Took my refrigerated starter out of the fridge for a recipe. How long can I expect it to take to fully rise based on my ratio?
I just started to keep 15g of starter in the fridge, instead of having to feed daily and I'm using it for a recipe for the first time, since storing it in the fridge.
The recipe I'm trying calls for 500g of fed starter, so I took it out of the fridge yesterday, let it come to room temp, and fed it 250g of water and flour, which is almost a 1:17:17 ratio. This was around 1pm yesterday, which is about 19-20 hours ago, and my starter has definitely risen, just not doubled. Maybe about a 33% rise, with bubbles on top. It's sitting on top of a 72 degree seedling mat, also.
Usually, with a 1:1:1 ratio, it would double overnight with no issues, and I know with a much higher ratio it will take longer, but how long should I expect? It doesn't appear to have started falling yet, but I can't see it rising much more. It's clearly active, so is it okay to use, even though it didn't come close to doubling? Should I discard and feed again? I'm hoping I don't have to waste so much flour.
Any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
A couple of thoughts
When you mix your dough, you’ll be feeding the starter/levain again, so possibly doesn’t really matter all that much. That said, you’ll have to observe bulk closely to decide when it’s time to shape and bake. Maybe give the dough a few extra fold sessions?
FWIW, I also refrigerate a small amount (~150 g) of starter, building my levain from 5-10 g, but I build the required amount of levain over 3 12 hour generations. For your recipe, I would have done something like this:
36 hours befor planned mix time
10 g seed starter + 20 g water + 20 g flour. Rest 12 hours
50 g levain + 50 g water + 50 g flour. Rest 12 hours.
150 g levain + 175 g water + 175 g flour. Rest 12 hours.
Mix your dough.
I use that 150 g batch, 5-10 g at a time for a month or two or until the supply is nearly depleted. This 3 generation build guarantees a lively levain.
Next levain build, I make an extra 50 g which I mix with 50 g each water and flour, then immediately refrigerate and repeat the cycle. 150 g of seed starter easily fits into a small, squat jar which requires very little fridge real estate.
Best of luck with your dough,
Phil
Leave it alone (which is the toughest thing the do) and let it work. It will be slow after refrigeration. I should note - with 17 times the feed - it will take about 17 times as long - a little less would be accurate. Enjoy!
Yeah, I think I'm going to raise my seedling mat temp to about 76 and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks!
I wouldn't feed the starter at such a high ratio. People usually build up their levain in a series of stages to get a large-enough amount. Feeding such a high ratio has these potential problems (at least) -
1. The starter will be originally somewhat inactive. By the time it has woken up and started to produce much gas, it will not have had enough time to reproduce the concentration of yeast cells you want to have. So it will not show as much activity as you expected.
2. Because the concentration of yeast and bacteria has been very diluted by so much flour, the starter may not be acidic enough to prevent undesired bacteria in the wheat from multiplying. You don't want that. Also, the balance between bacteria and yeast that you want in a starter will probably be disrupted by so much flour.
3. Since so much more time will be required to turn all that flour into a good starter (if that ever happens), the dough's proteins will be under attack from proteolytic enzymes for much longer than usual. So the final starter may have degraded gluten.
I suggest that you give this starter a good stir or mixing. This will aerate it which will help the yeast multiply again. It may also bring new food particles near the yeast cells. It will also restore some of the gluten's strength. You will probably notice that the starter starts to develop and produce gas again, probably faster than before. Repeat after a few hours have passed, and again a few more times.
Next time, build up your starter in two or more stages, feeding say 1:3:3 or 1:5:5 (or use whatever hydration you like better). You will get as much or more starter, and in better condition.
So if I use 50g starter and put 150g of flour and water, totaling 350, for the first round, would I have to add 75g of each on the second round? Or would I be better off doing the total 50/250/250 the first go?
You could do 1:5:5. Just not near the 1:17:17 you talked about at first. 1:6:6 seems to produce a robust active starter, especially if you use bread flour and stir it a few times during development. It will take longer to ripen, probably overnight depending on the fermentation temperature. I think I learned about 1:6:6 from this link -
https://www.breadstalker.com/blog/50-whole-meal-open-crumb
Thanks for your help!
I have backup discard in my fridge, that I have plenty of, so I'm thinking of taking 50g out and now trying 50/250/250 at 76 degrees, to see how that works out.
If my original levain fails, can I use it as discard?
It all depends on the condition of that discard. It it's still elastic and active, fine. If it's soupy and inactive, it might still work but you will have to wait longer than expected for your levain to wake up and get well fermented. Also in that case, you might need to use less water than planned.
Rather than flailing around with unknown quantities, I would suggest taking say 10g of that discard and feeding it 1:3:3. Let that develop until it's nice and active and well-risen. Then use *that* at 50:250:250. This way you would have a known starting point, and you would be more likely to be able to reproduce the results.
Why do I suggest 1:3:3? Because you won't be diluting the concentrations of relatively inactive organisms too much. I use 1:3:3 all the time and it seems reliable even with a relatively aged starter. Or even 1:2:2. Note that in most cases I mean I'm starting with older starter in the fridge. I assume that's where your discard is living.
TomP
When you say let it develop, do you mean give it time after one 1:3:3 feeding? Or a few feedings of that ratio?
