I start my starters using 1/4 tsp flour and enough water to create a thick batter. Tiny, es, but it works. Next days I add another 1/4 tsp flour, few drops of water, mix well to same thick consistency. I follow same steps as noted by instructor of this video but in smaller portion, no waste, less clean up, it works!!! Thought I would share for those interested to try the Mini size sourdough starter. 😅😂😂😊❤
I've watched several videos on sourdough starters and I always end up with the same question: do we really think our ancient ancestors were >this< precise in making their sourdough? 🤔 Living in Alaska I've heard and read tales of Miners and Trappers with their Starters. Then, we go back to ancient, Middle Eastern Cultures. I kind of imagine an ancient mother making a starter of some sort for a betrothed daughter. I don't see any of these people being this finicky over weights and measurements.
Great comment. You are absolutely right! I never measure exactly anymore. I just go by look and feel. But at the start exact measurements can help you to develop that look&feel.
The ancients were finicky over weights and measures when building things like the pyramids, so why not sourdough starter? I think you under estimate them.
I see a lot of questions/uncertainty in these comments regarding the best way to maintain the starter after it is ready, may i suggest you do a short video on what comes next? Once the starter is ready as per this video, what do we do? store it in the fridge? Feed it? how often? What ratios? Like most everyone here, i am a "casual" home baker, will do sourdough a couple times a month, so just curious as to what is the best method to feed and maintain the starter, danke!
OMG, 😍 you give right direction for the sourdough starter , I watched a lot of videos that all confused me but now I'm cleared about it.💝 Thank you so much 💕
Some things to look out for if you're struggling (cause I did for weeks): 1. Keep a consistent Temperature (25-35°C-ish) anything below or above that range will provoke growth of nasty stuff like mold--some suggestions: - Store on a radiator on low heat - Store next to your WiFi router (watch out for overflowing starter that could get into the router and fry it) - Store in microwave oven with a previously microwaved heat/coldpack (will last up to 12h depending on size; also don't microwave your starter ofc) - Pack container with aluminum foil 2. Use really high quality flour, perhaps even artisanal/organic 3. Clean your glassware and utensils with concentrated vinegar and then rinse with hot water 4. Thoroughly wash your hands before and rinse off any soap 5. Starter may double in the first one or two days and then seem to die off---keep going it will most likely pick back up around the 5th or 6th day 6. Cover the top with a tablespoon of water to inhibit mold growth and drying of the top layer 7. Try bottled mineral water if you suspect your tap water is chlorinated or brominated (or if your plumbing sucks)
77=95 F Clean with Vin and HOT h2o ARQ why cant we just use rasin or fruit water isnt that easier and not wasting flour and spring water? I LOVE YOUR skills and awareness! Since i easily get lost Im following YOU! :) Thank you for Such Clarity Angel :)
:) Top it off with 1 T of water to inhibit mold and keep it from drying off the top layer. :) Brillant :) and was also my idea i just needed validation outside myself to TRuST myself thank uuuuuuuuuuuu! for this :) Your a Great Teacher.
Ah damn it, I threw away my 4 day old starter just a few hours ago because it seemed to die off after rising on the 2nd day. Now I read your comment to keep going and it will bounce back :( Thanks though, at least now I know for next time lol
Your video inspired me to try to bake a sourdough bread of my own. I did it pretty freestyle so maybe that's a mistake and it will not work. I used luke warm water and whole wheat flour for my sourdough starter and put it in a place with sunshine. I was feeding it three times every 12 hours. When I looked this morning my starter more than doubled in size. Had the bubbles and the smell was resembling sour milk. I decided to bake my first sourdough bread right now and not wait any longer. Used the discard starter from the fridge (ca. 40g) and my bubbling starter (ca. 90g) with 400g of whole wheat flour, 400g of luke warm water and 10-15g of salt. The dough, covered with a wet towel, is now resting at my window sill in the sunshine until it roughly doubles in size. Let's see how this works out in the end.
Hi Ioratio, awesome. I am sure it will turn out very well. If your dough is too sticky, just use a loaf pan to bake it. Also, in my opinion the biggest factor you have to control is fermentation. I made a full video on this recently: ruclips.net/video/nIOPCeLPqrM/видео.html. It's the #1 way to become better at sourdough baking. Take care and happy baking.
@@the_bread_code You were spot on. My dough was too sour so I had to use a loaf pan. My guess is that's because I used the discard starter for baking. Also next time I should use oatmeal flakes like you did, because despite the sunflower oil I used my bread was sticking to my loaf pan. The bread is very tasty, much more satiable than bread you buy from the store and quite sour. I like the result.
@@loratio77 Glad it turned out well. I love it too, it has a very hearty taste! Try getting some vegetable spray oil, it really made a difference for me. My bread sticks way less. I use it together with oats. Spray, then add oats. Happy baking!
You can read about this in detail in my free book called “The Sourdough Framework”. You can get it here: breadco.de/book. You can support the project with a donation, but there is absolutely no knead. I believe information like this should be free and accessible to everyone. The book is made for everyone who wants to understand the important details when making sourdough bread. Thank you!
Very interesting video, thank you for that! One question: how do you reduce the sourdough acidity? (feed it more often, using less flour or...). I have around 26-27C in my kitchen and the sourdough tends to rise and becomes sour quite fast! Thanks!
"Get your starter to a stage where it should be able to double in size after 5 to 6 hours." Assuming my starter is ready, if I plan to bake a loaf at 6am, would I feed the starter at about midnight the previous night - ie six hours earlier? Great site, btw.
Ah, I answered my own question. I have since seen your videos on using up discard. It seems that things to make with sourdough is just about endless and I am excited to get my first culture ready for a try at making a Mischbrot 1:1 rye and whole wheat. It appears that I have good base ingredients as after 36 hours of beginning my starter it is already expanding and am seeing bubbles through the side of the jar.
Gluten tag! I love your videos. Very helpful and informative. my question with starter is after you have finally achieved your healthy, active starter, what is the maintenance feeding ratios? is it still the same 1-1-1? or is it different? please if anyone knows this let me know. Thanks!
Hello. Have to say watching your videos has cleared up some confusions I had from other videos so thank you for sharing here. I have 2 questions about the water used in the starter. First, I've heard in other videos that purified water should be used because sometimes the chlorine content of tap water would act against the growth of yeast & bacteria. Is that a real concern? Second, do you use warm water (90-100f / 32-38c)? I've heard that can make a difference as well. Thank you
Moin Marco. You have a point. I always use non-chlorinated water for my starter. I have not experimented with chlorinated water yet. Try going for water at around 20-25°C. Not too warm as that will favor the bacterial part of your sourdough starter.
Hi, amazing video I am very new to sourdough and had a few ques how should i maintain my starter after day 9 till forever, what ratio should i use ? Also should i feed my starter just before baking if i have fed it 24 hrs before ? What do i do with the left over starter after baking a bread ?
Hi, I am curious; if you do not have a starter; can you just put Flour, Water, Salt in a bowl; and just let it naturally ferment for a couple of days or say; and then bake it. Will that work for an edible healthy sour dough bread; or do you need to have a starter? Thanks
Yes. But you might have other germs in the mixture too. Over time they will be outperformed by the yeast and lactic/acetic acid bacteria. That's why it's better to apply a couple of feedings.
May be obvious to some but if you didn't realise 50g water is 50ml. If that makes things a little easier for you to make this. I made a Poolish with a small amount of yeast and then add wholemeal flower and water as i go... Makes beautiful sourdough starter which is very flavoursome
Dear viewers. Thanks for watching, hope you make a super healthy and active starter. It is really the basis to bake amazing bread. I highly recommend you to watch this video of the full process then for baking the bread. It covers everything pretty much in detail: ruclips.net/video/NMglhwp2lNs/видео.html. Paired with this video you will become a master baker in no time! Happy baking! Feel free to reach out with questions at any time.
Thanks for all the great help! I'm using your starter recipe (using organic whole grain dark rye) it performs perfectly for the first two days doubling in size but then stops. I'm feeding every 12 hours and have it at 27c so conditions are kept very consistent. By day 3 and 4 still no action. Do I keep feeding and wait? So strange:(
@@Henry.Bendik My guess is that your starter gets too acidic. The high temp both speeds up the fermentation, and it also promotes lactobacillus over yeasts. If you want to keep the same temp and time try to discard a larger portion of the starter each time. Remember that if you want to raise the pH one step you need to dilute your starter 10x.
Thank you so much for your videos!❤ I LOVE how you take your time to explain in detail and how you add a some humour. My starter is now 5 days old and is doing nicely, its name is Brad (in honour of your starter). Can’t wait to make my first bread!
Hi! i have a situation with my sourdough starter which does not make me feel confident to bake bread! After feeding it for 15-16 times i had good results with doubling the volume in the jar. I tried to bake a bread but the results where not so good. Let me explain... Thursday night = mixing all ingredients except starter. I left it overnight (8 hours) in the fridge. Friday morning (@ 8:00) - 17:00 = on the counter - autolyse Friday afternoun = 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th folds. The dough was very sticky. It was supposed to have hydration 65% but i felt it like 75%...? I managed to put it in the fridge in order to bake next morning. Saturday morning = only small amount of rise. I left it on the counter in a warm place and decided to bake it (50% to bake it - 50% to discard all of it). I thought it will end to a flat bread but finally "the bread" had risen (with small holes) and it was... let's say ok to eat! I made some tests in my starter to see if it was healthy enough... 1st feed = bottled water @ 20 oC, whole wheat flour @ room temp (~21 oC), starter from the fringe @ 6 oC. The results was good. Good rise after 5-6 hours. That's OK! 2nd feed = bottled water @ 20 oC, whole wheat flour @ room temp (~21 oC), starter @ 20 oC. The results were not so good! Good rise after 9 hours!!! ? 3rd feed (maybe it's a temp problem?) = bottled water @ 30 oC, whole wheat flour @ room temp (~21 oC), starter from the fringe @ 6 oC. The results were not so good! Good rise after 8 hours!!! So, I don' t feel confident with my starter!!! Is sth wrong with it? How can i make it to give a double rise every 4-5 hours? I mean i cannot wait a day to bake... In the past I had a starter that worked impressively good @ 4 hours but i lost it! Can i make it better? Is sth missing from it?
My starter definitely doesn't look like this. Mine is quite runny, and when I feed it, it bubbles up and almost doubles in size, but then it falls back down and i am left with a layer of foam on top of a layer of grey water, on top of a thick pancake batter...
Moin Chris. That sounds like a good starter. It doubles in size within 5-7 hours? Perfect. It could be that your flour simply does not absorb as much water, no worries, all good. You are ready to bake with it. Every starter is unique.
Thank you for all amaizing video tutorials :) can you tell us please why sourdough bread is healthier compared to bread made on regular yeast Have you already written about this?
I haven't written about it, but it's the lactic acid bacteria that converts your flour into something more digestible. Furthermore the slow fermentation helps breaking down the flour. You eat a different product than raw flour. Short fermentations are not good.
Hello thanks for the video first of all. I have a question when it is time to use the starter to make bread do you use all of it or you take a portion of it and keep the rest in the fridge and if that is the case how often do you feed when you have it in the fridge? Thanks in advance.
hi, thanks for sharing. I live in the subtropical area and the room temperature is 29C give or take. my 1st batch doubled in size 23 hours however, the 2nd tripled in size after 6 hours. so, I started the 3rd feed and waiting to see the result tomorrow. what's the point to stop feeding ? thanks
Thanks a lot for all your videos. I followed your measurements with Rye flour, but the mix was too solid. I had too add more water. I hope that will be no problem. I'm in day 2.
