Sourdough help.

crsdbl, Jan 17, 8:05pm
so i started my starter yesterday using this method http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm
i went to the hot water cupboard to check on my baby to find that it has frothed up and spewed out the crook in the jar lid.

i know that frothy is good when it comes to sourdough but i was expecting to wait 3-7 days to see much change, its only been 22 hours.

anyway, should i be concerned or stoked? is it too early for it to froth like that, showing a bug that should not be there? or should i do a dance and be happy that it worked so well?

thanks for your help.
crsdbl, Jan 17, 8:25pm
i just read through some faq on the site above and found this..

Q"My starter became frothy and beery MUCH faster than your article predicted. Is something wrong?"

A"No; you're in luck, is all. Sometimes they just zoom to life. Sometimes they take their sweet time. They're fey and unpredictable."

so, it looks like im in luck! WOOHOO!
beaker59, Jan 17, 9:55pm
Sounds like a very good start congratulations.

No need to have it in the hotwater cupboard in this weather though in fact the flour in your cupboard will be so full of yeast its not funny in this warm moist weather its a sourdough bug in itself.

Keep it on the bench, keep feeding, and start baking anytime you like.
crsdbl, Jan 17, 9:58pm
thanks beaker59.
i got a little flustered and tipped half of it out so i could feed it, not realising at that stage that i could have used it to make my first batch of bread.
'duh'
i really expected it to take a lot longer.
its all very exciting :)
buzzy110, Jan 17, 10:03pm
Be stoked. I am. I love it when people are able to get good results.

Just feed it a couple more times then it will be time to bake. If you are going to keep your starter for a few years, it will develop a greater biodiversity and become very strong. I've bake excellent loaves from just one tablespoon of starter and missed the sponge out altogether. It took longer but it still worked because it is so strong.

Once you are happy with your starter, keep it in the fridge. You don't need to bake every day. The fridge will slow it down and you will only need to 'refresh/feed' it once a week - equal quantities of water and flour and 1 tbspn of starter).
nanasee1, Jan 21, 3:56am
After two days my starter is frothing just like the yeast mixture I would usually have to start a batch of bread. Is it ready to make a loaf yet or should I feed it a few more days before I try? Thanks to all the experts out there, I regularly make yeast bread but haven't tried sour dough before.
buzzy110, Jan 21, 4:22am
You could try. I only make sourdough bread so I know what I'm doing I think. As an experiment, last summer, I made a starter from scratch, then when it got to the same point as yours, I gave it one more feed then I made bread. It came out perfectly.

So suggest you give it one more feed, just to strengthen it, then make bread.

I think, with ordinary bread, you put in all the flour, salt, oil, etc with the yeast mix, then you make the dough by adding water, till it is the consistency you want.

With sourdough you work slightly differently. Do you have a sourdough recipe?

I make my starter from 1 cup of water and one cup of flour. When it is working, I remove a tablespoon full to add to my new starter of 1 cup of water and 1 cup of flour and pop that away in the fridge to do its thing.

With the rest of the starter (use all of it) you make a sponge -1 cup of water, 1 cup of flour and all the starter you have left. (No point wasting it) and wait till that starts to work.

Usually I do it last thing at night and then make up my dough first thing in the morning. At this time of the year I put the sponge in the fridge as well because it will be well over blown in this heat.

In the morning, or whenever, add three cups of flour, a dash of oil and 2 tspns of salt and mix (I use a dough hook rather than hand mixing). It shouldn't need anymore water, but that depends on the flours you use. The dough should be sticky to start with. If it isn't, add more water till it is. It doesn't need sugar either, but with a new starter you can use some. Later I graduated to malt and now I don't use any other food, than flour.

Good luck.
buzzy110, Jan 21, 4:26am
One more thought - I trust you are aware that sourdough takes muuuuch longer than ordinary yeast to rise the dough. While it is rising it is fermenting the flour and chomping its way through the gluten.

This is totally desirable because it renders the gluten safer to eat or totally neutralises it altogether. Some coeliacs or gluten reactives can eat a properly fermented sourdough. It is also what gives it that sour flavour, which tastes so delicious.
nanasee1, Jan 21, 4:47am
Thanks buzzy, exactly the information I needed, really appreciate your help. I am hoping to have a loaf to take to a bbq on Monday but would like to have a trial run first. I will try to make a loaf later on tomorrow as a test run.
uli, Jan 27, 5:12am
How are you getting on 1 year later!
nanasee1, Jan 28, 9:29pm
Buzzy -Success at last, a lovely sour dough loaf this morning.I did as you said and fed the starter once more but then sadly forgot to take it off the window sill before I went to work and the heat killed it! Not to be beaten I started again, the dough took a long time to rise over the day yesterday & then started to get very active looking when I was about to go to bed. I popped in the fridge overnight to slow it down and then cooked it this morning. Thanks for all your help.
beaker59, Jan 28, 10:45pm
Well done certainly a good time of year to start making sourdoughs. They are the way to go EH!

I made a loaf on Tuesday to take away on the boat wed and thurs this week it was one of my best for rise crumb and shape though I had forgotten the salt my crew ate it all very quickly (toasted then covered thickly with my homemade Salsa awesome snack after a dive) however I do prefer with salt.
buzzy110, Jan 29, 1:01am
Congratulations nanasee1. I hope you remembered to innoculate another batch of starter food with tablespoon full of the original starter when you made up your sponge. You can keep that in your fridge as I do. I only really need to make a new batch every 2 weeks but mostly I do it every week. I have my sponge brewing on the bench now, as I write. Am making a plain, white bread loaf as I am expecting a visit from a celiac and you have to add gluten to anything other than white or white and rye loaves.

