Dough not rising at all
Hello, all!
Just starting out with sourdough. My current issue is a total lack of rise on my dough. Setup is as follows:
My starter is around two weeks old and has been fed daily. The flour portion is a mix of equal parts rye and AP, fed 1:5:5. Ex/ 20g starter : 50g rye + 50g AP : 100g water. It rises and falls very consistently. I feed, it more than doubles within about 6 hours in a proofing box set to 80F, and then goes in the fridge over night. Smells bright, crisp, and fruity. A sort of alcohol + apple smell.
My dough is just KA bread flour (12.7%). I've tried 80% (inadvertently on the first few loaves), 72%, and 65% hydration levels. This includes the starter's flour and water in the equations. All batches are made with 25% starter and 2% salt.
As for the process, at this point I've tried just about everything in terms of mixing, stretch/fold intervals, fermentation time, different temperatures, etc but for some reason my dough will not rise at all.
Most recently, I mixed the flour, water, and starter, rested for 30 min and then added salt. On a previous attempt, I did a 1hr autolyse and then added starter/salt. On yet another go, I tried stand mixing for a few minutes initially to more thoroughly incorporate. All to no avail.
Temperatures are held in a proofing box at 80F and my water goes in at about 90F.
I'm holding a small sample aside to monitor for rising/doubling but it (and the main dough) absolutely will not budge one bit.
It's just strange that my starter seems to be so strong (although I may not fully understand what "strong" is in this domain) yet when it hits the dough it's like it just completely dies or something.
I'm able to shape my loaves mostly ok, they hold their shape, and score fairly well after an overnight in the fridge. I lift the lid off the combo cooker, though, and it's one fresh frisbee every time.
The baking, scoring, etc I'm happy to address later. For now I just want to understand what's happening with this dough. Any pointers would be much appreciated!
Thanks!
What is the condition of your starter/levain at the time of mixing into the dough? A liquid levain should be at it's peak, fully active, bubbly and light. Here is a picture of my 125% hydration levain. I add the levain into the dough before autolyse as it contains a significant amount of the overall water. Some call this a fermentalise.
IMG_6350.JPEG
I add my starter once it has doubled in size which is usually around 5-7 hrs after feeding. It's got a pretty good bubble/web structure to it when I scoop out the portion I'm using in the dough.
You said that your dough is not rising at all, yet your starter is fully active. I've always said that "if your starter rises then so should your dough". Something else is influencing the dough; check proofing temperature (cooler can take longer), dough gluten not developed sufficiently (spreads out), maybe poor flour quality. Just a couple of things to check.
I'm sure others will provide useful comment.
Your starter is not very old yet, and may not be ready for use. I'm struck by several things you wrote. First of all, 6 hours to double at 80 deg F seems too long. Second, it sounds like you use it in dough soon after it comes out of the refrigerator. Is that right? Third, the strong fruity smell.
If you let the starter double after refresh and then sit in the fridge overnight, especially since it has to cool down from that 80 deg proofing box, it may not have much oomph left. The smell is unusual for a standard starter (though I made a starter once and put apple chunks into it - that one did smell fruity for months. The bread from it was no different, though). Usually I can only smell a strong scent from my starters after they have sat in the fridge for a long time and seriously need refreshment.
I suggest that you stop using the proofing box for a while, until you get this process under control. Perfectly fine bread is being made every day with starter and dough at room temperature (say 70 - 77 deg F). Once you know for sure that the starter is in fine working order, then you can go back to the higher temperatures if you want.
The method of refresh-rise-fridge does work and it's what I did for a long time. But in your case, I'd suggest trying, if your schedule will allow, refresh-rise-use. The idea is to try the most direct thing, one that should work every time if the starter is capable. If you would have a scheduling problem, refrigerating partway through bulk fermentation is perfectly fine. It's probably better if the retardation is done after the dough has shown some signs of rising, I think.
None of those things would have any bearing on a total failure to rise. They would only change the texture, flavor, and appearance of the loaf and the handling properties of the dough. If you mix flour, water, and starter and just leave it covered, it will rise if the starter has any rising ability.
I'm guessing that the starter hasn't developed into a good yeasty mixture yet. The smell and gas activity could be from your starter creation method having favored the lactic acid bacteria over yeast. Yeast alone doesn't smell fruity or strong. There could also be a high concentration of some other bacteria. The LAB can produce some gas but not like yeast will. So I would continue a feeding schedule at room temperature for a few weeks. Make sure you feed it once it's risen - serious starving can lead to changes in the microbial composition.