@@jazznariko5354 After many attempts now my bread is getting great. But in general what I realized is that you can't exactly follow any recipe. Flours are different depending on brand, country, etc. Some absorb more water than others. The same with temperature in your home and oven. So the best advice is: keep trying until you get your own perfect proportions and timing.
Mm,im confused- which starter you use on day 3? 1 st day starter or 2 nd day starter🤔or as i understood- everyday fresh ingredients mix with previous days starter? If so, wouldn’t i end up with 7 glasses of previous starters of 7 day time line? ( i took 7 days as example) what do i do with previous starters?
Herr Hendrik, I have trouble with a starter that I hope you can help solve. My starter is based on Gold Label whole wheat flour and filtered water. Since I only bake once per week or so, I keep it refrigerated. My breads have never had any measurable oven spring, despite following your recommendations and those of others on RUclips, but they are otherwise quite good. But recently, the starter has become much less active, and the pH has dropped to about 3.55, which I recall may be indicative of excessive bacteria. For temperature, my house in San Diego California is about 22 deg C, and my refrigerator is about 3 deg C. I am unsure whether the starter can be resurrected, or if I should just start over. Bitte hilfen Sie mir!
Thanks for the video you are an amazing person! Just have one question, I'm a beginner actually.. Why don't we just feed our starter as it is without discarding a part of it??
Moin George. You can do that. But then over time the acid will reduce the activity of the micro-organisms. So it is better to discard a portion and create a new feast again.
Thank you so much for such fascinating experimental videos! Im loving following your journey with sourdough. I wanted to ask....i have made 2 separate starters...one feeding on 50:50 white to rye flour and the other feeding on 90% white flour. Both are less than a month old. I was hoping to see which one will become more effective. I havent had success yet (i think its because of my timings). My question is : what will happen if i mix the 2 starters together...would that create a more effective starter?
When you combine the two starters Will combine their unique yeast and bacterial properties together after a few days of feeding the new starter will stabilize and form a unique characteristic of its own
Hope you managed to get it going again! Mine stopped rising and it got all funky but i tried to power through for a couple months. (Contamination was stealing resources from the lactobacillus that sourdough uses). I remade a starter in glass with stone ground whole wheat (so that it would have the bran and germ and everything) and it's already SO much healthier than my old starter. Better rise, better smell, more predictable!
I've been lucky, my starter (Trevor) has been very happy (well, mostly ;-) ). Something in your video gave me pause, though, because it's been a mental struggle for me since the beginning. Specifically, you said to 'cover the starter so that it doesn't dry out'. Makes total sense, BUT, I've read so many books/articles/restroom walls that have wildly differing advice. "Leave it open so the air can get to it," "Cover it loosely with paper towel," "Cover with plastic," "Cover with cheesecloth"
I asked my husband to get some flax seed for your starter bread recipe. He came home with ground flax seeds. So, I decided to start a second jar of starter. I used the discard to start a new starter jar and I fed it exactly like the first jar except that I incorporated a tsp of ground flax seed. The results were good. The starter with the ground flaxseed was a bit more active than the starter I was feeding with whole wheat flour. I can't get rye flour in my small town. I am planning on ordering some online. What do you think? Have you ever used something like ground flaxseed in your starter?
Great video! I started the process since one week, ups and downs, but since one day i didn't use the cap of the jar, instead I covered it with a bandage, so that air and microorganism could go inside. It started growing again, slowly, but more consistently. Should I use the bandage until the end of the process and then switch to the cap again? Thanks!
Greetings from Northern California. I a just beginning to bake at 66 years of age! I still work full-time and travel so I'm wanting to ask you how you travel with your starter. What is the best transport/travel system? Thank you in advance!
You might want to look into flat breads, they are great when travelling: ruclips.net/video/5DWcrVHK1WU/видео.html. For transport, I keep it as a liquid in the liquid bag when flying. Sometimes I also dry it.
Greetings! I have watched more than 8 hours and many of your You Tube, thank you for all the information. I try to look for how do you keep/maintain your starter and how often do you feed it? I mean when I don't bake everyday, do I keep it in the fridge and feed it daily until I want to bake and take some out to do 1:5:5 feeding before using it? If yes, what do I do with the rest in the jar? Sorry if you have talked about this, but probably not in the YT i was watching. Please clarify.
Guten Tag! Alles gut? My hubby is from Chiemsee and I have just started into my sourdough or rye bread making, I started following your sourdough starter instructions and only to realise that on day 5 I had been deducting 50 grams of starter and top up with the usual 50 g rye flour and 50 g water, so I see my jar looks full of starter and no bubbles or activities, so then i prepared a new jar and put 50 g of starer and 50 g rye flour and 50 g water and kept the remaining as my starter stored in the fridge. Do you think this is still ok? have i saved the damage from not doing the steps correctly for the first 5 days? Vielen Dank!
My starter is VERY active after one day. Started with rye, then today i fed it 50/50 rye/whole wheat and it doubled, actually a bit more than double, went to the top of the jar and then started going down in about.. 10 hours, not quite sure exactly. Good sign right? :d
Hi, how are you? The average temperature in my city is around 38°C nowadays. What is your recommendation for me to start a new starter from scratch with such high temperature? Any hint?
Wow. 38°C. That's a lot haha. You can use your existing starter, or your old starter. Try always going for a 1:10:10 feeding ratio. It should help you to not ferment too fast.
So I don't really have any questions about creating a starter but I had an interesting thing happen today when I was feeding my starter. It turned into a mass "dough" basically. Really stiff and full of gluten strands. It usually has a good gluten structure normally but this is a little bit different. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks. Keep doing what you're doing.
This one is not the easiest and the fastest but More Reliable. So you do needing 8 days and feedings then? in the End Hend? Ben Starr has a video where he never feeds his starter he just uses it and then his bread takes almost two days to Rise. In a way that does seem easy and no feedings and its not 8 days. I want the Snap your fingers method. No just kidding...I love this fun experiment! With Cheers.
hello. i am new to sourdough. i tried a few times to make the starter but allways in day 3-4 i have a layer of water above. room temp now in summer is 26 degrees and i used equal parts of water and whole wheat flour. my question is, why i have allways water on surface? i dont know what to do. last times i discard all of starter bc i was thinking is not how is suposed to be the structure
Absolutely no need to worry. You can check in my book (breadco.de/book). Just enter 0€ and you are good to go. There is one section that covers this topic in particular, it's under troubleshooting. Cheers!
Do you leave your starter out for 5 hours after feeding, then refrigerate? How often should we feed established starters and how long should we leave them "out" of the fridge vs. In the fridge when feeding and baking with?
You can leave your starter easily for 4 weeks in the fridge without feeding. Refresh it once at a high ratio (1:10:10) (1 part starter, 10 parts flour, 10 parts water) before you bake. Then it's as good as new again. Once it roughly doubled in size you can use it :-)
I’m from Pakistan and the weather is really hot here with temperature in summers going upto 50 degrees Celsius in wheat growing areas. Now coming to the main issue, I started my sourdough starter yesterday, gave it a second feed in the morning today and barely after 3 hours my starter culture has doubled. Temperature early in the morning was 20 degrees Celsius, it’s 26 now and will rise to somewhere around 32- 33. Now my question is that should I move ahead with dough for baking or continue to feed for 9 days
This is a culinary emergency, I have fed my starter culture thrice on the second day because its doubling every few hours. I have been making kefir in the same corner of the kitchen for years. Could that be the reason for such rapid rise.
Is there any reason one would keep massive jars of starter like I see ladies doing on IG and RUclips? I'm new to this, my rye starter is 4 weeks old and doing great. My all purpose is doing ok but different consistency. And I see people with these huge jars of AP starters and just wondering why?
Brilliant explanation thank you. My starter is 20 days now. It rises at 2x sometimes 3x but the smell is extremely alcoholic. I am feeding it twice a day at 1:2:2. Any idea why that is please? Struggling to know why!
Moin Ahmed. You are most welcome, thanks for the nice words. That's completely normal with your starter. It's a sign that your starter is very healthy. Good job. I would recommend that before you bake, you feed your starter 1:5:5. 1 part starter, 5 times flour, 5 times water. That way you have less pre-fermented flour in your mix. It should help in not having overfermented doughs.
The Bread Code thank you. For some reason it has slowed down now and since I fed it this morning (4 hours ago) it has rise slightly not much. Guess I was too concerned with the alcohol smell that I jinxed it and it slowed down massively.
The Bread Code to be honest not sure. It was a mixture of both I must say. It was indeed very active but now it does double in size but takes much longer. Also worth mentioning I have just changed the feeding flour from 40% spelt flour, 60% white bread flour to 90% white bread flour 10% spelt flour.
The Bread Code I think I realised what the issue is. It is taking long now because I increased my ratio to 1:3:3 so it doesn’t double up in 4 hours anymore but longer. I will try to feed it less ratio tomorrow and see where it goes.
Hi Thanks a lot for the video, I was wondering if we could start with for example 20 grams of each flour instead of 50. This way we will discard less. no?
Hi Fahimeh, yes and no. In general yes, but, you will also have less flour that contains the natural yeast. So it will take longer until you cultivated your yeast/bacteria. In general I would prepare another jar in the fridge where you put in all your discard. I bake a bread out of it regularly.
Hello :) Thank you for your great videos! I made a new starter according to your video and now it's the second day day and my starter more than doubled in size. Is it ready already? Or is something wrong? Should I start baking with it? Thank you for your answer in advance!
Gluten Tag Marie. Excellent question. No. Keep feeding it. You have microorganisms inside, but they might not be the good one. Recheck after 5-7 days. If it still happens, then you are ready to bake!
What would your advice be for a Baker who wants to make hundreds kilos of Sourdough bread every day?? Like how do you make that quantity of sourdough starter every day? Is it even worth ? Sorry for bathering and bombing with questions
Moin George. Thanks for the message. Oh yes, large bakeries do that every day. They use a machine to mix their sourdough. But this works. To be save, they won't go as high in hydration in their doughs, they play safe :-)..
The natural yeast will come from anywhere, your hands, the flour and possibly the water, so don’t worry about the airborne yeast. however do keep a loose top, since the gasses released by the starter will explode the jar if the lid is airtight
What is the maximum time you would wait for your dough to double in size during bulk? I made a dough that the off cut I placed into a small jar didn’t double till the morning after another bread disaster? Can you get away with taking your starter out of the fridge and feeding the night before and then using it in the morning or is it better to feed twice before using it?
Moin Roy. This depends a lot on the room temperature. I made a small table recently that covers fermentation times, just go give you a better understanding: table.the-bread-code.io. Those are just guidelines. I would recommend to feed the starter twice before using it after it comes out of the fridge. Two times 1:5:5. This will make sure your starter is not too sour. Feel free to reach out with more questions. Happy baking.
I am following this recipe currently and the first 2 days went great. The starter doubled in volume for the first 2 days using rye flour. Last night I added unbleached AP flour (arrowhead mills brand) and the starter activity stopped. There are no bubbles visible and no gain in volume. I tried making a starter before and the same thing happened when I added the unbleached AP flour. Is this normal? Should I continue using the unbleached AP flour?
