Intro • Day 1 • Day 2 • Day 3 • Day 4 • Day 5 • [Day 6] • Day 7 • Final Thoughts • Day 15
Day 6:
After yesterday’s feed. the starters both began to expand (up to the purple line) Wally had a pretty good rise this time, too; he seems to be catching up quite well. We may be just one or two feeds away from finishing the project. PJ is clearly well under way.
Both starters were pretty much done expanding within three or four hours before they started to collapse. This means they went for the remaining 20 or so hours “unfed”. They had, in effect, chomped through whatever food they were going to in rather short order. You can even see in the photo a very slight layer of liquid on top of the starter. This is “hootch” and it’s a normal byproduct of our friend the Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis when a starter is ‘hungry’. The solution? Feed it.
Since the amount of fresh food the starter has been getting is at a ratio of 2:1:1, we know that this is a rather slim buffet. Once again, let’s look at the weight to see what that means.
1/4 cup of 100% hydration starter is usually going to be approximately 60 grams. We were adding 28g of water and 28g of flour. For ease of calculation, let’s call those 30g. So in effect, for each 2 grams of “old” starter, we were adding 1 gram water and 1 gram flour. Ergo, our ratio here is 2:1:1.
I decided to make a decision of the executive variety: This feed, we’re changing the ratio to 1:1:1, so for each gram of old starter, I’ll add 1 g of water and 1g of flour (or, to match the previous ratio, 2:2:2). This in effect doubles the amount of food the beasties will have to consume and populate.
So here’s our new starter ratio. These two are done with a formula of 30g starter, 30g water and 30g flour, 1:1:1. We now have 90g total starter where previously we had 120g (60+30+30g); this is why the amount in the jar is reduced.
I’ll try to get photos of the expansion in the next few hours. I expect Wally may give us a good rise this time around.
PJ has gone well past doubled, even Wally is nearly doubled. Way to go, boys! I’ll continue to keep an eye on them today. Wally, although showing decent activity still needs a few feed to “rinse out” any remaining stink from his early battle with nasty critters. He is smelling much better but it’s not quite there yet. The increased feed ratio will help a lot in that department.
Here we are, six hours after the feed and Wally’s gone and more than doubled, he’s just peaked and showing signs of receding now. Meanwhile, PJ’s nearly tripled but is out of fresh food. Looks like I’ll need to feed them again – and I do. These are hungry boys! This is actually quite good; while PJ seems to simply be repeating, it gives Wally a chance to catch up and clear out his stink (still there, but much lighter).
Here we are 3 hours after the second feed and we have doubled both starters. I think we can officially call Wally “under way” although we now have to take time working the last of the stink out of him. That alone is a good reason to head directly for the pineapple juice method, even if we have a “viable” starter at the 6 day mark with just water, it will take us several more feeds before he’s clear of that odour, while we totally skipped over that ordeal with PJ. And PJ’s been going well for a couple of days already, so it sped up the yeast activation stage as well.
I’ll put a mark on where they’re at now and check again in a couple of hours, see if they increase a bit more or if they’ve peaked already. If they look like they’re receding, I’ll give them another feed since they’re at the most active and looking for more food, then leave them for the night. Tomorrow is day seven and it’s certainly looking like they’ll be set for the next stage, maturing.
Intro • Day 1 • Day 2 • Day 3 • Day 4 • Day 5 • [Day 6] • Day 7 • Final Thoughts • Day 15
DeQuincy Gardens
Question on these extra feedings that you are giving, do you dump out a portion of the starter and then add more flour and water to keep the percentages the same?
I’m on Day 4 of following the pineapple method as listed here and on Day 5 of my second try on Dan Leader sourdough method. The pineapple method on Day 4 seems to be way ahead of the Dan Leader batch. It looks like I will end up taking the pineapple batch and then slowly change the hydration to match the Leader sourdough so I can easily work on his breads.
Thanks for providing this detailed post.
g
Hi Gino,
Yes, since we switched off the pineapple juice on day 3, we’ve been removing some starter before feeding. If you didn’t trim it back you’d be feeding gallons of starter with bags of flour in no time. Seriously, we’re talking in a couple of days, you’d need to find a swimming pool for your starter if you didn’t toss some out. So cut your amount back and start each feed with a reasonable quantity of “old” starter.
And just as an aside, you do NOT need to keep a lot. If you keep just 15g of old starter and add 15g of water and 15g of flour, you’ll hold on to 45g of starter. That’s just under a quarter of a cup. And it’s plenty. Keeping a larger starter has no advantages, EXCEPT if you expect to bake a lot, like two or three times a week, and would use that amount of excess regularly.
When you starter has been going well for a while (I’d say give it two weeks at least) and it’s feeding time again, you’ll have 30g of “excess” starter that you can use in your bread recipe or collect for a couple days to put into pancakes or other “discard use” recipes. If your sourdough bread recipe needs a lot more than 30g, then just feed that up until it reaches whatever you need.
At this time in the growing cycle, however, there’s no sense keeping that “starter” because it really isn’t starter yet. So toss it. And if you’re keeping the starter on the 15g:15g:15g schedule, you’ll be tossing just 15g – or about a tablespoon – of flour, not a quantity worth worrying about.
As for changing the hydration, you can do that at any time, just feed 1:2:5 [S:W:F] (for example) and presto, you have a stiff starter. Well, anytime once your starter is good and active, I’d suggest keeping it going at 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 for a while since this lets you monitor the starter’s activity a lot better. At 1:2:2, I’d say 10g:20g:20g for a 50g total is still plenty.
Paul
Thanks for the info. I followed your advice and the starter has turned out perfectly. I also realized that to make the Dan Leader starter work I had to also start reducing it on a daily basis in order to make sure it had enough food to grow. As soon as I reduced the amount of starter and started to feed it properly it also took off. I made Dan Leaders French Country Boule, Quintessential French Sourdough and Auvergne Crown since last Saturday. All have turned out great. I ended up turning one of the sourdoughs into a firm starter. Very easy process. I had the starter in the fridge since Sunday and pulled them out yesterday to feed, just to see what would happen. Both starters took off and were ready to go when I checked in on them after 8 hours. Decided to make Leaders Light rye last night to use up the extra firm starter I had. I put the high hydration one back in the fridge and will refresh tomorrow night or Sat for this weekends bake. The Light Rye loaf rose just as the book said it would and it even grew while retarding in the fridge overnight. I’ll bake it off tonight when I get home from work. It looks like my starters are alive and well and ready for baking. Thanks for providing the info, I would have still been struggling along if I hadn’t stumbled upon your site.
By the way, you have some great bread shots on your blog.
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