If after that the starter still won't make your dough rise, start another one. Keep it and feed it at room temperature, and use some moderately acidic liquid like pineapple juice in the water for the first several days. The acid will help suppress some the the bacteria that would develop at first. That will help the microbes present in the starter mixture to stay healthy and jump-start the process.
TomP
Thank you so much! What you say about the starter does, unfortunately, confirm my suspicions. I was operating on the refresh-rise-use strategy but I'm afraid you're correct and that the starter just doesn't have enough energy. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that an alcohol smell meant that the starter was starved. Sounds like the type of flour I'm using in addition to the high temperatures caused it to "burn out" or become too active too quickly without being fed often enough? If that's the case, would a switch to AP or bread flour alone instead of a rye flour help in slowing down the activity between feedings? And then maybe in a levain I could give it a bit of a boost with rye?
You can slow down fermentation by
1. using a higher hydration. I've found that just going from 100% to 90% can make a real difference.
2. Using bread flour instead of all-purpose. This will delay the breakdown of the protein (since there is more of it to break down).
3. Adding a little salt to the starter. I recommend 1% of the flour weight. I've been doing that successfully for months. It's certainly not conventional, and I've read strict commands not to salt the starter, but it's been working well for me. I have found that even 2% is not harmful (and it will slow fermentation down even more) so 1% should be comfortable figure. If you go too high it will drive down the LAB content and reduce the flavor of the bread.
By making these little changes, my starter now peaks some 8 - 10 hours after a 1:5:5 refresh, and lasts for an entire day between feedings without getting degraded and without collapsing. I refresh it before bedtime and can use it the next morning or even early afternoon. I also add a few grams of rye bran but I'm not sure if that is helpful. At least it stiffens up the starter as if the hydration were a little lower.
These timings are for an overnight temperature of 71 or 72 deg F, and a daytime temperature of about 77 deg F. So they may not apply to you exactly. if you keep the starter in a heated proofer, you will need to feed it more often, and that may not fit your schedule very well. Plus it gets to be a pain.
Note that I'm talking about white wheat flour starters. Anything with more active nutrients and enzymes can speed up the fermentation.
The question in my mind is whether your starter has much yeast in it. The smell could be and probably is from various LAB bacteria, which is fine but there needs to be yeast too. A white flour starter that has been in the refrigerator too long will usually have an acrid, acidic smell (at least, mine do), and maybe a layer of dark liquid on top. The layer, I read recently, is from the breakdown of the flour's protein.
If your starter used to be good but now smells acrid or has liquid on top, it's probably too old and will need to be refreshed at least once or maybe twice before being fit to raise bread.
I suggest backing off on the rye and adapting the starter to just white flour for a while. If that succeeds then you can pursue adding rye if you want.
Alternatively, you could try getting an all-rye starter working. They seem to be pretty tolerant to abuse. You would want to refresh it (or a part of it) before using it in bread.
Wow, thank you so much for this! Going to start another starter with bread flour and 90% hydration as these two things in particular confirm what I had learned after starting my current one. Will also be skipping the proof box as you suggested.
Given these changes and a ~70F ambient temperature, should I expect to see some activity in a matter of days or a matter of weeks? Please know that this isn't asked out of impatience or any sort of expectation that there's some rote, absolute rule that applies to all situations. I'm just curious for a ballpark timeframe as it seemed that my last starter shot up the first day, stayed flat for around 3 days and then started rising/falling consistently after that. I assume I'll observe a similar order of events but just over a longer period of time?
Thanks again!
If you are starting a new starter, I suggest using Debra Wink's plan of using pineapple juice for the liquid for the first day or two. Its acidity helps suppress unwanted organisms and promote the development of ones you want. After that you can just use water.
Another thing I didn't think to bring up before is that some people find that their water just doesn't work well for making sourdough bread. For one thing, tap water can have chlorine compounds or other disinfecting agents that prevent the yeast from growing. Or there may be too many minerals of the wrong kind. Usually using filtered water - just an ordinary pitcher filter will do - or bottled water does the trick. Not all bottled water is the same, either.
Here's how the development of a new starter usually plays out. It's much the same as with salt-fermented pickles. The flour has many organisms to begin with, including stinky ones and even disease organisms. There is probably very little yeast, and possibly not much LAB. At first those other microbes will multiply, and they may produce gas over a few days. There could even be an off-smell. The acidity of the nascent starter will start to increase (i.e., the pH will start to drop) and that produces an environment which favors a different set of organisms and disfavors the ones that grew originally.
