Sourdough Bread Troubleshooting (Part 1)

[Desiderio]

Waiting for the experts ,I can tell you that some of them will tell you to make a starter only with flour and water, that you dont wnat to deal with fruit or anything else in you sourdough,it encourage the wrong bacteria etc etc.

I have done a sourdough just out of rye flour and water , and its fine , easy to keep , I usually forget about it in the fridge for weeks and he still forgives me .But like I have said wati for the expert to come to your rescue and good luck.

[cognitivefun]

Yeah, water and flour only. Start with rye and water, then just keep refreshing by removing 1/2 and discarding, and replacing with bread flour and water.

Forget Silverton's method. It's ridiculously complicated. No need for it.

[jackal10]

Desiderio has it right.

If you keep feeding it flour and water and keep it at 90F the junk will eventually disappear and you will have a good starter.

Might be quicker to start again though with just flour and water and keep it at 90F.

[moreace01]

Thanks everyone!

I admit that I also tried the starter in The Cook's Book, which I believe involved yogurt. That one was even worse as it smelled like rotten milk within one day. It sounds like the simpler approach works best. So back to the drawing board!

I had a great starter once - received during the eGCI class. Unfortunately, during one of my many moves, it got tossed out.

[jay b]

I was wondering if someone could help me out - I'm making my first-ever starter following the Nancy Silverton method (organic grapes in cheesecloth).  At day three, my starter smells very strongly of cheese and is very liquidy. I decided this is bad, so I tossed the grapes and started feeding it. I'm wondering:

1. am I right in assuming this is bad?

2. and if so, what could have gone wrong?

3. should I attempt to fix it or should I start over?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

←

i use sourdough starters everyday. the way you were starting your starter was right. it does start to smell at first but when you toss the grapes out and start feeding it two to three times a day it will get better. actually the way you're doing it is a really good starter. i'vemade this one before and was really happy with the bread i ended up with.

[moreace01]

I ended up tossing out the grapes as well as a good majority of the starter. Then fed it once and let it sit untouched for a few days (mostly cause I went out of town). It smells fantastic now (like sourdough instead of funky cheese), so I think I am on track. Now on to the next step...

Thanks again, everyone, for the assistance.

[rooftop1000]

Ahh if only my starter smelled like bad cheese again.

It smelled like nail polish remover. It is gone now, and after the roofers finish up I will start a new one.

It was very strange to have to run to the store for yeast just to make a pizza last weekend.

tracey

[matt_smith]

i'm looking forward to getting my own starter going, but am at a loss for a place in my apartment that exists at a constant 90 degrees... anybody rigged up any particularly ingenious (read: cheap) methods to do this?

[Irishgirl]

I did mine without a 90 degree temp. Room temp is fine. But if you are desperate, a box with a lightbulb would work.

[Desiderio]

If you have a oven you can keep the light on and keep the starter there till its ready, I usually keep all my starters and premix in there to ferment. it works fine.

[Paul Stanley]

Ahh if only my starter smelled like bad cheese again.

It smelled like nail polish remover. It is gone now, and after the roofers finish up I will start a new one.

It was very strange to have to run to the store for yeast just to make a pizza last weekend.

tracey

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Mine has had moments of smelling of nail-polish remover, but seemed OK nonetheless. I think I read somewhere that it had to do with being "under-fed", and gave it a few good meals. It recovered, and I baked with it, and lived to tell the tale. Did I do wrong?

On the temperature issue, I did mine at room temperature, and it got going fine and reasonably swiftly.

[devlin]

i'm looking forward to getting my own starter going, but am at a loss for a place in my apartment that exists at a constant 90 degrees... anybody rigged up any particularly ingenious (read: cheap) methods to do this?

←

You don't actually need to go to too much trouble. There are a number of equally viable ways, although for me 90 degrees is between 5 to 10 degrees higher than I prefer. I used to get mine up to speed with 85 degrees and then over time noticed it actually performed better at about 80 degrees.

You could get that either by simply setting it on a counter at room temp (in a reasonably temperate room) or under a lamp. But I do use a big plastic storage box I got at Wal Mart, a clamp-on lamp and a 60 Watt bulb lowered into the box. Loosely cover with the lid, maybe a towel as well in cooler or cold weather. And a cheap plastic thermometer to set inside.

