Ed Woods sure is right in what you quote.

With the pH - it gets boring after a while - up from 4.5 - 5.5 and down
to 3.9, with the next feeding it all repeats.

Since with SD pH, 0.1 degrees matter, you'll need a pH meter with 0.01
accuracy and those are fairly expensive.
Hanna HI 99161 is a food pH meter.

It's not just the pH meter for measuring. It needs to be calibrated
before measuring and for that calibration liquids for the upper and
lower ranges pH 4 and 14 are required.
Also cleaning and storage fluids are needed for the head or it dries out.

If you want to spend the effort, go for it.

I think to get consistent results with SD, you'll need to control
temperature, time and amounts.
To figure out a change, keep everything constant and change one
parameter then you can compare what is doing what.
There are many screws to turn:
Temperature, hydration, time, feeding amount relative to whole flour in
starter and what else have you.

I think a digital thermometer, calculator and a gram scale would give
you much more mileage than a pH meter.
Water bath regulated with aquarium heaters does it very well for me.

With pH measuring, if you want to do it prudent, you could try to get
measuring stripes from a science store.

Have you thought of using higher ash flours (whole grain) to influence
taste - the critters can do more work with those flours (buffering) and
they may like the additional minerals to produce more taste.

Have fun!

Sam


..


padriac wrote:
> My San Fran starter has got quite active but low flavour. Ed Woods
> from Sourdo.com suggests keeping at 30C for a few days. He also says
> that if the bacteria get too dominant and acidic that the yeast could
> be diminished quite a lot and low volume etc. I have not as yet got
> into measuring ph would have to buy a tester ( any suggestions). Is it
> worthwhile measuring ph and what is the ph range for a good balance of
> bacteria and yeast. Paddy
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