In wintertime, my house and kitchen is usually about 67 degrees. Will that influence the development of the starter? IOW, does your kitchen need to be warmer? TIA
OMG this starter is the BEST! I followed some other recipe that used white AP flour and it took 2 weeks to get a weak starter. I started a new starter with organic whole wheat last night and today it was doubled. I fed it with rye and in 2 hrs it doubled! I'm so excited. Ok, here is my question: at what point do I feed it again? Do I just let it go until tomorrow or do I feed it again today since it doubled so quickly?
I live in a desert climate and I have had no luck keeping starter alive. I tried again, useing your method. and following directions. I made 2, one of spelt, and one a rye. On the 4th day both were bubbling so well I had to move them to larger jars. By day 8 both had collapsed and gone completely inactive, the rye starter having rotted. I am completely mystified as to the problem. When I lived on the Gulf Coast with heat and high humidity, I had no problem. Any clue as to why they fail in this high desert climate?
Hello! Going through your video and perhaps you cover it in another video, but do you use a levain when baking? I've had mixed results with them. Thanks!
So typically I extract parts of the starter to set up a new levain, I guess that's the correct technical term :-D. That will be used for the main dough then :-)
I tried this and days 2 and 3, thr starter doubled in size and even poured out of the container. BUT that was it. By day 4 nothing happened. Any idea what happened?
Moin moin! 24 hours later, my starter is just a lump of flour and water. No bubbles, no yeast smell, no rise. Any suggestions? --update: Never mind. Bubbles on day 2.
May the gluten be with you 😂 For acrylamide out! I started my own starter from several organic flour from all over the world with a drop of date syrup.
Hi, thank you for the video. Just wondering when do you switch from 1:1:1 to 1:5:5, the night before you bake? If I want to use it/make a dough say 8am, shall I feed it at 1:5:5 say 8pm the night before?
Thank you for this guide. I'm currently making my first starter. I noticed two different approaches however in the recipes I found online. After day 1, I have 100g starter, On day 2 I take 50g starter and mix with 50g flour + 50g water. On day 3 (before feeding) that has yieled 150g starter. Do I take out 50g again and mix it with 50g flour + 50g water? Or do I take out half of the starter (i.e. 75g) and mix that with 50g flour and 50g water. On the first option I would have 150g starter every day. With the second option the starter "mass" would grow over time (175g on day 3, 187.5 on day 4, 193.75 on day 5). I found the video a bit confusing and am wondering what the difference in these approaches are. Thank you!
Hey. Don't worry too much about the masses. Try having 100 grams of starter every day. For this simply take 33 grams starter, 33 grams flour, 33 grams water. Mix all that and after a week it should be ve active and double in size soon. Now once that is done switch to a 1:5:5 feeding ratio (10 grams of starter, 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour). The quantities depend a little bit on how much starter your recipe calls for.
my starter is very active and bubbly (bread i made so far is also perfect-by my standards😊), but it doesnt have webbing/it’s not thick, more on the runny side. I use only white organic flower for feeding. should i use rye or whole wheat to achieve even stronger starter? thank you for your help.
You can reduce the water. I feed my sourdough weekly. When not using wholegrain flour i do 1+5+4. for example 10gr starter from the fridge + 50 gram flour and 40gramm water. That doubles within 5 hours at 27°C and then i put it back in the fridge for another week.
hi! thanks for all your videos! I have a question regarding this starter.. I am on the 2nd day and my starter is already doubling in size (and more) in less than 5 hours?? Am I doing something wrong? Is my starter ready to use? Thanks again!
Moin Villa. Wow. You should send your starter to a bio facility. Maybe you have discovered a new super yeast haha. Try 2-3 more days just to be sure. Does it still double in size? Then yes, you are ready :-). I'd feed it 1:5:5 and then make the first bread the moment your starter doubled in size.
@@the_bread_code haha thanks for your reply! Just a quick update, I checked the starter before going to sleep last night and it was at the top of the jar (more than 4x the initial size). I went to feed it this morning (day 3) and it was completely deflated, it had a disgusting yellow liquid on top and the smell was very Very strong... I discarded it and started again.. Maybe i should feed it at night again (twice a day) and keep it in the fridge overnight? It's very hot and humid where i live so maybe that's why? thanks for your help!!
That is exactly my problem. I discarded 3 Starters for this reason. Answer is: feed a bit more often and only use the same percentage of starter:flour:water (otherwise your starter will have not enough „to eat“). This smell is normal and indicates that your starter is hangry 😉 You dont have to discard it. Good luck!
Hi there! I am on day 8 of my starter & I'm getting great rise.. doubling at least.. but the smell is like finger nail polish remover. I'm expecting more of a hoppy beer smell.. Is something wrong??
Moin May. No worries. Just make sure you use a lower feeding ratio, 1 part starter, 5 parts flour, 5 parts water. Or maybe even 1:10:10, that way it is not as acidic. Your starter will become acidic very fast at that temperature.
@@the_bread_code Hi, I have a similar problem, as I'm baking in a tropical country. My starter more than doubled in size on the second and thrid day at room temperature (= 31-32 degrees), but then basically stopped rising, although it's still bubbling a bit. So now, I'm using the trick of soaking a towel, freezing it and placing it in the oven together with my starter, and using water from the fridge for feedings, thus managing to bring the temperature of my starter down to a range of 25-29 degrees, depending on how often I get to change the frozen towel. It's day 6 now and still no activity, although I'm feeding my starter regularly, every 12 hours, based on a 1:2:2 ratio. The PH is around 3.8. So what to do? Change to 1:5:5 every 12 hours? Or just wait a bit more?
EDIT: Immediately below my OP, there is an extensive SOURDOUGH HOW TO discussion that fellow home bakers may find insightful. ------- Hi, my starter is going perfectly, and i've been feeding it from various batches of self ground wholemeal flour. Initially I used hard red wheat, but ive gravitated towards hard white because its bran is slightly less tannic, and I find the milder color and flavor to be more versatile. Just out of curiosity, I also ground the remains of some turkish soft white wheatberries ... they worked sorta ok for srveral days, and tasted fine, but I suspect the berries may have been lightly polished or are just naturally less enzymatically active, because my autolysis and leavening times increased 2-3x. As soon as I switched back to hard white wholemeal, my starter immediately reverted to normal speed (able to double in 5hrs) in a single feeding. Anyway, my starter's name is Fafnir, because it dwells unseen in a lair, has magical powers, becomes bilesome if not fed regularly, and thrives on a form of gold (grain threshed from golden sheaves). 😎
See my comment on this posting, I too have been using home milled flour (hard winter red) and for the first 5 days it build up strong and I was excited. Then on the fifth day it had no reaction to the next feeding but the vinegar scent was developing by the 7th day nothing but scent was great. Did you experience this kind of reaction and is this why you converted to hard white?
@@swaltonNo. If I understood you correctly, your issue with overacidification seems to be methodology, not grain source, but to explain it properly will necessarily be long winded. ACTIVE STARTER vs DISCARD STARTER: A healthy thriving and freshly fed sourdough starter, at room temp, seems to follow a very specific life cycle curve: After a typical 1:1:1 or 1:3:3 (starter:wholemeal:water), the first 2-3 hours are mostly microbial replication/growth. The next 2 hours usually involves changeover from replication to feeding, as activity ramps up towards maximum. The next 4 hours (5 thru 9) are your window of peak activity, with ample bubbles present. After that, activity begins to fall off fairly quickly ... not so much because the microbes have run out of food (not so), but because they're increasingly driven into dormancy because of rising acidity (in addition to co2, they produce acid). After several days of acid-induced dormancy, theyll begin dying off, and a grey necrotic liquid will start appearing on the surface, and eventually the entire colony will die. Oh, and hand in hand with overacidification is overautolyzing, where the protease enzyme breaks down too much of the gluten proteins, causing the starter to lose structure, and turn loose, like toothpaste. The solution to all that is multilayered. Besides understanding the lifecycle, your primary tool of control is refrigeration, which slows down all the times I mentioned roughly 5x ... it buys you time. Your other tool is segregating your surplus (aka 'discard') starter from your active starter. Here's my system: 1) SURPLUS: I keep a 16oz glass jar in the door of my fridge, which I use to accumulate/store my surplus starter. Because its already quasi dormant and overacidified, and gluten reduced, it is no longer suitable for breadmaking/leavening ... in lieu of tossing it, I blend it into batters for things like muffins and pancakes, and because its in the fridge (5x slower), i usually have 1-2 weeks to use it up (or feed it) before it gets too distressed (re: necrotic liquid). More on that in a bit. 2) ACTIVE VIABLE STARTER: To make a 1 kg sourdough boule, I need 120 gr of starter in its peak activity window (re: hrs 5-8). However, I only make bread 2x/wk in my household, so to avoid creating too much surplus, I vary the size of my active starter. if im just propagating my culture, ill scoop out about 20 gr into a small bowl, and dump the rest into my surplus jar in the fridge. Then i'll do a 1:1:1 feeding, resulting in 60 gr of freshly fed starter, which sits on my counter for about 5 hours (I use a collins glass, covered with cling wrap). Once it hits peak activity, ill park it in the fridge to slow it down 5x, which buys me a couple days, after which I repeat the process to keep it going in 60 gr increments, or step it up with a 1:3:3 feeding for sourdough (yeilding 120 gr starter plus 20 to continue regular propagation). All that being said, capturing/culturing new strains follows a slower and less predictable time curve, where you have to rely on observation and acidity. if its bubbly, that's a good sign of life, and if it gets tangy, that means its time to pull a little off to propagate it, and move the rest to your surplus jar.
@@swalton BTW, I have some tips of self ground flour. ATM, my fave grain is Kamut. Because i cant grind my flour to the optimal 100mesh level of true bolted flour, I segregate my grist with a 40 mesh sieve into 2 products ... 2/3rds makes it thru as a sort of med-fine wholemeal flour, and the remaining 1/3 is a slighlty coarser grit comparable to semolina, albeit with a high bran content. I use my kamut flour as an accent flavor in my breadmak8ng, and in my starters ... about 20% of my total dough. My kamut grit I use for hot cereal, in muffins, and (here's the important part) for propagation. The grit is ideal for propagation because the coarse grind slows down the rate that the mic4obes can d8gest it, which greatly delays the appearance of necrotic fluid, whereas if I want to make bread i'll switch back to my kamut flour in order to maintain a nice tender open crumb in my bread.
@Roving Punster Thank you so much for your response the information you have given is very detail and I appreciate your time. You have obviously looked into this and I will be following your guidance. I am new at creating my own starter and not as informed at this time but responses like yours are helpful to people like me. I will continue to use my hard red winter red, I use a Mockmill to create the flour which seems to make a fine flour But I will also acquire some Kamut and hard white wheat for future experiments. Statement 1; The issue that I have if I understand you correctly is that leaving the starter on the counter allows too much acid to develop that dormants the microbes (bacteria) that eventually causes them to die off? Statement 2; Slowing down the microbes consuming the gluten proteins (refrigeration) will allow me to feed the starter at its peak strength? The part that confuses me is that when I use store bought flour for my starter handed down from my mother leaving it on the counter overnight, it seems to work (however not always a good rise to the sourdough loaf). But it haven’t died off after 2 years. Yes I either feed it every day or refrigerate it if not to be used for some time. All in all this is a fun activity that gives me pleasure and I am excited that home milled flour give much more health benefits to my family.
