Our trusty, fruity rye sourdough starter culture
Klik hier voor de Nederlandse versie
A lot has been written about sourdough starter cultures. You can find long and elaborate articles on how to make your own starter while using things like pineapple and grapes. They are almost mythical creatures to be treated with the utmost care and fed every evening at the same time while standing on your head. The truth is much simpler. My rye starter seems almost indestructible. And the only thing I did is mix some whole grain rye flour with water and wait…
What is a starter?
A starter is a piece of dough which contains wild yeast and bacteria which you use to make your bread. The wild yeast produce carbon dioxide (and a bit of alcohol too) to make your bread airy. It is the bacteria that can give your bread the sour taste, this is because the bacteria transform the starch of the flour into lactic acid, acetic acid and alcohol. Both the acid and the alcohol give sourdough bread their unique and interesting taste. You add an amount of your starter to a larger amount of flour and water mixture like you normally use commercial yeast to a poolish or a biga preferment. It works just the same only slower. Commercial yeasts are selected and bred for speed by the big yeast companies but wild yeast works at a slower pace. This is why bread recipes for sourdough bread tend to take much longer and consist of more steps.
Why a rye starter culture?
For my sourdough baking I use a culture which is made with 100% whole rye flour. A sourdough culture based on rye flour is easier to maintain, it does not go into a slurry like a wheat flour starter when you forget about it, it is easier to stir because it has almost no gluten and it smells very very nice, a bit like fruit. It is also very forgiving in the amount you feed it. You feed your culture after baking to replenish your stock. Normally I only feed it once a week, after my weekend baking, I just give it a few table spoons of water and rye flour, stir and ready!
The birth of a new starter culture
Before starting your own culture
First thing: work clean! Use a clean jar and always use clean spoons to stir and add flour to the mixture. The organisms living on your hands can contaminate your starter and spoil it! Throw away your starter and start over when it develops an awful smell or grows moldy in whichever color, it probably has picked up a bad bacteria in the first feeble stages of the starters life.
After some research I found that the most likely truth of the source of the yeast and bacteria is the flour itself. The yeast and bacteria live on the outside of the grain (just like the yeast to make wine lives on the skin of the grapes). This is why you need (preferably organic) whole grain rye flour, because you need the outside bran of the grain as a source of yeast and bacteria.
I start with a relative wet starter and when the starter is alive add more flour to maintain a more stiff starter. I start with a small amount of water and flour as not to waste too much flour, because you have to throw halve of the starter away with each refresh. When your starter is alive and kicking you always can scale up the size of your starter simply by adding more water and rye flour.
Be sure to use water which does not contain chlorine. Water companies sometimes add a little chlorine to your tap water to kill all bacteria and probably also the yeast in the water, so it is not a good idea to use this for building a sourdough starter. If in doubt you can use bottled water.
And now on with the easy steps!
Day 1: Take a small clean jar (I use a 400ml jam jar) and add 40ml of water and 40g of whole grain rye flour, stir with a clean spoon for 30 seconds. Draw a line to mark the height of the mixture with a permanent marker on the jar so you can see any activity easily. Loosely close the lit of the jar and store at room temperature (about 20-21 degrees Celcius) out of direct sunlight for 24 hours.
Stirring the mixture every 3 to 4 hours for 10 seconds helps distribute the flour, yeast and bacteria and aerates the mixture which helps development.
Day 2: If you are lucky you should see some little bubbles of air in the mixture. The smell of the mixture at this stage is not very nice, a bit musty but not totally off putting. Add 20ml of water and 20g of whole grain rye flour. Stir with a clean spoon for 30 seconds. Draw a new mark line if needed. Loosely close the lit of the jar and store at room temperature out of direct sunlight for 24 hours. Stirring the mixture 2 or 3 times a day for 10 seconds helps distribute the flour, yeast and bacteria and aerates the mixture which helps development.
Some bubbles are visible after 24 hours – It’s alive, its alive…
Day 3: Your mixture should now be getting active. Mine did more than double in size during the last 24 hours. If your mixture is not very active yet, throw away half of the mixture and repeat the directions of day 2 again. The smell of your mixture should be a little nicer at this stage. When your mixture is active, throw away two third of the mixture and add 30ml of water and 30g of whole grain rye flour, stir with a clean spoon for 30 seconds and store at room temperature. Stir the mixture 2 or 3 times a day for 10 seconds.
This is called refreshing or feeding your starter. By throwing out part of your mixture and adding new rye flour you give the starter fresh food (the rye flour) to work on, so all your new yeast and bacteria can get ‘stronger’ and multiply again. You also dilute the alcohol and the acid they produce so the yeast and bacteria do not ‘poison’ themselves.
Day 4: Your starter should now be fully active and strong enough to double or triple in size during a 24 hours time period. We need to refresh it again before we can use this starter because the acid producing bacteria need more time to develop than the yeast. So throw away two third of the mixture and add 30ml of water and 30g of whole grain rye flour, stir with a clean spoon for 30 seconds and store at room temperature.