After a few days those early microbes that produced some gas can no longer thrive in the more acidic environment so that early gas production fades away. The new starter keeps getting more acidic, and a different set of microbes will thrive at different acidity levels. When the pH gets low enough, only the yeast and LAB can thrive. That's what you want. I believe that Debra Winks wrote that she's never seen a starter come to life unless the pH dropped below 4.1.
After this it's just a matter of building up the concentration of the yeast by refreshing. Once the yeast and LAB are established, the starter doesn't need to be at or below that pH 4.1 value any more. Note that I'm not saying you have to measure the pH to succeed, Hardly anyone does that. I'm just trying to give a sketch of the development process of a typical starter.
If you refresh too often in those early stages, you only dilute the acidity and whatever yeast concentrations there are. That will only delay or even prevent getting to your desired active starter. So don't do that.
Whew, I'm awfully long-winded tonight!
Not long-winded at all! This is solid gold! I've found that with stuff like this, YouTube videos and articles only go so far. Really great to have someone to bounce things off of!
Going to give this a shot and hope to report back in a week or so with some progress.
Many thanks again!
One problem I see over and over again is that experienced bakers, when they want to create a new starter, hardly ever fail. They think that's because it's so easy that anyone can do it if they only follow the instructions. What they forget is that their bread-making work area (and hands and clothes) is probably saturated with yeasts and LABs, but a newbie's isn't. Their water works but the newbie's may or may not be good for the yeast. And most of the details aren't important. What's important is letting the flour/water mixture develop that dropping pH, and not feeding it too much too fast.
I remember reading years ago, a first-hand account, of a well-known baker on the west coast (of the US) who was invited to demonstrate his methods for a large class on the east coast. Off he went, and he couldn't get a starter going for the class. It turned out that he had always used a particular wooden mixing bowl but for the class he was supplied with new stainless steel ones. Presumably the wooden bowl harbored lots of yeast and LAB so that he could hardly fail to get a new starter going.
So you may hear a lot of confident advice to the effect of "Just do this, it will work like a charm". Well, maybe, maybe not. That's why I wrote all those words to try to show you the basics of how the progression works and what can affect it. Most of the details that people obsess over hardly matter.
Another thing I forgot to mention is to stir the mixture once or twice a day. In case the microbes in the new flour mixture use up all the oxygen or nutrients in their neighborhood, stirring mixes things up and can introduce new air.
It's better to do this with something thin so it won't pick up too much of the someday-i'll-be-a-starter mix. I use a chopstick, but the disposable ones are probably too short and weak. A table knife or the handle of a wooden spoon would work, even it they are larger and more mixture will cling to them. A table fork would work but be harder to clean.
Not enough time - even with the rising. If ya don't give it the time it needs you will continue to have trouble. Take the time - it's only needed for a couple months. Enjoy!
Thanks, Davey1. Just to be clear - are you saying that the starter needs to develop over a couple of months? What type of flour and feeding schedule/ratios would you suggest?
A new starter typically gets established in around a week. It will keep evolving for a few more weeks or even longer, but normally a new one can be used after the week. But a starter, especially a new one, is a wild, living thing, and different starters can start out with different trajectories.
I think it would be very unusual for a starter to be unable to leaven bread for months after its creation. Continuing to develop and slowly change its characteristics could well happen over a span of a month or longer.
The feeding ratio is not a touchy parameter. If you feed only a small amount of water and flour, the balance between yeast and LAB probably won't change much but the new nutrients will get used up quickly. At the other extreme, suppose you refreshed with a ratio say of 1:100:100. That would dilute the existing yeast and LAB so much that new organisms in the flour (not necessarily yeast) might be able to take over and dominate the starter. It would also make the refreshed mixture much less acidic than the starter should be. That would also help unwanted organisms to get established. You don't want that.
So: if you have a good starter that needs refreshment and you want to use it soon, feed it 1:1:1 or 1:2:2. If you need to refresh it and you want it to take its time to develop, use a higher ratio like 1:5:5. If you want it to take even longer to develop (as I suggested above), refresh it at perhaps 1:4.5:5 ( that's starter:water:flour).
There is a place for using different temperatures and times to enhance the LAB or the yeast. But you need a stable working starter before trying them out.
In short - yes. Keep it thick - let it thin out and get watery - add more to thicken again - let it thin out - etc. In a few weeks it'll be ready to use. If you use from the batch made you'll be good. Warning - if you don't follow these instructions - move on - they won't work with other methods. Enjoy!
Thanks!
Here's a link to Debra Wink's pineapple juice thread (part one) that Tom recommended. It's packed full of information.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1
Thanks for posting that, Moe. I've read it several times but would have had trouble finding it.