@@swalton Yeah, I looked at the mock mill ... a great looking unit which likely grinds a lot finer than my current mill (a grain mill attachment for my stand mixer - after sieving, ill run the grit thru a spice mill and resieve it, which is how i managed to achieve a decent 66% yield of flour). The mock mill is a bit out of my budget ATM though. Ive tried a lot of different grains, and ATM my two favorites are hard white spring wheat (high protein, low tannin), and kamut (ditto, plus a nice nutty flavor, and the big plump toothsome berries are great for wheatberry salad, if soaked and cooked properly). I scored about 20-30 lbs of kamut berries from Breadtopia last fall, but I dunno if they still have it, much less at a decent price. Shipping, not price per pound, is nearly always the gotcha when mail ordering grain, but amazon is sometimes an option if their prime free shipping balances out their higher per pound price. Mail order mills often have an attractively low price per pound, but their shipping costs are HIGH, and often far exceed the cost of the grain ... esp since the war in ukraine.
Very helpful to see the progress and formula from day to day: definitely not boring: very reassuring.. Thank you. Do you have a video on how you can maintain the starter in the fridge ?
Let's say that after 4-5 days the starter is doubling in size in 7 hours. What do you do? Do you feed it again every 7 hours, then every 6 or 5 hours (every time it is doubling its size) or you feed it every 24 hours? Everyone says day 1, day 2, etc but when the starter is active this time (24h) is starting to decrease and acidity is starting to increase. What do you do then?
Once it's ready I feed it once every day at room temperature. That's in the evening. In the morning I use it to make a dough. If I don't use it I sometimes move it to the fridge. I apply one more feeding when out of the fridge and then make a bread again :-)
@@the_bread_code So, the correct is that you may start with whole "days" but it is actually "feedings" until the dough reaches its peak in its growth. After several "days" the period between each feeding must be less than 24h. For example feeding 5 = 16h, feeding 6 = 12h, feeding 7 = 9h... until we finally reach to the point... feeding # = 5-6h. Of course it depends on temperature and other factors each house, area has at that moment. But i believe that if a dough is doubling its size after 5 days in 9h and you feed it for the next 24h and not for less than 9h (@ same temp) that you are losing something and that your dough is probably going to die... Maybe i am wrong and letting your starter many hours after its peak growth doesn't affect it much.
Hello! Is it acceptable to simply make your starter a higher overall percentage of your final dough if you feel it doesn't have a sense enough yeast/bacteria population. Also, what is the potential harm, if any, if your dough represents too high a percentage of your final dough?
Yea I would also like to know how to maintain the starter after the ninth day for someone who doesn’t bake regularly as well. Maybe a loaf every week or so
@@frojo416 I bake sourdough bread once a week.Just feed your starter and put him in the refrigiator after you baked .You might as well leave him there for two weeks without feeding.But the best is to feed him every week.If you want to bake,get him out and feed him.
Hi! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Your videos have been very helpful. Now, my starter has a vinegar smell, should I throw it away or what can I do about it? Thanks
Moin Dominique. Awesome. I would recommend to watch this video, I cover the topic: ruclips.net/video/NMglhwp2lNs/видео.html. In general just feed your starter 1:5:5. It is completely normal that this happens!
I am just making my very first starter now. It's unclear to me what you do with the starter after you get to the point where it doubles in 5 hours. Do you keep it in room temperature and feed it every day until eternity, or do you put it in the fridge and only take it out when you want to use it (and then start the feeding process again to get a new batch)? Or what? I think number 1 but I want to be sure. :) PS. Thank you for great and inspiring videos!
Moin Allikin, that's amazing. Welcome to the sourdough world. You will love it. I am quite sure. Until the starter is ready you want to keep it at room temperature. Then once you are done baking, store the jar in the fridge. When you want to bake 1 week later, 2 weeks, 4 weeks or 2 months, take the starter out again. Take a tiny part and feed it again with flour and water. I'd recommend to do a 1:10:10 feed at the start. Feed it 1-2 times before using it again to bake. You will have the same activity again. Happy baking!
When you feed the starter do you leave it on the counter or refrigerate it? I know that is probably a dumb question but I want to follow the instructions completely. The other thing is if it is left at room temperature do you feed it once per day or more often? The last starter I made sucked badly and it passed the water test but I used I unbleached flour and I was not pleased with it at all. This time I will be using my hard white wheat berries.
Moin Arminda. Thanks for the excellent question. At room temperature you should feed it twice per day once it is matured. While it matures, once per day is sufficient. Before using it, try doing at least two 1:5:5 feedings. It will do wonders :-). When I don't bake, I move it to the fridge and store it there. But then I reactivate it over a couple of days as well.
I tried this and ended up with some moist flour for two days that suddenly turned moldy. I did equal parts but my starter just felt very dry. Maybe the water evaporated? 🤔
@@the_bread_code I restarted “Kevin” with an unopened batch of unbleached all purpose four I recently got. That bag of wheat flour I had was pretty old so I figure it probably doesn’t have much live yeast left in it? 🤷🏼♂️ l will have to get a new bag and feed “Kevin” something healthier but this should do for now ... 😁. the quest continues! ✊🏼❗️
Hello! Thank you for your super videos! I've learned really a lot with you but I'm still confused about certains ratios with the starter : when the starter is ready, if you don't use it and let it on the counter you feed it on a 1:1:1 basis, and when you are ready to bake, you feed the starter with the 1:5: 5 ratio a few times before. But can you feed your starter on a 1:5:5 basis for the daily feeding, would it work? In my case I used that ratio for my starter before my baking day as advised but because the starter didn't double in size even though it had a 80% rise, I waited feeding it on a 1:5:5 basis for 4 times now because it's like the starter stopped its activity after the second time. So what should I do? keep on the 1:5:5 basis or come back to 1:1:1 to make it stronger again ? I hope what I wrote was clear...
Moin Christine, thanks for the excellent question. Now the tricky part about the 1:5:5 ratio when setting up the starter could be that other organisms might prevent your sourdough yeast/bacteria from taking over the colony. Once they have matured they pretty much rule your starter. The 1:1:1 ratio is better in that regard as it makes sure you infuse more existing cultures throughout your feedings. Now at the same time the 1:1:1 feeding makes it easier for the bacteria to take over, you typically have a balance. It is more sour right from the start. That's why I would recommend you to use the 1:5:5 feeding ratio for the bread baking days, for the days before especially when setting up the sourdough the 1:1:1 ratio could help. Hope this sheds a little bit of light on the situation. Thanks
A little bread math: I'm sure i reinvented the wheel on this, but I thought I'd share a pair of dirt simple equations I just derived for adjusting a given weight of sourdough starter (100%) to a lower hydration level for use in things like pizza dough (70%) or bread (60%), or for figuring out how much flour is needed for a desired amt of dough with a given hydration level. Assumptions & Definitions: Oil doesnt count towards hydration% For simplicity, salt sugar & yeast are not included here. Dw = Fw + Ww (dough wt = Flour + Water) Hp = Hydration Percentage (ex: SD Starter 100%, Pizza 70-75%, Bread 60%, Chinese Noodles 50%) Sw = Sourdough starter weight Sc = Additional flour wt needed to reduce Sw fm 100% to desired Hp. My equations, derived from above: Fw = Dw ÷ (1 + Hp) Ww = Dw × (1 - 1 ÷ (1 + Hp)) Sc = Sw × ((1 ÷ (1 + Hp)) - 0.5) Test: To adjust 100gr SD starter for use in a bread dough with 60% hydration, i'd need ... Sc = 100(1/1.6 - 0.5) = 12.5gr flour Test: How much flour do I need to make 400gr chinese noodle dough at 50% hydration ? Fw = 400 ÷ 1.5 = 267 gr flour Ww = 400 - 267 = 133 gr water Hope that helps someone. I keep it on a postit on the side of my flour tub. Cheers.
I start my starters using 1/4 tsp flour and enough water to create a thick batter. Tiny, es, but it works. Next days I add another 1/4 tsp flour, few drops of water, mix well to same thick consistency. I follow same steps as noted by instructor of this video but in smaller portion, no waste, less clean up, it works!!! Thought I would share for those interested to try the Mini size sourdough starter. 😅😂😂😊❤
I've watched several videos on sourdough starters and I always end up with the same question: do we really think our ancient ancestors were >this< precise in making their sourdough? 🤔 Living in Alaska I've heard and read tales of Miners and Trappers with their Starters. Then, we go back to ancient, Middle Eastern Cultures. I kind of imagine an ancient mother making a starter of some sort for a betrothed daughter. I don't see any of these people being this finicky over weights and measurements.
Great comment. You are absolutely right! I never measure exactly anymore. I just go by look and feel. But at the start exact measurements can help you to develop that look&feel.
They probably used leftover blown out dough as their starter.
Which isn't far from a starter
The ancients were finicky over weights and measures when building things like the pyramids, so why not sourdough starter?
I think you under estimate them.
well guess when finally could chew my sourdough bread, i'd feel my ancestors in the room, smiling at me proudly xD thx great vids, & happy holidays🎄☃️
Haha, 100%. They would be very proud of you!
I love this! I have kept my sourdough starter for years using whole rye flour. Great tips again 👌 thank you!
I see a lot of questions/uncertainty in these comments regarding the best way to maintain the starter after it is ready, may i suggest you do a short video on what comes next? Once the starter is ready as per this video, what do we do? store it in the fridge? Feed it? how often? What ratios? Like most everyone here, i am a "casual" home baker, will do sourdough a couple times a month, so just curious as to what is the best method to feed and maintain the starter, danke!
Thanks! I took a note :-)
Danke! I just started two starters today. One with rye and one with all purpose flour. Let's see how this goes.
Named them Chuck and Charlie
OMG, 😍 you give right direction for the sourdough starter , I watched a lot of videos that all confused me but now I'm cleared about it.💝 Thank you so much 💕
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, I learned so much. I know now what's a sourdough and how to make a SD starter. God bless you.
Awesome. You are most welcome. Welcome to the sourdough world 🎉
Some things to look out for if you're struggling (cause I did for weeks):
1. Keep a consistent Temperature (25-35°C-ish) anything below or above that range will provoke growth of nasty stuff like mold--some suggestions:
- Store on a radiator on low heat
- Store next to your WiFi router (watch out for overflowing starter that could get into the router and fry it)
- Store in microwave oven with a previously microwaved heat/coldpack (will last up to 12h depending on size; also don't microwave your starter ofc)
- Pack container with aluminum foil
2. Use really high quality flour, perhaps even artisanal/organic
3. Clean your glassware and utensils with concentrated vinegar and then rinse with hot water
4. Thoroughly wash your hands before and rinse off any soap
5. Starter may double in the first one or two days and then seem to die off---keep going it will most likely pick back up around the 5th or 6th day
6. Cover the top with a tablespoon of water to inhibit mold growth and drying of the top layer
7. Try bottled mineral water if you suspect your tap water is chlorinated or brominated (or if your plumbing sucks)
This is an amazing comment 👍 I took notes ❤️ thank you!!