[Digijam]

I don't worry about temperature at all. Following the advice of Jack, Vanessa, etc (thanks all!) I got a new flour and water-only starter going a few weeks back and it now sits in a sprouter jar on the kitchen worktop (about 70 degrees), bubbling away happily and retaining a good, constantly evolving sourness. Even when I don't feed it for days at a time it doesn't seem to mind.

I did get that bad cheese effect once when lack of time made me prove a wet dough mix at a too-high temperature. The wife thought I'd made parmesan bread. But every other loaf made with it has been beautiful. I hardly ever use instant yeast now, except to smooth out the sourdough for baguettes and the like.

[matt_smith]

excellent... i've heard enough about the 90 degrees being a requirement to keep the right yeast going and the 'bad' yeast out to worry about doing it at 70-something. but with your info in mind i'll give it a shot.

any rules or tips from making the transition from the counter to the fridge once it gets up and bubbling?

[slbunge]

I tend to be fairly slapdash with the whole thing and it works out. I do give myself plenty of time to reactivate when I'm going to do a loaf (in the winter I tend to bake only about every three weeks or so).

Then I bring it back sort of easy at 70degF or so interior house temperature.

When I toss activated yeast into storage, I don't even think about it. A clean jar with a lid and several spoonfuls of activated starter into the fridge for anywhere from a couple of weeks to many months.

When I want a speedier refresh of the starter, by the way, I often put the proving bowl with the newly fed starter on the top of the water heater.

[jackal10]

You are right 90F is too hot, and the yeast slows down. 85F is better.

Just out of interest I replotted Ganzle's data on the relative activity of lactobacillus sanfrancisco and the yeast candida milleri.

You will see the lacto bacillus dominates when it is cold (fridge) or warm (above 85F). The baker can adjust the ratio of bacillus to yeast, and hence the taste of the bread by fermenting for all or part of the time at these temperatures. I like my bread tangy, so I tend to ferment the preferment quite hot, and retard cold.

However if you are making salt-raised bread the leavening agent, the bacteria Clostridium perfringens (see http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/whatissaltrisingbread.html ) prefers it warmer: the temperature range 95F-105F. It may be that is what is responsible for the characteristic cheesy smell

Edited October 24, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[matt_smith]

way to bust out the charts, jackal!

so it appears from looking at this lovely graph that my theoretical room temp starter, at or around 70, would be the least tangy of all temperature possibilities.

that doesn't sound very promising.

you can't start it cold, can you? as in, in the fridge (please pardon if that's a stupid question, a lot of this still seems a bit like alchemy to me)?

[cognitivefun]

you can't start it cold, can you?  as in, in the fridge (please pardon if that's a stupid question, a lot of this still seems a bit like alchemy to me)?

←

I do my starter in the fridge and I retard the dough as soon as I mix it. If I use a ratio of 1:3 starter to total flour, I get a good but not too extreme sourness that is quite pleasant.

[slbunge]

I get good sourness with a mostly room-temp (70ish) ferment followed by a retarding cold. In fact people I have given loaves to comment on my not being very timid with the sourness.

[kangarool]

I have just started... I mean JUST started ... to look into making and baking sourdough. I have read the recos about not attempting to start your own starter when just beginning, but I want to. The only question i have about the starter at this point is: how long in general should you allow it to ripen, before using in your first loaf? In my bit of research, I have seen a very WIDE range of opinions in how long you need to grow it, until it's ready for use.

Interested in opinions of those of you on this forum...

[Paul Stanley]

Having done this only once, I can't claim to be any sort of expert. But I can describe my experience. I think mine took about 7 days until I baked with it; it worked fine then, though I kept feeding it for a week or so longer before putting it in the fridge. It should be quite clear once you have some action going on: my recollection is that this was around day 3 or 4. By about day 5 it was clearly and strongly active, and looking as it should. Then, I guess a few more days to "strengthen" it and get it really happy.

