underfed and acids built up. So it went into survival mode, now inactive sleeping until the pH rises high and long enough to wake it up. So....
Taste it and tell us how sour the starter and the levain are. Also consistency and aromas.
The starter has a slightly sour smell, but doughy also. The taste was also slightly sour, but not offensive. I may not know how sour you are thinking.
I will bring the temp down to 78F. I get really confused by all the ratios I see. Some say 1:1 some 1:2, etc… I had assume the different ratios would adjust time to ripen. With lower feeding ratios though, wouldnt I see a quicker response to rising?
thanks
thanks
Is the starter kept 24 hrs at 78° or 80°F?
The more detail, the easier it is to trouble shoot.
your rough location?
found this previous thread: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69922/rye-starter-not-rising
is this the same starter? It sounds like yeast boosting is needed. Ratios are simple comparisons. 1:2 simply means one weight of active culture starter to two times the weight of something else. A 1:2:3 ratio can mean starter:water:flour or it can mean starter:flour:water. <---(now that can get confusing!)
If the starter is 100% hydration it means the water and the flour weights are the same (1:2:2) not too much attention is needed to figure out which "2" is the flour. A 1:1:1 ratio just means every weight is the same.
Now to boost yeast in a starter, which right now looks like the solution to the sleepy starter, one needs to concentrate on making happy yeast. It looks and sounds so far like the bacteria in the starter are doing most of the rising. They like the warmer temps and are pretty good at taking care of themselves as we work on the yeast. There are far more bacteria in the starter than yeast, almost always.
If we give the yeast enough food to munch on for several generations of reproduction, they can stuff themselves silly and reproduce without too much interference from the bacteria telling them they can take it easy and save their energy for survival. Now if a generation increase or double their numbers in 45 min to an hour and a half (lots of variety in there) then it goes to follow that we should give them more food than what they can digest in an hour or two. The faster metabolizing yeast will be first to the food and double their numbers before the slow pokes get going.
You don't really see this with the naked eye looking at the uneventful fed starter and there will be a lag time too. But as the generations build and multiply you will gradually see changes. The most dominant being a build up of gas from bacteria because they are faster and can move around but they soon slow down while the yeast are in growth mode finding food. Stirring them helps yeast get to the food. Now if the temps are in the middle upper 70°s, The bacteria are more laid back while the yeast are multiplying. The trick here is have plenty of food for the yeast without introducing too much foreign bacteria (in the flour) so that the good bacteria in the sd culture can defend itself and the growing yeast population.
So how do we do that? We give the starter a bigger feeding of flour and wait it out. Try 5 g of starter to 50g each flour mixture and 50g water. (1:5:5) or You want the temps to be above 75° in the upper 70° range. 76°, 77° is ideal. Stir in about 4 hours and let the starter rise to domed peak. When it starts to dimple on top, before it falls, stir and repeat the 1:5:5 feeding. Be sure to mark and take notes. You should notice the time it takes to peak getting shorter with each feeding as yeast population grows. When you notice the feeding times getting be around 8 hours. Take a break and pop the starter into the fridge when it is about half risen to peak after a feeding.
Yes I made that post and then changed some things and my starter was active. Good bubbles and doubling in size. Once I had that occurring for a couple days in a row I made a levain and things seemed to stall. I had been holding the starter at 80F, but changed that to 78F after I read your post. I also changed my starter to 10g mature starter, 25 rye, 25 AP, 50 grams water at like 88F. I do understand what the ratios mean, what I should have been more clear on is that I don’t understand why certain people recommend one ratio and others recommend another. I have included a pic of my starter after 7 hours.
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thanks
I was worried about loosing the post with so little battery power. I was thinking 1:10:10 and 1:5:5 and getting myself mixed up. 5 g to 50 g water and 50g flour mix is 1:10:10 but I was thinking also a 1:10:10 feeding twice in a row might be good but it needs to drop back to 1:5:5 after that.
The reason the ratios vary is because starter and their keepers vary. One can in an emergency go 1:20:20 but a wild starter can get invaded or change under some conditions. A 1:10:10 is a real yeat power booster but sometimes hard to manage if the bacteria isn't allowed enough time to increase the acid in the starter before the next feeding. This can, not always, leave the starter culture upen to change with the incoming bacteria in the fresh flour. I have to often remin myself that there are several varieties of yeast and several varieties of bacteria working in the starter, all the time, some faster and some slower than the others. Ratios will vary and I even vary mine from time to time depending on how the starter tastes and raises bread dough. There is a lot of room to experiment.
Five, 5g of starter is about a teaspoon lightly rounded. That is about the lowest I go for an innoculation. Always amazing. In winter I may use more depending on how fast I want the dough risen and the temp in my kitchen.
Now for the picture. Not much starter in there for the width of the jar. You can easily toss in another 50g flour and water with that existing 10g of starter and food to watch it more easily. Taste the starter after adding. It should taste like wet flour. Do spit out your tasting bits, and don't swallow them. :)
clean the jar down to the sd surface so you can see if it rises and falls when you're not looking but I think youll be watching this jar for most of today.
Hi Mini… thanks for the feeback. It’s taken some time, but I feel like things are finally moving in the right direction again. Here is a current picture of my starter.
not quite double and still seems to be taking awhile to rise. 17 hours.
any thoughts?