77=95 F Clean with Vin and HOT h2o ARQ why cant we just use rasin or fruit water isnt that easier and not wasting flour and spring water? I LOVE YOUR skills and awareness! Since i easily get lost Im following YOU! :) Thank you for Such Clarity Angel :)
:) Top it off with 1 T of water to inhibit mold and keep it from drying off the top layer. :) Brillant :) and was also my idea i just needed validation outside myself to TRuST myself thank uuuuuuuuuuuu! for this :) Your a Great Teacher.
Ah damn it, I threw away my 4 day old starter just a few hours ago because it seemed to die off after rising on the 2nd day. Now I read your comment to keep going and it will bounce back :(
Thanks though, at least now I know for next time lol
yeah, I was wondering if the clorine in tap water would kill it.
Your video inspired me to try to bake a sourdough bread of my own. I did it pretty freestyle so maybe that's a mistake and it will not work.
I used luke warm water and whole wheat flour for my sourdough starter and put it in a place with sunshine. I was feeding it three times every 12 hours. When I looked this morning my starter more than doubled in size. Had the bubbles and the smell was resembling sour milk.
I decided to bake my first sourdough bread right now and not wait any longer. Used the discard starter from the fridge (ca. 40g) and my bubbling starter (ca. 90g) with 400g of whole wheat flour, 400g of luke warm water and 10-15g of salt.
The dough, covered with a wet towel, is now resting at my window sill in the sunshine until it roughly doubles in size. Let's see how this works out in the end.
Hi Ioratio, awesome. I am sure it will turn out very well. If your dough is too sticky, just use a loaf pan to bake it. Also, in my opinion the biggest factor you have to control is fermentation. I made a full video on this recently: ruclips.net/video/nIOPCeLPqrM/видео.html. It's the #1 way to become better at sourdough baking. Take care and happy baking.
@@the_bread_code You were spot on. My dough was too sour so I had to use a loaf pan. My guess is that's because I used the discard starter for baking. Also next time I should use oatmeal flakes like you did, because despite the sunflower oil I used my bread was sticking to my loaf pan.
The bread is very tasty, much more satiable than bread you buy from the store and quite sour. I like the result.
@@loratio77 Glad it turned out well. I love it too, it has a very hearty taste! Try getting some vegetable spray oil, it really made a difference for me. My bread sticks way less. I use it together with oats. Spray, then add oats. Happy baking!
You can read about this in detail in my free book called “The Sourdough Framework”. You can get it here: breadco.de/book. You can support the project with a donation, but there is absolutely no knead. I believe information like this should be free and accessible to everyone. The book is made for everyone who wants to understand the important details when making sourdough bread. Thank you!
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Do you keep your starter in the refrigerator?
Very interesting video, thank you for that! One question: how do you reduce the sourdough acidity? (feed it more often, using less flour or...). I have around 26-27C in my kitchen and the sourdough tends to rise and becomes sour quite fast! Thanks!
Hi Cosmin. Try feeding a ratio of 1:5:5 or so. That you have less acidity to start with. This should help :-). Cheers.
Helped me, excellent advice
"Get your starter to a stage where it should be able to double in size after 5 to 6 hours." Assuming my starter is ready, if I plan to bake a loaf at 6am, would I feed the starter at about midnight the previous night - ie six hours earlier? Great site, btw.
Ah, I answered my own question. I have since seen your videos on using up discard. It seems that things to make with sourdough is just about endless and I am excited to get my first culture ready for a try at making a Mischbrot 1:1 rye and whole wheat. It appears that I have good base ingredients as after 36 hours of beginning my starter it is already expanding and am seeing bubbles through the side of the jar.
I enjoy your videos. Your instructions are very clear and there's not too much unnecessary chatter. Can you make starter with buckwheat?
Gluten tag! I love your videos. Very helpful and informative. my question with starter is after you have finally achieved your healthy, active starter, what is the maintenance feeding ratios? is it still the same 1-1-1? or is it different? please if anyone knows this let me know. Thanks!
Very simple, but obviously, every day-five days, maybe seven days, even couple of weeks-But very good
Hello. Have to say watching your videos has cleared up some confusions I had from other videos so thank you for sharing here.
I have 2 questions about the water used in the starter.
First, I've heard in other videos that purified water should be used because sometimes the chlorine content of tap water would act against the growth of yeast & bacteria. Is that a real concern?
Second, do you use warm water (90-100f / 32-38c)? I've heard that can make a difference as well.
Thank you
Moin Marco. You have a point. I always use non-chlorinated water for my starter. I have not experimented with chlorinated water yet. Try going for water at around 20-25°C. Not too warm as that will favor the bacterial part of your sourdough starter.
Hi, amazing video
I am very new to sourdough and had a few ques
how should i maintain
my starter after day 9 till forever, what ratio should i use ?
Also should i feed my starter just before baking if i have fed it 24 hrs before ?
What do i do with the left over starter after baking a bread ?
I have similiar questions, but the Masters won't respond. They don't wan't us to know everythink, in my opinion.
Hi, I am curious; if you do not have a starter; can you just put Flour, Water, Salt in a bowl; and just let it naturally ferment for a couple of days or say; and then bake it. Will that work for an edible healthy sour dough bread; or do you need to have a starter? Thanks
Yes. But you might have other germs in the mixture too. Over time they will be outperformed by the yeast and lactic/acetic acid bacteria. That's why it's better to apply a couple of feedings.
May be obvious to some but if you didn't realise 50g water is 50ml. If that makes things a little easier for you to make this. I made a Poolish with a small amount of yeast and then add wholemeal flower and water as i go... Makes beautiful sourdough starter which is very flavoursome
Dear viewers. Thanks for watching, hope you make a super healthy and active starter. It is really the basis to bake amazing bread. I highly recommend you to watch this video of the full process then for baking the bread. It covers everything pretty much in detail: ruclips.net/video/NMglhwp2lNs/видео.html. Paired with this video you will become a master baker in no time! Happy baking! Feel free to reach out with questions at any time.
What do I do after I created the starter.. How do I keep it alive over years?
Thanks for all the great help! I'm using your starter recipe (using organic whole grain dark rye) it performs perfectly for the first two days doubling in size but then stops. I'm feeding every 12 hours and have it at 27c so conditions are kept very consistent. By day 3 and 4 still no action. Do I keep feeding and wait? So strange:(
@@Henry.Bendik My guess is that your starter gets too acidic. The high temp both speeds up the fermentation, and it also promotes lactobacillus over yeasts. If you want to keep the same temp and time try to discard a larger portion of the starter each time. Remember that if you want to raise the pH one step you need to dilute your starter 10x.
@@niklasenbom6353thanks for the help!! 👍
My starter (spelt) smells rancid (day 4). Do I have to start from scratch? 😢
Thank you so much for your videos!❤ I LOVE how you take your time to explain in detail and how you add a some humour. My starter is now 5 days old and is doing nicely, its name is Brad (in honour of your starter). Can’t wait to make my first bread!
Hi! i have a situation with my sourdough starter which does not make me feel confident to bake bread! After feeding it for 15-16 times i had good results with doubling the volume in the jar. I tried to bake a bread but the results where not so good. Let me explain...
Thursday night = mixing all ingredients except starter. I left it overnight (8 hours) in the fridge.
Friday morning (@ 8:00) - 17:00 = on the counter - autolyse
Friday afternoun = 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th folds. The dough was very sticky. It was supposed to have hydration 65% but i felt it like 75%...? I managed to put it in the fridge in order to bake next morning.
Saturday morning = only small amount of rise. I left it on the counter in a warm place and decided to bake it (50% to bake it - 50% to discard all of it). I thought it will end to a flat bread but finally "the bread" had risen (with small holes) and it was... let's say ok to eat!
I made some tests in my starter to see if it was healthy enough...
1st feed = bottled water @ 20 oC, whole wheat flour @ room temp (~21 oC), starter from the fringe @ 6 oC. The results was good. Good rise after 5-6 hours. That's OK!
2nd feed = bottled water @ 20 oC, whole wheat flour @ room temp (~21 oC), starter @ 20 oC. The results were not so good! Good rise after 9 hours!!! ?
3rd feed (maybe it's a temp problem?) = bottled water @ 30 oC, whole wheat flour @ room temp (~21 oC), starter from the fringe @ 6 oC. The results were not so good! Good rise after 8 hours!!!
So, I don' t feel confident with my starter!!! Is sth wrong with it? How can i make it to give a double rise every 4-5 hours? I mean i cannot wait a day to bake... In the past I had a starter that worked impressively good @ 4 hours but i lost it! Can i make it better? Is sth missing from it?
My starter definitely doesn't look like this. Mine is quite runny, and when I feed it, it bubbles up and almost doubles in size, but then it falls back down and i am left with a layer of foam on top of a layer of grey water, on top of a thick pancake batter...
Moin Chris. That sounds like a good starter. It doubles in size within 5-7 hours? Perfect. It could be that your flour simply does not absorb as much water, no worries, all good. You are ready to bake with it. Every starter is unique.
Thank you for all amaizing video tutorials :)
can you tell us please
why sourdough bread is healthier compared to bread made on regular yeast
Have you already written about this?
I haven't written about it, but it's the lactic acid bacteria that converts your flour into something more digestible. Furthermore the slow fermentation helps breaking down the flour. You eat a different product than raw flour. Short fermentations are not good.
@@the_bread_code what qualifies a long fermentation opposed to a short one?
Wait.... so by day 9 you have 9 glasses of starter? What do you do with first one, since you took out half of it and put it in the 2nd glass?
Great question. I store the excess in another jar in the fridge. Then I use that later to make a nice discard starter bread out of it.
Thank YOU!! THANK YOU FOR MAKING A VIDEO ABOUT THE DISCARD!! I thought you forgot about that.
Hello thanks for the video first of all. I have a question when it is time to use the starter to make bread do you use all of it or you take a portion of it and keep the rest in the fridge and if that is the case how often do you feed when you have it in the fridge? Thanks in advance.
Can you make a video about the smell? Im new and my starter smells really weird and i don't know if thats normal or not ^.^"
Probably normal hehe. You can check out my liquid sourdough starter tutorials, maybe they help :-)
is there a video on bad bacteria in starters and what to watch for, time frames etc
hi, thanks for sharing.
I live in the subtropical area and the room temperature is 29C give or take.
my 1st batch doubled in size 23 hours
however, the 2nd tripled in size after 6 hours. so, I started the 3rd feed and waiting to see the result tomorrow.
what's the point to stop feeding ?
thanks
Thanks a lot for all your videos. I followed your measurements with Rye flour, but the mix was too solid. I had too add more water. I hope that will be no problem. I'm in day 2.
That's okay. Nornally the 1:1 should work. My starter is always a little more solid with rye. Nothing to worry 👍
King Mula; how did it go ? did you manage to complete the process? I just bought my rye flour and come across your questions. Thanks
@@jazznariko5354 After many attempts now my bread is getting great. But in general what I realized is that you can't exactly follow any recipe. Flours are different depending on brand, country, etc. Some absorb more water than others. The same with temperature in your home and oven. So the best advice is: keep trying until you get your own perfect proportions and timing.
@@gozub3643 thank you so much for your quick reply and happy that your baking is getting better, I am very excited to try it out this adventure 👍
Do you recommend just waiting 24 hours between each feeding in this setup stage and doing it at the same time from one day to the next?
Moin Samuel. Yep! That is correct.
Mm,im confused- which starter you use on day 3? 1 st day starter or 2 nd day starter🤔or as i understood- everyday fresh ingredients mix with previous days starter? If so, wouldn’t i end up with 7 glasses of previous starters of 7 day time line? ( i took 7 days as example) what do i do with previous starters?
