At 04:12 AM 11/22/2004, Karl wrote:
Hello everyone.


[..]

This is a cyclic behaviour. When a recepy states that I should use the
starter, where in this cycle am I supposed to use it? Is it critical?

The same goes for sponges. When should I use the sponge? When it peaks
or when it starts to get active?

If you don't like it, I guess, it's "critical".

Typically you may want to use your starter when it has the highest number
of organisms and that's about when the activity starts to decrease. Note,
that you have to deflate the starter - take the gas out - in order to
determine it's activity. The gas bubbles stay in the starter and you think
it's active where in reality it is not.

Apart from the number of organisms, other properties can be influenced by
promoting aspects of a starter, maybe rising by promoting yeasts, taste by
promoting LB's.

This can be accomplished by using different temperatures and hydrations
when growing the starter in stages. The parameter changes are quite
subtile. A change of a few degrees of centigrade promotes one component
over another.

That's a big can of worms. I beat that whole issue by using the Detmold
3-Stage process and that works just fine.

On my SD web site (http://samartha.net/SD/ ), you can see under
"References" "SD-Definition" the Microbiological growth curve which is
relevant for starter growing and under "Procedures", the "Detmold 3-Stage"
which takes care of the can of worms. It also works great for white flour
starters.

It may not be necessary to go through all those hoops but with your issue,
it may help to take a look and find some regularity with your starter
growing and what's good for you.

Samartha
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