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Right now if you haven't already. What is the temp?
I hold it at 79F constantly
into yeasted breads, holding back a little water in the recipe. No need to waste it.
I’m still not sure what is causing my starter to take so long to double. My ratio is 6g/80g/80g at 78F so I would expect a doubling in around 6-8 hours. I fed at 3pm and it’s no 9pm with very little movement. Should I start reducing the flour to mature starter ratio?
and smell yeasty. I would stir it occasionally. A 8g/80g/80g would be more in line with a 1/10/10 ratio. Just be patient and wait for it to rise higher. Nothing usually happens in the first 4-6 hours. Could try reducing the water from 80g to 56g for a 70% hydration. It might rise higher trapping more gas when thicker.
Then when peaked, chill for a 24 hrs (take a break) before removing a sample and feeding 10g starter to 35g water and 50g flour mix. (70% hydration).
Keep the rest of the chilled culture in the fridge and label it as back up if needed.
I checked it again after about 12 hours and it was close to peaking. When can I use it for backing. And when I’m ready should go back to at 1/2/2 ratio?
So here is the starter after 17 hours.
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another feeding with the lower hydration....8g starter:80g flour and enough water to make a soft dough. Mix it up in a small bowl and pack it into the tall narrow glas to rise. Put a bowl under the starter when you are not watching it. Have your recipe ready to go should the starter quadruple or more and use at peak rise. I think it is still too early but it may surprise us.
I created two starters. One per the recipe I have and one with a similar feeding as you describe above. If it looks good by this afternoon I’m going to mix it into the dough, bulk, shape, and proof. If not oh well I have my back up.
thanks for helping me get it back. I’m still not 100% clear on the ratios though. My assumption is that higher inoculation rates just mean a quicker rise for baking days??
A higher inoculation means more starter is used to inoculate the starter/levain. So a 1:1:1 is a higher inoculation than a 1:4:4 feeding which has less starter to flour added. Yes so a smaller feed aka higher inoculation would mean the starter or levain would rise more quickly.
Benny
:)
Okay so here was my recipe
35g starter, 35 stone ground wheat, 35 AP flour
804g bread flour
75g stone ground wheat
660 g water
18 gram salt
So I let the starter double (took about 8 hours), autolease the dough for an hour, mixed in the yeast and salt, then did some slap and folds for 6 ish minutes. Let it rest, then did 3 folds every 15 mins, then another 3 every 30 mins. I then let the dough rest for about another 3 hours. Then I preshaped, rest, shaped and proofed in the fridge for about 10 hours. I did a finger test and the dough slowly came back partially which I think is a good sign. I baked at 500 for 20 mins covered in Dutch oven, then at 475 uncovered for 25. Based on how the loaf looked, I could tell I likely didn’t have proper fermentation. I’m going to guess that I didn’t do something long enough like bulk or proof. I would have let the dough bulk linger but I was running out of time and I didn’t want the dough to over ferment. I also could have probably got a little more tension on my dough ball. When I cut into the loaf I could see a dense crumb and tunneling, another sign of under fermentation. Did I use my starter too soon or not let the dough go long enough?
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Needed a lot longer. If you find you can't fit it into one day and you run out of time how about pre-fermenting more flour. And until you find the right balance make one loaf at a time. Keep it simple!
Levain Build:
Overnight to be ready by morning. Should be very active, peaked, with bubbles breaking the surface and has a nice aroma. About 12-14 hours.
Final Dough:
Method:
This is basically the tartine country loaf (from memory). Make sure your levain is nice and active. Also bulk ferment till the dough has a good structure, looks and feels puffy.
If this doesn't work then we'll need to look at your starter. But don't make two loaves till you have perfected one.
I’ll try that next time. I have avoided overnight levain because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to monitor. Like I said, I’ll try that.
Don't worry too much about the levain. With the builds you've been doing overnight is fine. Plus, it gives you more time through the day for the dough. I think you've been playing it too safe. Push the ferment a bit more.
Best of Luck.
looks good and not dense. At least to me. If you had popped those large bubbles while shaping, the dough would have been smaller and you might have let it rise, say half an hour more before baking. I agree with baking one loaf at a time unless you got a crowd to feed. If they're hungry, they will eat anything warm.
Any large bubbles in the dough or forming while shaping should pe popped. The pockets of gasses can be easy to find if the dough is spread out enough, about half an inch thick, before rolling up. Be careful not to trap air into the dough while folding or rolling up the dough. If you were making a strudel, then I would say. "Trap as much air as you can!" But...this is not a strudel. (Mmmmm...strudel.)
How is the starter coming along? If the timing works out, the starter has peaked and falling, do feed it at night before going to bed. Might want to return to a 10g starter/35g water / 50g flour mix. You get a good night's sleep and the starter needs time to build up a population of yeast. A more dough like consistency will not collapse in 8 hours so no need to fear you will miss the peak. You will most likely find the starter domed and still rising at 76°F in the morning. Peaked is when it stops rising the first time. A one to five feedng may rise 5x the beginning volume if it can trap all the gases. When the yeast have finally kicked themselves up to speed, you can't miss it. Has a real "wow" effect. A fully proofed starter can be a good thing. It can even fall and rise again before using it successfully. Important to take note of the temperatures. Room and dough temps if possible.