Herr Hendrik, I have trouble with a starter that I hope you can help solve. My starter is based on Gold Label whole wheat flour and filtered water. Since I only bake once per week or so, I keep it refrigerated. My breads have never had any measurable oven spring, despite following your recommendations and those of others on RUclips, but they are otherwise quite good. But recently, the starter has become much less active, and the pH has dropped to about 3.55, which I recall may be indicative of excessive bacteria. For temperature, my house in San Diego California is about 22 deg C, and my refrigerator is about 3 deg C. I am unsure whether the starter can be resurrected, or if I should just start over. Bitte hilfen Sie mir!
Thanks for the video you are an amazing person! Just have one question, I'm a beginner actually.. Why don't we just feed our starter as it is without discarding a part of it??
Moin George. You can do that. But then over time the acid will reduce the activity of the micro-organisms. So it is better to discard a portion and create a new feast again.
@@the_bread_code thank you my friend love from Greece
Thank you so much for such fascinating experimental videos! Im loving following your journey with sourdough.
I wanted to ask....i have made 2 separate starters...one feeding on 50:50 white to rye flour and the other feeding on 90% white flour. Both are less than a month old. I was hoping to see which one will become more effective. I havent had success yet (i think its because of my timings).
My question is : what will happen if i mix the 2 starters together...would that create a more effective starter?
When you combine the two starters Will combine their unique yeast and bacterial properties together after a few days of feeding the new starter will stabilize and form a unique characteristic of its own
Mine stopped rising after day 3.. depressing☹️
Oh noes. Just keep going. Try getting your hands on some rye flour. It really does wonders.
Hope you managed to get it going again! Mine stopped rising and it got all funky but i tried to power through for a couple months. (Contamination was stealing resources from the lactobacillus that sourdough uses). I remade a starter in glass with stone ground whole wheat (so that it would have the bran and germ and everything) and it's already SO much healthier than my old starter. Better rise, better smell, more predictable!
I've been lucky, my starter (Trevor) has been very happy (well, mostly ;-) ). Something in your video gave me pause, though, because it's been a mental struggle for me since the beginning. Specifically, you said to 'cover the starter so that it doesn't dry out'. Makes total sense, BUT, I've read so many books/articles/restroom walls that have wildly differing advice. "Leave it open so the air can get to it," "Cover it loosely with paper towel," "Cover with plastic," "Cover with cheesecloth"
I asked my husband to get some flax seed for your starter bread recipe. He came home with ground flax seeds. So, I decided to start a second jar of starter. I used the discard to start a new starter jar and I fed it exactly like the first jar except that I incorporated a tsp of ground flax seed. The results were good. The starter with the ground flaxseed was a bit more active than the starter I was feeding with whole wheat flour. I can't get rye flour in my small town. I am planning on ordering some online. What do you think? Have you ever used something like ground flaxseed in your starter?
1 thing is not clear in me while making sour it should keep in frize or out side...😊🙏reply
Great video! I started the process since one week, ups and downs, but since one day i didn't use the cap of the jar, instead I covered it with a bandage, so that air and microorganism could go inside. It started growing again, slowly, but more consistently. Should I use the bandage until the end of the process and then switch to the cap again? Thanks!
Both works - nothing to worry.
Greetings from Northern California. I a just beginning to bake at 66 years of age! I still work full-time and travel so I'm wanting to ask you how you travel with your starter. What is the best transport/travel system? Thank you in advance!
You might want to look into flat breads, they are great when travelling: ruclips.net/video/5DWcrVHK1WU/видео.html. For transport, I keep it as a liquid in the liquid bag when flying. Sometimes I also dry it.
Little confused ... should we use hot water?
Room temperature water works very well :-)
Greetings! I have watched more than 8 hours and many of your You Tube, thank you for all the information. I try to look for how do you keep/maintain your starter and how often do you feed it? I mean when I don't bake everyday, do I keep it in the fridge and feed it daily until I want to bake and take some out to do 1:5:5 feeding before using it? If yes, what do I do with the rest in the jar? Sorry if you have talked about this, but probably not in the YT i was watching. Please clarify.
Great question. With the rest I recommend you do this: ruclips.net/video/xmt3eXzOQLM/видео.html
@@the_bread_code Thanks! I watched this one too but not quite the answer I m looking for. I guess it’s hard to understand each other.
Not clear to me what happens after day 1. U take half out ?
Yes. You always take out a bit. Then you use that to make your next day's starter. The rest you discard initially.
So, I’m very curious. Enough so to try it tomorrow. What would replacing 50% of the water with beer?
Guten Tag! Alles gut? My hubby is from Chiemsee and I have just started into my sourdough or rye bread making, I started following your sourdough starter instructions and only to realise that on day 5 I had been deducting 50 grams of starter and top up with the usual 50 g rye flour and 50 g water, so I see my jar looks full of starter and no bubbles or activities, so then i prepared a new jar and put 50 g of starer and 50 g rye flour and 50 g water and kept the remaining as my starter stored in the fridge. Do you think this is still ok? have i saved the damage from not doing the steps correctly for the first 5 days? Vielen Dank!
Nothing to worry. Just keep going 🙏🏻. With your setup your starter should come to life soon.
My starter is VERY active after one day. Started with rye, then today i fed it 50/50 rye/whole wheat and it doubled, actually a bit more than double, went to the top of the jar and then started going down in about.. 10 hours, not quite sure exactly. Good sign right? :d
Hi, how are you? The average temperature in my city is around 38°C nowadays. What is your recommendation for me to start a new starter from scratch with such high temperature? Any hint?
Wow. 38°C. That's a lot haha. You can use your existing starter, or your old starter. Try always going for a 1:10:10 feeding ratio. It should help you to not ferment too fast.
I started a new starter with organic whole wheat AP flour...this ok?
So I don't really have any questions about creating a starter but I had an interesting thing happen today when I was feeding my starter. It turned into a mass "dough" basically. Really stiff and full of gluten strands. It usually has a good gluten structure normally but this is a little bit different. Do you have any thoughts on this? Thanks. Keep doing what you're doing.
That's super interesting. I've only had that when manually adding vital wheat gluten and not mixing it will before adding water.
@@the_bread_code Update: by this morning it was back to a loose liquid. I fed it again and it seemed normal. We will see in a couple hours.
This one is not the easiest and the fastest but More Reliable. So you do needing 8 days and feedings then? in the End Hend? Ben Starr has a video where he never feeds his starter he just uses it and then his bread takes almost two days to Rise. In a way that does seem easy and no feedings and its not 8 days. I want the Snap your fingers method. No just kidding...I love this fun experiment! With Cheers.
Try this 🤗 The Last SOURDOUGH STARTER RECIPE You Ever Need (updated 2022)
ruclips.net/video/_P1B7PxAwk0/видео.html
hello. i am new to sourdough. i tried a few times to make the starter but allways in day 3-4 i have a layer of water above. room temp now in summer is 26 degrees and i used equal parts of water and whole wheat flour. my question is, why i have allways water on surface? i dont know what to do. last times i discard all of starter bc i was thinking is not how is suposed to be the structure
Absolutely no need to worry. You can check in my book (breadco.de/book). Just enter 0€ and you are good to go. There is one section that covers this topic in particular, it's under troubleshooting. Cheers!
Do you leave your starter out for 5 hours after feeding, then refrigerate? How often should we feed established starters and how long should we leave them "out" of the fridge vs. In the fridge when feeding and baking with?
You can leave your starter easily for 4 weeks in the fridge without feeding. Refresh it once at a high ratio (1:10:10) (1 part starter, 10 parts flour, 10 parts water) before you bake. Then it's as good as new again. Once it roughly doubled in size you can use it :-)
I’m from Pakistan and the weather is really hot here with temperature in summers going upto 50 degrees Celsius in wheat growing areas. Now coming to the main issue, I started my sourdough starter yesterday, gave it a second feed in the morning today and barely after 3 hours my starter culture has doubled. Temperature early in the morning was 20 degrees Celsius, it’s 26 now and will rise to somewhere around 32- 33. Now my question is that should I move ahead with dough for baking or continue to feed for 9 days
This is a culinary emergency, I have fed my starter culture thrice on the second day because its doubling every few hours. I have been making kefir in the same corner of the kitchen for years. Could that be the reason for such rapid rise.
I use sprouted soft wheat berries, and grind my own flour with a MockMill stone grinder. Does sprouting the grain effect the sourdough starter?
It shouldn't. It should work too!
Is there any reason one would keep massive jars of starter like I see ladies doing on IG and RUclips? I'm new to this, my rye starter is 4 weeks old and doing great. My all purpose is doing ok but different consistency. And I see people with these huge jars of AP starters and just wondering why?
Do i have to feed it at the same time every day? I live in Thailand at temp. at home usually around 28-32
Yes :-). Once you started baking, you can move it back to the fridge.
Brilliant explanation thank you. My starter is 20 days now. It rises at 2x sometimes 3x but the smell is extremely alcoholic. I am feeding it twice a day at 1:2:2. Any idea why that is please? Struggling to know why!
Moin Ahmed. You are most welcome, thanks for the nice words. That's completely normal with your starter. It's a sign that your starter is very healthy. Good job. I would recommend that before you bake, you feed your starter 1:5:5. 1 part starter, 5 times flour, 5 times water. That way you have less pre-fermented flour in your mix. It should help in not having overfermented doughs.
The Bread Code thank you. For some reason it has slowed down now and since I fed it this morning (4 hours ago) it has rise slightly not much. Guess I was too concerned with the alcohol smell that I jinxed it and it slowed down massively.
@@ahmed_elalfy Is it really alcohol? Or could it also be lactic acid? It smells quite vinegary in my case. Is it similar for you?
The Bread Code to be honest not sure. It was a mixture of both I must say. It was indeed very active but now it does double in size but takes much longer. Also worth mentioning I have just changed the feeding flour from 40% spelt flour, 60% white bread flour to 90% white bread flour 10% spelt flour.
The Bread Code I think I realised what the issue is. It is taking long now because I increased my ratio to 1:3:3 so it doesn’t double up in 4 hours anymore but longer. I will try to feed it less ratio tomorrow and see where it goes.
My starter rise but bubbles are tiny , can you help why ???? I use bread flour and rye flour . Thanks
I just set this up. Thanks. So excited to finally get started on my sourdough bread journey.
Hi Thanks a lot for the video, I was wondering if we could start with for example 20 grams of each flour instead of 50. This way we will discard less. no?
Hi Fahimeh, yes and no. In general yes, but, you will also have less flour that contains the natural yeast. So it will take longer until you cultivated your yeast/bacteria. In general I would prepare another jar in the fridge where you put in all your discard. I bake a bread out of it regularly.
Hello :) Thank you for your great videos! I made a new starter according to your video and now it's the second day day and my starter more than doubled in size. Is it ready already? Or is something wrong? Should I start baking with it? Thank you for your answer in advance!
Gluten Tag Marie. Excellent question. No. Keep feeding it. You have microorganisms inside, but they might not be the good one. Recheck after 5-7 days. If it still happens, then you are ready to bake!
