On Apr 11, 8:49 am, "Tom" wrote:

I get almost no
rise in the first or second rising. I've used both the bread machine and
the Mixmaster dough hook for mixing with the same results. Even after 12
hours of waiting for the first rise, nothing seems to happen.

What in the world am I doing wrong?

Mike's reply is a great advice. My response confines itself to your
starter...

Your difficulty could be any number of things... but I'd bet on weak
starter. This is easy to correct. The fix is to go to VERY SMALL
VOLUMES and feed it MORE FREQUENTLY.

The next time you feed it, when it hits the frothy stage, DON'T MAKE
BREAD. Instead, place two two tablespoons of your frothy starter in a
small jar, and add enough additional flour and water to double it...
this means you will have 4 tablespoons total. NO MORE!

Wait for it to froth again. Repeat the process. Take two tablespoons
out and double them with fresh flour and water to four tablespoons
total. Let it ferment again.

At this point, it has cycled 3 times, once with your original process
and twice at reduced volume. Now you can build it to make bread.

This build is easy... you are starting with 4 tablespoons. Add two
more of water, and two of flour. When that froths, add 4 tablespoons
of water and four of flour and wait again. You should end up with
about a cup of gassy, frothy starter. This cup is what you use to
leaven your bread... (after you have reserved two tablespoons for
future use).

The secret to vigorous SD starter is to keep the storage volume low.
This enforces a feeding regimen that builds volume over several
refreshment cycles. It is the number of refreshment cycles that
provide vigor, not the volume of starter that you store. That bears
repeating... it is the number of refreshment cycles that provides
leavening vigor, not the volume you store.

An aside... skip the sugar. You want the critters to feed on starch.
That's where the flavor lies.