Every time you feed a starter, you want to let it develop, meaning that the yeast and bacteria populations increase. Yeast increase shows up as volume increase and good gas production. If you let it age too long, most of the yeast nutrients (sugars and so on) get used up and growth slows down, then nearly stops. After some more time the protein starts to degrade. These phases can overlap.
Most people want to use the starter or levain when it is at peak activity, though a few like to let it start to collapse first. And some, mostly rye bakers, want to give the levain a temperature profile for its fermentation, to enhance acid production, flavor, or what have you. That's more advanced stuff. How long this development happens can vary all over the map, depending on flour, temperature, past history, and who knows what else. So you want to get to know your own starter by treating it consistently.
With my own starter, using 100% hydration and white all-purpose (US) flour, after refreshing 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 and at 72 - 75 deg F, I generally see a delay of ~ 3 hours before I see rising action (there may be a few bubbles before then), then good activity for another 3 - 4 hours. The volume will double or sometimes triple in that time. Either I would use some to make a dough or I would just put it into the refrigerator at that point (or possibly sooner since it will continue to develop slowly when chilled). I will be able to use that starter for 2 - 3 days. After that I will refresh it before using it to make bread.
If you use a higher refreshment ratio (more flour and water) then expect those times to become longer.
Your own starter may not exactly match mine and that's OK. Just be consistent and get familiar with it. If you want to experiment with different schedules, it's better to do so in other containers so that your base starter can remain the same and get fed on the schedule it's gotten used to, one that works well. If your starter starts to seem a little anemic, you can add some rye bran or rye flour to it for a while. That usually will perk up the action.
Hope this doesn't sound too preachy!.
I usually keep only about 10-15 g of each of my starters in my fridge and I will do multiple builds to get the amount of levain I want. For example to build 200 g of a 100% hydration out of my 10 g of 50% hydration, I will mix 2.5 g of starter with 13 g flour and 6.5 g water. Once this matures. I will feed it again with 95 g of flour and 47 g of water. Once this matures, I will disperse it with 50 g of additional water and voila, I have 200 g of very lively levain.
Hmm going by this, I should be fine doing 50/150/150 then adding 75/75 second round, then?
I wouldn't go this way. In order to get 500 g (if I read your formulas correctly), you could mix 50 g of starter with 225 g of flour and and 225 g of water. So first, for your starter out of the fridge, you need to build it up to 50 g, which would make it 5g of refrigerator starter, plus 22.5 g each of water and flour. Personally, I don't bother heating the starter I take it out of the refrigerator, I just use warm water in the first build, perhaps 90 to 100 degrees F.
If I have 50g of discard, could I skip the building up part and just do 50/250/250 straight out of the fridge?
Theoretically, yes. But I always feel better if the levain I use in my recipe has not been built directly from refrigerated starter, so I like to do a two-stage build-up. But I would think that very likely you should be ok building your 500 g of levain with the 50 g of starter you take out of the refrigerator, provided your starter is strong to begin with and has not been in the refrigerator longer that 10-15 days.
Okay, so just to confirm, to be safe, I'll take 5g discard/starter out of my fridge, feed it 22.5 each of flour and water, let it sit overnight? And then feed it the 250/250 flour/water the next day?
Right, That's what I would do.
How long you need to keep it to mature will depend on the temperature you keep it in. In some conditions 6, or even 4 hours will be fine, at other times you will need 12 hours or longer. Just let it roughly double, when it stops getting bigger for about one hour (if you have it in a glass jar, you can keep track with a rubber band) or so - it's ready.
Gotcha. Thanks for all of the input and help!
Would you say it's safe to use the failed levain(s) as discard?
I don't know what you mean by using them as discard. If I have any discard, which does not happen often, I will salt it lightly, add some herbs and fry flatbreads on a pan. But if your failed levain never rose, than if you fry it, it will probably come out hard as a rock. If you mean, putting those levains into your dough, I wouldn't. I read somewhere that the longest you can autolyse your dough without a leavening agent (because this is what I imagine your failed levains are actually doing) is 12 hours, but perhaps there is more information about it out there on the Internet.
I found this thread here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/61295/what-are-problems-exceptionally-long-autolyse
I meant to add it to my discard pile that's stored in the fridge and used in discard recipes, instead of using it all for a dough.
I cannot help you too much on discards, I don't use them. But I would read up on autolyse, because discards are alive and they tend to do ok in the fridge for a very long time. A water and flour mix is not alive, basically in long term autolyse, and I have no idea what happens to it over time. So can't help you on that one.
No worries. You've been more than enough help. Thank you very much!
I keep such small amounts of starter in my fridge because I don't like the idea of discards. So I have no discard in my refrigerator, whenever I have 5 or 10 g of extra starter, i just mix it in the dough, I figure that that much discard will make very little difference to a 4 or 5 pound batch of dough.
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Thanks for your help!I have backup discard in my fridge, that I have plenty of, so I'm thinking of taking 50g out and now trying 50/250/250 at 76 degrees, to see how that works out.If my original levain fails, can I use it as discard?Duplicate, as I forgot to press reply
Starter taken straight out of the refrigerator. I usually feed it once more to yield a specific amount of levain and some leftovers which goes back in the frig.
I baked this loaf the next day.