G'day all,

Some time back someone posted a letter or note from one of the
'noted' sourdough luminaries (no Dicky, I don't think that wuz
U...(:-o)!) about whipping air into the starter. I read it, found
it interesting, thought about doing that to check it out...and
promptly forgot it.

That note came to mind when an interesting thing happened to me.
Now that I live in the PNW, it's cooler, so I have taken to keeping
my starter out on the counter and consequently feeding it every day.
I used to keep it out a few days, but mostly kept it in the fridge,
usually taking it out only the day or so before I was going to use
it. Somewhere along the line I seem to have done something to my
starter that's caused it to generate a strong 'acetone' smell--seems
to me I recall reading from someone here that I probably got lazy
and let it go too long unfed. About that same time I noticed and
posted here that my heretofore excellent Jewish Rye recipe
(http://www.innerlodge.com/Recipes/Br...h/RyeBread.htm)
wasn't working any more. And then a funny thing happened on the way
to firing up the starter to bake some pizza.

As is my habit, I feed it in the evening; dumping out all but about
1/4 cup or so (whatever sticks to the container), and adding a 1-1/2
cups of flour and a cup of water. The container I use always holds
it all, as well as when it "works" and expands. It goes about 3/4
of the way up the wall of the container. Well, one fine day last
week, with the acetone smell and the recollection of the admonition
to whip air into the starter bouncing around in the confines of my
pointy little head, I decided to give it a good swift whipping with
a fork after I'd removed a small amount for the pizza dough.

It had risen overnight as usual, and was already receding. I'd
whipped it, and set it aside. About 6-hours later I returned to
find it running all over the counter! The starter was light, airy,
and had a fine, glistening sheen. It had a faint (very) not-quite
alcohol smell, not the harsh, extremely sour, acetone-like smell I'd
become accustomed to. I'm gonna let it go through at least 2-more
(for a total of 7) of those daily double beatings...then I'm gonna
give my Rye a shot.

Anybody else run into anything similar?


Regards all,
Dusty

--

Dusty Bleher wrote:

> give my Rye a shot.
>
> Anybody else run into anything similar?

Absolutely!

The Universe is changing - that's one reason.

I have a starter which forgot how to get sour - 2 kg of it.

What happened that I was out of bread and had not enough time to do the
DM3 Spiel.

So I used up all the samples I had stored from previous runs, some over
a year old, mashed them together and doubled the rye content.

The consistency of the starter was somewhat more creamy, but that could
have been the different hydration as some of the samples had more water.

As it starter to get going, I made bread and it came out pretty
reasonable although it rose a bit slow. But it was not very sour.

So - again short on time to do the DM3 Spiel and still having 1 kg
starter, I just doubled the flour again, put it in the tank and let it
swim at 31 C.

This time, I measured the pH - before the doubling, it was already high,
something like 5.5 and I should not have doubled it. But hey - see what
happens.

It made a lot of gas, the smell was different, definitely alcoholic and
it appears more "soupy".

Now it's in the tank for over 48 hours and it slowly gets more sour and
still produces gas.

So - I finally have the phenomenon which has been reported here
repeatedly: My bread is not getting sour.

The starter is functional, has no offensive smell and makes decent bread
but lacks one property - sourness.

My interpretation is that the initial mixture of all the samples did not
have very many living organisms in it and the large addition of FG rye
either introduced new organisms or a prevailing species in my samples
was able to thrive.

So, I will keep this in the tank until the pH goes to 4.3 and then make
a sample bread (if I have time).

Right now, it is at 4.87 and when I started it on 10/01 04:45, it was on
5.55.

If what happens is worth posting, I will do so (if I have time).

Samartha

(I have to mention the lack of time here repeatedly because my ex is
watching this news group and gives me a hard time: yada yada yada... you
cannot do this for me but you post on the news group. Talk about control;-)

PS.: All flour used in this is FG rye, but the phenomenon may apply to
white flour.