The worst that can happen is that you bake too soon and get one or two bad/slow batches, I think. So long as you keep some of the starter back and continue to feed, which is what you will be doing anyway, you can always try again a few days later.

[kangarool]

The worst that can happen is that you bake too soon and get one or two bad/slow batches, I think. So long as you keep some of the starter back and continue to feed, which is what you will be doing anyway, you can always try again a few days later.

←

thanks Paul, that's good advice. You're right, i hadn't considered it's not an "all or nothing" proposition, it's a "if not now, try again in a couple days". I'll get it started tonight. By the way, what was your MO on the starter, flour + water, potato water, etc? Also would be interested to hear your "feeding schedule" for that first week... how frequently did you replenish?

[kevinnoe]

I'm not sure if you are still following this thread, but I thought I might throw in a thought or two.

I've been confounded by some of the same things mentioned here. In particular, the relationship between flavor development and time. Although I'm interested in a slightly different discovery than the one you seem to be after with regards to yeast development (sourdough pain l'ancienne to be precise), there is something that has both helped and plagued my bread quest for quite some time that might be of use to you...

Think of flavor development (meaning essentially fermentation, enzyme activity, sugar break-out, the amylase, etc.) and rise - as two separate things. Although they certainly have some relation, pain l'ancienne technique has taught us nothing if not that they can be separated in terms of process. This may sound obvious to say, but think about how inextricably linked rise and fermentation have been in our minds throughout bread history. They really are not the same thing. The whole trick is to perfectly balance three things:

1) Get the maximum sugar breakout from the starches in the grain.

2) Get a large buildup of carbon dioxide from the yeast feeding on that sugar to raise the loaf so that it can bake deeply and caramelize.

3) Don't give them long to do it or they will eat most of the sugar and the bread loses flavor.

To this end - I think you are onto something with your pursuit for the right heat for fermentation. However - my guess is that you will find that it is only applicable to making great bread if you limit the heat application to your final proof - which can be, and I think should be, short. All bulk fermentations I'm betting will turn out to be best done slowly and coldly.

My theory is that flavor development does take time, and that it is best done in either a yeast free environment, or one in which the yeast is so sleepy that it isn't eating much (i.e. cold). However, proofing (which really serves almost exclusively to pump up the bread with carbon dioxide so that it can make a great shape, give a good rise, and bake and caramelize the crumb as deeply as possible), can be done quickly in a warm environment and will, in fact, improve the bread as it will give the yeast less time to eat an excess of the sugars. The whole secret is thinking of flavor development and rise as two separate things.

I recognize this is not directly an answer to your question - but I'm betting that it this is related and might be able to help - particularly with a person who is approaching things with as much understanding and doing as much research as you seem to be. We are not really looking for as much yeast as we can get are we? We are looking for as much flavor as we can get. Yeast is primarily giving us lift from its... well... you know. If we could get the yeast leftovers, without any yeast, we might still be able to have great bread!

We've been locked into thinking that developing flavor means prolonging rise , and that isn't quite true is it...

Kevin

[DanielBerman]

As I started this round of baking, I thought I would use it to play with my new digital camera, and try to capture each step of the sourdough baking process. Of course this is done with a very great debt to Dan Lepard - whose Handmade Loaf got me back onto baking sourdough - and whose fantastic photographs here got me thinking...

But first an admission - I am using an already live starter - but if this goes well i may backtrack and create a new one.

The starter is one that I have had for about 9 months - i actually got it from sourdo.com - it was their San Fransisco starter - but I'm sure that it is pretty much localised now! It was very active at the start - and has calmed down to a nice manageable level now. It is very resilient - I have a clone which I keep in our holiday home - which gets used about every 3 months or so - and only really takes 12 - 24 hours to revive.

The photo this evening is of the starter just having added flour and water.

It is taken with a Canon EOS 30D with the EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens.

ISO 1600 (so its a bit grainy - need to work that up) - f22, 5 secs - to get as much depth of field as possible.

I would love to have feedback (either on the photographs - or the baking).

And please post your own sequences too?

[K8memphis]

Oh cool! I love stuff like this.

Photography is not my forte by any means.

Your photo looks great though.

What a gloppily handsome jar of starter you have there.