What would your advice be for a Baker who wants to make hundreds kilos of Sourdough bread every day?? Like how do you make that quantity of sourdough starter every day? Is it even worth ? Sorry for bathering and bombing with questions
Moin George. Thanks for the message. Oh yes, large bakeries do that every day. They use a machine to mix their sourdough. But this works. To be save, they won't go as high in hydration in their doughs, they play safe :-)..
Do I need to cover with air tight or just a loose top so natural airborne yeast can get in?
The natural yeast will come from anywhere, your hands, the flour and possibly the water, so don’t worry about the airborne yeast. however do keep a loose top, since the gasses released by the starter will explode the jar if the lid is airtight
@@theslamjamfrincisco2820 thanks 🙏
My sourdough starter calls Danny DeWheato. He would like to cooperate with Bread Pit for the next Blockbuster on these Christmas Days. 😉🎄
What is the maximum time you would wait for your dough to double in size during bulk? I made a dough that the off cut I placed into a small jar didn’t double till the morning after another bread disaster? Can you get away with taking your starter out of the fridge and feeding the night before and then using it in the morning or is it better to feed twice before using it?
Moin Roy. This depends a lot on the room temperature. I made a small table recently that covers fermentation times, just go give you a better understanding: table.the-bread-code.io. Those are just guidelines. I would recommend to feed the starter twice before using it after it comes out of the fridge. Two times 1:5:5. This will make sure your starter is not too sour. Feel free to reach out with more questions. Happy baking.
I am following this recipe currently and the first 2 days went great. The starter doubled in volume for the first 2 days using rye flour.
Last night I added unbleached AP flour (arrowhead mills brand) and the starter activity stopped. There are no bubbles visible and no gain in volume.
I tried making a starter before and the same thing happened when I added the unbleached AP flour.
Is this normal? Should I continue using the unbleached AP flour?
In wintertime, my house and kitchen is usually about 67 degrees. Will that influence the development of the starter? IOW, does your kitchen need to be warmer? TIA
Nothing to worry. It will work at all temperatures :-)
OMG this starter is the BEST! I followed some other recipe that used white AP flour and it took 2 weeks to get a weak starter. I started a new starter with organic whole wheat last night and today it was doubled. I fed it with rye and in 2 hrs it doubled! I'm so excited. Ok, here is my question: at what point do I feed it again? Do I just let it go until tomorrow or do I feed it again today since it doubled so quickly?
I looked at some of the other questions and I got my answer...wait until tomorrow, right?
I live in a desert climate and I have had no luck keeping starter alive. I tried again, useing your method. and following directions. I made 2, one of spelt, and one a rye. On the 4th day both were bubbling so well I had to move them to larger jars. By day 8 both had collapsed and gone completely inactive, the rye starter having rotted. I am completely mystified as to the problem. When I lived on the Gulf Coast with heat and high humidity, I had no problem. Any clue as to why they fail in this high desert climate?
Hello! Going through your video and perhaps you cover it in another video, but do you use a levain when baking? I've had mixed results with them. Thanks!
So typically I extract parts of the starter to set up a new levain, I guess that's the correct technical term :-D. That will be used for the main dough then :-)
I tried this and days 2 and 3, thr starter doubled in size and even poured out of the container. BUT that was it. By day 4 nothing happened. Any idea what happened?
Moin moin! 24 hours later, my starter is just a lump of flour and water. No bubbles, no yeast smell, no rise. Any suggestions?
--update: Never mind. Bubbles on day 2.
May the gluten be with you 😂
For acrylamide out!
I started my own starter from several organic flour from all over the world with a drop of date syrup.
Hi, thank you for the video. Just wondering when do you switch from 1:1:1 to 1:5:5, the night before you bake? If I want to use it/make a dough say 8am, shall I feed it at 1:5:5 say 8pm the night before?
Yep. That sounds good. That's how I would do it :-)
@@the_bread_code Thank you so much! You are amazing!
What temperature do you keep your house at?
It's around 22-25°C :-). It doesn't matter that much :-)
Thank you for this guide. I'm currently making my first starter. I noticed two different approaches however in the recipes I found online. After day 1, I have 100g starter, On day 2 I take 50g starter and mix with 50g flour + 50g water. On day 3 (before feeding) that has yieled 150g starter. Do I take out 50g again and mix it with 50g flour + 50g water? Or do I take out half of the starter (i.e. 75g) and mix that with 50g flour and 50g water. On the first option I would have 150g starter every day. With the second option the starter "mass" would grow over time (175g on day 3, 187.5 on day 4, 193.75 on day 5). I found the video a bit confusing and am wondering what the difference in these approaches are. Thank you!
Hey. Don't worry too much about the masses. Try having 100 grams of starter every day. For this simply take 33 grams starter, 33 grams flour, 33 grams water. Mix all that and after a week it should be ve active and double in size soon. Now once that is done switch to a 1:5:5 feeding ratio (10 grams of starter, 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour). The quantities depend a little bit on how much starter your recipe calls for.
@@the_bread_code Thank you so much for taking the time to anwer! That cleared it up for me.
my starter is very active and bubbly (bread i made so far is also perfect-by my standards😊), but it doesnt have webbing/it’s not thick, more on the runny side. I use only white organic flower for feeding. should i use rye or whole wheat to achieve even stronger starter? thank you for your help.
You can reduce the water. I feed my sourdough weekly. When not using wholegrain flour i do 1+5+4. for example 10gr starter from the fridge + 50 gram flour and 40gramm water. That doubles within 5 hours at 27°C and then i put it back in the fridge for another week.
Was so nice to see another fellow developer who loves baking bread.
hi! thanks for all your videos! I have a question regarding this starter.. I am on the 2nd day and my starter is already doubling in size (and more) in less than 5 hours?? Am I doing something wrong? Is my starter ready to use? Thanks again!
Moin Villa. Wow. You should send your starter to a bio facility. Maybe you have discovered a new super yeast haha. Try 2-3 more days just to be sure. Does it still double in size? Then yes, you are ready :-). I'd feed it 1:5:5 and then make the first bread the moment your starter doubled in size.
@@the_bread_code haha thanks for your reply! Just a quick update, I checked the starter before going to sleep last night and it was at the top of the jar (more than 4x the initial size). I went to feed it this morning (day 3) and it was completely deflated, it had a disgusting yellow liquid on top and the smell was very Very strong... I discarded it and started again.. Maybe i should feed it at night again (twice a day) and keep it in the fridge overnight? It's very hot and humid where i live so maybe that's why? thanks for your help!!
That is exactly my problem. I discarded 3 Starters for this reason. Answer is: feed a bit more often and only use the same percentage of starter:flour:water (otherwise your starter will have not enough „to eat“). This smell is normal and indicates that your starter is hangry 😉
You dont have to discard it. Good luck!
Hi there! I am on day 8 of my starter & I'm getting great rise.. doubling at least.. but the smell is like finger nail polish remover. I'm expecting more of a hoppy beer smell..
Is something wrong??
What is temperature for starter to ferment?
Hi, my country climate is high 33°c, the starter is double size in 6 hours, do I need to place it in the refrigerator? Thanks. May
Moin May. No worries. Just make sure you use a lower feeding ratio, 1 part starter, 5 parts flour, 5 parts water. Or maybe even 1:10:10, that way it is not as acidic. Your starter will become acidic very fast at that temperature.
@@the_bread_code Hi, I have a similar problem, as I'm baking in a tropical country. My starter more than doubled in size on the second and thrid day at room temperature (= 31-32 degrees), but then basically stopped rising, although it's still bubbling a bit. So now, I'm using the trick of soaking a towel, freezing it and placing it in the oven together with my starter, and using water from the fridge for feedings, thus managing to bring the temperature of my starter down to a range of 25-29 degrees, depending on how often I get to change the frozen towel. It's day 6 now and still no activity, although I'm feeding my starter regularly, every 12 hours, based on a 1:2:2 ratio. The PH is around 3.8. So what to do? Change to 1:5:5 every 12 hours? Or just wait a bit more?
EDIT: Immediately below my OP, there is an extensive SOURDOUGH HOW TO discussion that fellow home bakers may find insightful.
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Hi, my starter is going perfectly, and i've been feeding it from various batches of self ground wholemeal flour. Initially I used hard red wheat, but ive gravitated towards hard white because its bran is slightly less tannic, and I find the milder color and flavor to be more versatile.
Just out of curiosity, I also ground the remains of some turkish soft white wheatberries ... they worked sorta ok for srveral days, and tasted fine, but I suspect the berries may have been lightly polished or are just naturally less enzymatically active, because my autolysis and leavening times increased 2-3x. As soon as I switched back to hard white wholemeal, my starter immediately reverted to normal speed (able to double in 5hrs) in a single feeding.
Anyway, my starter's name is Fafnir, because it dwells unseen in a lair, has magical powers, becomes bilesome if not fed regularly, and thrives on a form of gold (grain threshed from golden sheaves). 😎
See my comment on this posting, I too have been using home milled flour (hard winter red) and for the first 5 days it build up strong and I was excited. Then on the fifth day it had no reaction to the next feeding but the vinegar scent was developing by the 7th day nothing but scent was great. Did you experience this kind of reaction and is this why you converted to hard white?
@@swaltonNo. If I understood you correctly, your issue with overacidification seems to be methodology, not grain source, but to explain it properly will necessarily be long winded.
ACTIVE STARTER vs DISCARD STARTER: A healthy thriving and freshly fed sourdough starter, at room temp, seems to follow a very specific life cycle curve: After a typical 1:1:1 or 1:3:3 (starter:wholemeal:water), the first 2-3 hours are mostly microbial replication/growth. The next 2 hours usually involves changeover from replication to feeding, as activity ramps up towards maximum. The next 4 hours (5 thru 9) are your window of peak activity, with ample bubbles present. After that, activity begins to fall off fairly quickly ... not so much because the microbes have run out of food (not so), but because they're increasingly driven into dormancy because of rising acidity (in addition to co2, they produce acid). After several days of acid-induced dormancy, theyll begin dying off, and a grey necrotic liquid will start appearing on the surface, and eventually the entire colony will die. Oh, and hand in hand with overacidification is overautolyzing, where the protease enzyme breaks down too much of the gluten proteins, causing the starter to lose structure, and turn loose, like toothpaste.
The solution to all that is multilayered. Besides understanding the lifecycle, your primary tool of control is refrigeration, which slows down all the times I mentioned roughly 5x ... it buys you time. Your other tool is segregating your surplus (aka 'discard') starter from your active starter.
Here's my system:
1) SURPLUS: I keep a 16oz glass jar in the door of my fridge, which I use to accumulate/store my surplus starter. Because its already quasi dormant and overacidified, and gluten reduced, it is no longer suitable for breadmaking/leavening ... in lieu of tossing it, I blend it into batters for things like muffins and pancakes, and because its in the fridge (5x slower), i usually have 1-2 weeks to use it up (or feed it) before it gets too distressed (re: necrotic liquid). More on that in a bit.
2) ACTIVE VIABLE STARTER: To make a 1 kg sourdough boule, I need 120 gr of starter in its peak activity window (re: hrs 5-8). However, I only make bread 2x/wk in my household, so to avoid creating too much surplus, I vary the size of my active starter. if im just propagating my culture, ill scoop out about 20 gr into a small bowl, and dump the rest into my surplus jar in the fridge. Then i'll do a 1:1:1 feeding, resulting in 60 gr of freshly fed starter, which sits on my counter for about 5 hours (I use a collins glass, covered with cling wrap). Once it hits peak activity, ill park it in the fridge to slow it down 5x, which buys me a couple days, after which I repeat the process to keep it going in 60 gr increments, or step it up with a 1:3:3 feeding for sourdough (yeilding 120 gr starter plus 20 to continue regular propagation).