I have been away and took a wonderful mixed and boiled grain loaf away with us, sliced into toast slices and frozen. It is the one time when we both eat a lot of bread- (almost ½ a loaf over 5 days).

One night we were invited for dinner and, as luck would have it, the hostess isn't into vegetables at all and the meal was just fish and bread. And boy - is normal commercial bread the most tasteless, cardboardy, textureless bread in existence?

Am at a loss to understand what it is people find so tempting about it. If that was all I had to eat, I'd rather starve.
nanasee1, Jan 29, 1:03am
I have two bugs in the fridge, thought it better to be safe than sorry. The bread has a great taste, I can see it being a regular.
buzzy110, Jan 29, 1:06am
Yaaay beaker. The bread just gets better and better with experience and of course your crew would have yummed it up. Even without the salt it would have had a lovely sour flavour to compensate.
buzzy110, Jan 29, 1:10am
You'll get over doing 2 starters soon. Eventually, it will become second nature and trepidation will go. The wild yeasts are rather hard to kill. Unless you expose them to temperatures over 28C they will remain viable, even if you forget to feed them for 3 weeks.

One regular poster in here has had a bug going for decades and was unfortunately parted from her 'pet' for several months. When she finally got back to it, it sprang back to life within a couple of feeds. Just so that you know how resilient it is.
buzzy110, Jan 29, 1:15am
One more thing that you may like to keep for future reference -

You can increase the biodiversity of your yeast colony simply by altering the density of the starter - i.e. less water, more flour or the other way round on occasion.

Also, if you branch out to wholemeal, rye or mix grain breads and plan in advance, then you can make the feed up using the flour of your choice and this will add more yeasts to your starter as well. As long as you keep the chain unbroken and continue to use the same starter to innoculate the next batch when you return it back to ordinary high grade white flour, your bio-diversity will have increased.
nanasee1, Jan 29, 1:31am
Thanks Buzzy
crsdbl, Jan 17, 8:05pm
so i started my starter yesterday using this method http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm
i went to the hot water cupboard to check on my baby to find that it has frothed up and spewed out the crook in the jar lid.

i know that frothy is good when it comes to sourdough but i was expecting to wait 3-7 days to see much change, its only been 22 hours.

anyway, should i be concerned or stoked! is it too early for it to froth like that, showing a bug that should not be there! or should i do a dance and be happy that it worked so well!

thanks for your help.
crsdbl, Jan 17, 8:25pm
i just read through some faq on the site above and found this.

Q"My starter became frothy and beery MUCH faster than your article predicted. Is something wrong!"

A"No; you're in luck, is all. Sometimes they just zoom to life. Sometimes they take their sweet time. They're fey and unpredictable."

so, it looks like im in luck! WOOHOO!
crsdbl, Jan 17, 9:58pm
thanks beaker59.
i got a little flustered and tipped half of it out so i could feed it, not realising at that stage that i could have used it to make my first batch of bread.
'duh'
i really expected it to take a lot longer.
its all very exciting :)
buzzy110, Jan 17, 10:03pm
Be stoked. I am. I love it when people are able to get good results.

Just feed it a couple more times then it will be time to bake. If you are going to keep your starter for a few years, it will develop a greater biodiversity and become very strong. I've bake excellent loaves from just one tablespoon of starter and missed the sponge out altogether. It took longer but it still worked because it is so strong.

Once you are happy with your starter, keep it in the fridge. You don't need to bake every day. The fridge will slow it down and you will only need to 'refresh/feed' it once a week - equal quantities of water and flour and 1 tbspn of starter).
nanasee1, Jan 21, 3:56am
After two days my starter is frothing just like the yeast mixture I would usually have to start a batch of bread. Is it ready to make a loaf yet or should I feed it a few more days before I try! Thanks to all the experts out there, I regularly make yeast bread but haven't tried sour dough before.
buzzy110, Jan 21, 4:22am
You could try. I only make sourdough bread so I know what I'm doing I think. As an experiment, last summer, I made a starter from scratch, then when it got to the same point as yours, I gave it one more feed then I made bread. It came out perfectly.

So suggest you give it one more feed, just to strengthen it, then make bread.

I think, with ordinary bread, you put in all the flour, salt, oil, etc with the yeast mix, then you make the dough by adding water, till it is the consistency you want.

With sourdough you work slightly differently. Do you have a sourdough recipe!

I make my starter from 1 cup of water and one cup of flour. When it is working, I remove a tablespoon full to add to my new starter of 1 cup of water and 1 cup of flour and pop that away in the fridge to do its thing.

With the rest of the starter (use all of it) you make a sponge -1 cup of water, 1 cup of flour and all the starter you have left. (No point wasting it) and wait till that starts to work.

Usually I do it last thing at night and then make up my dough first thing in the morning. At this time of the year I put the sponge in the fridge as well because it will be well over blown in this heat.

In the morning, or whenever, add three cups of flour, a dash of oil and 2 tspns of salt and mix (I use a dough hook rather than hand mixing). It shouldn't need anymore water, but that depends on the flours you use. The dough should be sticky to start with. If it isn't, add more water till it is. It doesn't need sugar either, but with a new starter you can use some. Later I graduated to malt and now I don't use any other food, than flour.

Good luck.