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Please Help Me On How To Start A Starter!
Please help me on how to start a starter! Blovescooking Sun, 02/23/2025 - 22:47
I am very new to sourdough, as I have only made 2 loaves (1 Biga/poolish and one with a bit of starter from a friend).
I want to be able to make my own sourdough starter, but as of yet every single one of my starters either fails to double after two weeks of feeding every 12 hours or becomes so acidic (smells like ammonia, this smell usually starts within 4-5 days after I begin my starter) that it fails to rise at all.
I will try to be as thorough as I can in my explanations and how I do it.
This is how I usually make my starter:
120 grams bread flour (pilsbury)
120 grams water (tap, city water, room temp)
I use a glass quart mason jar and mix with a metal spoon. My house it about 65-70 degrees F usually in the day and drops to 60F at night.
Twice a day, I discard down to 1/2 cup (60 grams) then add another 120 gram flour (1 cup) and 120 grams water (1/2 cup). Mix it with a metal spoon, cover with plastic wrap with holes poked in the top, and set it near/in the sun of my window.
I've tried this about 5 times and every time my sourdough starter fails by about day 6: it always seems to acidify too much. So now I'm ready to try again. I have as of yet tried all wheat flour starter, half bread flour half wheat flour, and also gotten and used jugs of filtered (distilled) water and that has not improved my results.
I would love advice. I recently bought rye pumpernickel flour and am wondering if that would help my results. Someone else mentioned pineapple juice. Are those good ideas?
It's so discouraging when I nurture something only to have it die, but I refuse to give up! If you guys can all make great starters, so can I! Thanks for all the help!
As an alternative, I could also buy a reputable (100 year old, 500 year old) sourdough starter off the internet and use that as my base to start my culture if that's easier for total beginners. I really want to make true and honest sourdough bread.
(This is the website I use for making/nurturing my starter:) https://www.feastingathome.com/sourdough-starter/
tpassin on 24 Feb 2025 at 04:41
You are feeding it too often, especially at the start. This causes the concentration of desired microbes to get diluted and gives undesired ones more of a chance to grow and take over the culture. The proto-starter does not need feeding (and shouldn't be fed) for days until after it's shown signs of substantial activity, or if that doesn't happen, after three or four days. Just stir it once or twice a day.
The game plan is to allow the mixture to acidify itself via a natural progression of organisms, especially lactic acid bacteria. Once it's acidic enough (pH around 4, it has been reported) , dormant yeast will wake up and start to grow - if there aren't enough other critters growing already that outcompete the yeast, and if you don't dilute those yeast cells too much. If you get unlucky or use an unwise temperature/feeding schedule, you get stuck in a state where the proto-starter gets taken over by the wrong microbes and doesn't want to continue the normal development.
Using pineapple juice instead of water at the start gives the flour a starting acidity much closer to the desired level, and this bypasses most of those early stages of the development by suppressing the growth of disease and other unwanted microbes.
TomP
squattercity on 24 Feb 2025 at 05:45
I agree with TomP.
Read through the link you provided (beyond the confusing 2x a day chart) and you will see this instruction for day one: 'let sit at room temperature (70-ish degrees) on the kitchen counter for 24-48 hours."
And later on you will read this tip: "Only feed the starter after it has peaked or looks hungry. See the “3 Signs of Hunger” below. Feeding it when it is “not hungry” will basically dilute all the growing yeast and make it lethargic. Better to underfeed than overfeed."
So, yeah: def stop feeding it 2x a day. Max 1x a day and maybe wait longer than that--particularly since the room temp you describe is relatively cool. Patience required. Though some people successfully make starter in 1 or 2 weeks, many more of us found it took months.
Rob