All that being said, capturing/culturing new strains follows a slower and less predictable time curve, where you have to rely on observation and acidity. if its bubbly, that's a good sign of life, and if it gets tangy, that means its time to pull a little off to propagate it, and move the rest to your surplus jar.
@@swalton BTW, I have some tips of self ground flour. ATM, my fave grain is Kamut. Because i cant grind my flour to the optimal 100mesh level of true bolted flour, I segregate my grist with a 40 mesh sieve into 2 products ... 2/3rds makes it thru as a sort of med-fine wholemeal flour, and the remaining 1/3 is a slighlty coarser grit comparable to semolina, albeit with a high bran content. I use my kamut flour as an accent flavor in my breadmak8ng, and in my starters ... about 20% of my total dough. My kamut grit I use for hot cereal, in muffins, and (here's the important part) for propagation.
The grit is ideal for propagation because the coarse grind slows down the rate that the mic4obes can d8gest it, which greatly delays the appearance of necrotic fluid, whereas if I want to make bread i'll switch back to my kamut flour in order to maintain a nice tender open crumb in my bread.
@Roving Punster Thank you so much for your response the information you have given is very detail and I appreciate your time. You have obviously looked into this and I will be following your guidance. I am new at creating my own starter and not as informed at this time but responses like yours are helpful to people like me. I will continue to use my hard red winter red, I use a Mockmill to create the flour which seems to make a fine flour But I will also acquire some Kamut and hard white wheat for future experiments.
Statement 1; The issue that I have if I understand you correctly is that leaving the starter on the counter allows too much acid to develop that dormants the microbes (bacteria) that eventually causes them to die off?
Statement 2; Slowing down the microbes consuming the gluten proteins (refrigeration) will allow me to feed the starter at its peak strength? The part that confuses me is that when I use store bought flour for my starter handed down from my mother leaving it on the counter overnight, it seems to work (however not always a good rise to the sourdough loaf). But it haven’t died off after 2 years. Yes I either feed it every day or refrigerate it if not to be used for some time.
All in all this is a fun activity that gives me pleasure and I am excited that home milled flour give much more health benefits to my family.
@@swalton Yeah, I looked at the mock mill ... a great looking unit which likely grinds a lot finer than my current mill (a grain mill attachment for my stand mixer - after sieving, ill run the grit thru a spice mill and resieve it, which is how i managed to achieve a decent 66% yield of flour). The mock mill is a bit out of my budget ATM though.
Ive tried a lot of different grains, and ATM my two favorites are hard white spring wheat (high protein, low tannin), and kamut (ditto, plus a nice nutty flavor, and the big plump toothsome berries are great for wheatberry salad, if soaked and cooked properly).
I scored about 20-30 lbs of kamut berries from Breadtopia last fall, but I dunno if they still have it, much less at a decent price. Shipping, not price per pound, is nearly always the gotcha when mail ordering grain, but amazon is sometimes an option if their prime free shipping balances out their higher per pound price. Mail order mills often have an attractively low price per pound, but their shipping costs are HIGH, and often far exceed the cost of the grain ... esp since the war in ukraine.
Very helpful to see the progress and formula from day to day: definitely not boring: very reassuring.. Thank you. Do you have a video on how you can maintain the starter in the fridge ?
I would recommend 1-2 feedings after taking it out of the fridge.
@@the_bread_code Thank you!
Let's say that after 4-5 days the starter is doubling in size in 7 hours. What do you do? Do you feed it again every 7 hours, then every 6 or 5 hours (every time it is doubling its size) or you feed it every 24 hours? Everyone says day 1, day 2, etc but when the starter is active this time (24h) is starting to decrease and acidity is starting to increase. What do you do then?
Once it's ready I feed it once every day at room temperature. That's in the evening. In the morning I use it to make a dough. If I don't use it I sometimes move it to the fridge. I apply one more feeding when out of the fridge and then make a bread again :-)
@@the_bread_code So, the correct is that you may start with whole "days" but it is actually "feedings" until the dough reaches its peak in its growth. After several "days" the period between each feeding must be less than 24h. For example feeding 5 = 16h, feeding 6 = 12h, feeding 7 = 9h... until we finally reach to the point... feeding # = 5-6h. Of course it depends on temperature and other factors each house, area has at that moment. But i believe that if a dough is doubling its size after 5 days in 9h and you feed it for the next 24h and not for less than 9h (@ same temp) that you are losing something and that your dough is probably going to die... Maybe i am wrong and letting your starter many hours after its peak growth doesn't affect it much.
Hello! Is it acceptable to simply make your starter a higher overall percentage of your final dough if you feel it doesn't have a sense enough yeast/bacteria population. Also, what is the potential harm, if any, if your dough represents too high a percentage of your final dough?
If I used Caputo pizzeria flour could you give me the written recipe for sour dough starter wothndirections! Thanks!
The starter should always be whole wheat ideally. But then you can also use caputo flour later on for making the actual dough. Hope this makes sense.
If I only want one pizza can I cut the ingredients in half, including the amount of dry yeast? Thanks!
So, moving forward after day 9 the feeding schedule continues at 1-1-1 to maintain the starter? Thanks for this great video!
Yea I would also like to know how to maintain the starter after the ninth day for someone who doesn’t bake regularly as well. Maybe a loaf every week or so
@@frojo416 I bake sourdough bread once a week.Just feed your starter and put him in the refrigiator after you baked .You might as well leave him there for two weeks without feeding.But the best is to feed him every week.If you want to bake,get him out and feed him.
What is 1-1-1?
@@Titanette 1 part starter, 1 part flour , and 1 part water
Hi! First timer here. Do you combine all discards in 1 vessel?
I think most sourdough bakers do. 🍞🙂
Hi! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Your videos have been very helpful. Now, my starter has a vinegar smell, should I throw it away or what can I do about it? Thanks
Moin Dominique. Awesome. I would recommend to watch this video, I cover the topic: ruclips.net/video/NMglhwp2lNs/видео.html. In general just feed your starter 1:5:5. It is completely normal that this happens!
@@the_bread_code llkll
Opooi
I am just making my very first starter now. It's unclear to me what you do with the starter after you get to the point where it doubles in 5 hours. Do you keep it in room temperature and feed it every day until eternity, or do you put it in the fridge and only take it out when you want to use it (and then start the feeding process again to get a new batch)? Or what? I think number 1 but I want to be sure. :) PS. Thank you for great and inspiring videos!
Moin Allikin, that's amazing. Welcome to the sourdough world. You will love it. I am quite sure. Until the starter is ready you want to keep it at room temperature. Then once you are done baking, store the jar in the fridge. When you want to bake 1 week later, 2 weeks, 4 weeks or 2 months, take the starter out again. Take a tiny part and feed it again with flour and water. I'd recommend to do a 1:10:10 feed at the start. Feed it 1-2 times before using it again to bake. You will have the same activity again. Happy baking!
@@the_bread_code Thank you so much!
When you feed the starter do you leave it on the counter or refrigerate it? I know that is probably a dumb question but I want to follow the instructions completely. The other thing is if it is left at room temperature do you feed it once per day or more often?
The last starter I made sucked badly and it passed the water test but I used I unbleached flour and I was not pleased with it at all. This time I will be using my hard white wheat berries.
Moin Arminda. Thanks for the excellent question. At room temperature you should feed it twice per day once it is matured. While it matures, once per day is sufficient. Before using it, try doing at least two 1:5:5 feedings. It will do wonders :-). When I don't bake, I move it to the fridge and store it there. But then I reactivate it over a couple of days as well.
@@the_bread_code thank you so much! I will be starting it tomorrow!
Can I use a fermentation lid on the jar? It has a special opening for gases to escape.
Yes!
I tried this and ended up with some moist flour for two days that suddenly turned moldy. I did equal parts but my starter just felt very dry. Maybe the water evaporated? 🤔
Damn! You just might have a bad batch of flour that contains too many mold spores. I would try again if not, try to get other flour :-)
@@the_bread_code I restarted “Kevin” with an unopened batch of unbleached all purpose four I recently got. That bag of wheat flour I had was pretty old so I figure it probably doesn’t have much live yeast left in it? 🤷🏼♂️ l will have to get a new bag and feed “Kevin” something healthier but this should do for now ... 😁.
the quest continues! ✊🏼❗️
Hello! Thank you for your super videos! I've learned really a lot with you but I'm still confused about certains ratios with the starter : when the starter is ready, if you don't use it and let it on the counter you feed it on a 1:1:1 basis, and when you are ready to bake, you feed the starter with the 1:5: 5 ratio a few times before. But can you feed your starter on a 1:5:5 basis for the daily feeding, would it work? In my case I used that ratio for my starter before my baking day as advised but because the starter didn't double in size even though it had a 80% rise, I waited feeding it on a 1:5:5 basis for 4 times now because it's like the starter stopped its activity after the second time. So what should I do? keep on the 1:5:5 basis or come back to 1:1:1 to make it stronger again ? I hope what I wrote was clear...
Moin Christine,
thanks for the excellent question. Now the tricky part about the 1:5:5 ratio when setting up the starter could be that other organisms might prevent your sourdough yeast/bacteria from taking over the colony. Once they have matured they pretty much rule your starter. The 1:1:1 ratio is better in that regard as it makes sure you infuse more existing cultures throughout your feedings.
Now at the same time the 1:1:1 feeding makes it easier for the bacteria to take over, you typically have a balance. It is more sour right from the start. That's why I would recommend you to use the 1:5:5 feeding ratio for the bread baking days, for the days before especially when setting up the sourdough the 1:1:1 ratio could help.
Hope this sheds a little bit of light on the situation.
Thanks
@@the_bread_code Merci! beaucoup! It's a good synthesis on the matter and it's clearer for me now :)
A little bread math:
I'm sure i reinvented the wheel on this, but I thought I'd share a pair of dirt simple equations I just derived for adjusting a given weight of sourdough starter (100%) to a lower hydration level for use in things like pizza dough (70%) or bread (60%), or for figuring out how much flour is needed for a desired amt of dough with a given hydration level.
Assumptions & Definitions:
Oil doesnt count towards hydration%
For simplicity, salt sugar & yeast are not included here.
Dw = Fw + Ww
(dough wt = Flour + Water)
Hp = Hydration Percentage
(ex: SD Starter 100%, Pizza 70-75%, Bread 60%, Chinese Noodles 50%)
Sw = Sourdough starter weight
Sc = Additional flour wt needed to reduce Sw fm 100% to desired Hp.
My equations, derived from above:
Fw = Dw ÷ (1 + Hp)
Ww = Dw × (1 - 1 ÷ (1 + Hp))
Sc = Sw × ((1 ÷ (1 + Hp)) - 0.5)
Test: To adjust 100gr SD starter for use in a bread dough with 60% hydration, i'd need ...
Sc = 100(1/1.6 - 0.5) = 12.5gr flour
Test: How much flour do I need to make 400gr chinese noodle dough at 50% hydration ?
Fw = 400 ÷ 1.5 = 267 gr flour
Ww = 400 - 267 = 133 gr water
Hope that helps someone. I keep it on a postit on the side of my flour tub. Cheers.