When your starter is not active repeat the steps of day 2 and 3 until it is getting active. Sometimes it just takes a few days longer, depending on flour, area and temperature. When at any stage your starter gets moldy, smells bad or you see colored spots on your starter which do not seem to belong there, you sadly have to start over as you probably picked up some bad guests.
The starter is now 36 hours old and has doubled or tripled over the past 12 hours after feeding
Day 5: Your starter should at least double in size consistently after each refreshment to be ready for your first baking project. If your culture does not double in size consistently after day 4 or 5 repeat the directions of day 4 until it does.
At this stage your starter should be developing a nice fruity smell during the next few days. You can now let your starter rest for a few days. After refreshing, I keep my starter on the counter for 12 to 24 hours, look for it to double in size and develop and then store it in the fridge. Mine developed a nice fruity tone on day 6 which got even nicer on day 7. Just keep using and maintaining the starter from now on, after a while the color of your starter should get a little bit more beige after it has doubled or tripled after a feeding (notice the difference in color of my old and new starter). This is a sign of maturation of the starter and the production of acid.
How to maintain your starter
A rye starter does not need much maintenance. We store our starter in the fridge. We bake (almost) every weekend so our starter is being refreshed at least each week. We keep about 120g of starter of which we use about 60g up to 100g each week. So after taking out the amount for baking, we just add water and rye flour and stir, so we have about 120g of starter again. We keep our starter quite stiff, almost like a thick paste. The reason for this is that it will develop a lot slower with less water, so it matures during the week and is ready for baking the next weekend.
After feeding we keep the starter on the kitchen table at room temperature (usually around 21C) for about 12 hours so it can develop and double or triple in size. When it has developed, we store it in the refrigerator until the next baking session. Always wait for your starter to at least double in size before storing it in the fridge, a starter should be fully developed before it can survive in the cold. A starter kept in the fridge should at least be refreshed every two weeks. A starter kept on your counter should be refreshed at least every three days.
If we want to bake, we take it out of our fridge and use it directly for a poolish or biga. Then refresh it, so it will be ready and active for our next baking session. That’s it!
And if for any reason you are not able to get your own culture started, it is possible to ‘kickstart’ the process by buying a packet of sourdough starter. We know that Kensington Sourdough, based in Toronto Canada, are sending their dried San Fransisco Sourdough Starter all over the world since quite a few years now and at a very reasonable price. They even have an offer for worldwide free shipping sometimes. Our baking friend Ben, the owner is very knowledgeable about all things sourdough and has some good info on the subject too.
Best of luck to all sourdough bakers and whether you make your own from scratch or you kickstart the process with a bought culture, enjoy the process!
Small video clip timelaps of rise of rye sourdough starter
More sourdough tips to help you bake that perfect sourdough loaf! Plus some recipe suggestions.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Tsachi,
We would suggest first of all to keep your starter a little bit thicker, more like a paste. Perhaps your flour absorbs less water and this way the starter is more liquid and doesn’t climb that easily.
Sometimes using a different type or brand of flour (preferably organic!) can also give a change for the better.
Hope this helps,
Ed
tsachi says
thanks for the quick reply,
I’ll defenetly try that.
tsachi
tsachi says
hi Marieke & Ed,
first of all, thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge and experience in this Beautiful site,
I’m learning a lot.
I have a question about the starter. its the seventh day since I made the starter, and although
it has nice smell of sourdough, and has alot of bubbles , its not expanding, meaning its on the same height all the time, except from the fifth day, when it was a little bit taller.
I’m feeding the starter in a ratio of 2:1 feeding vs starter, because I’ve read its suppose to help.
should I do something else ?
thanks a lot
tsachi
Pieter says
Marieke, Ed,
My starter is working prefectly and is giving us every week 3 nice loafs, whether pain rustique, with prunes and walnuts or the real sourdough. I have a question though. I’m going for 9 days on holiday, will the sourdough starter last that long in the fridge. Alternative is that I take the starter with me.
Keep up this marvelous site!
pieter
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Pieter,
You should be alright leaving it in the fridge while you are away. Back from your holiday immediately refresh, throw half away and add rye flour and keep at room temp for at least 24 hours.
Enjoy your vacation and after that hopefully some more wonderful baking with the equally refreshed starter 🙂
Marieke & Ed
Alan Farrell says
Hi, just found this website and already I LOVE it! First starter went into the jar at mid-day today so watch this space! I have been making bread for about fifteen years now but only very simple and straightforward recipes (basic bread dough – wholemeal, granary etc). Now I can’t wait to try making some pain rustique by this method. Thank you for the inspiration.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Alan,
Wonderful! I hope you will like the pain rustique too. It is our favorite everyday bread. Give it a few tries to adapt it to your specific ingredients, equipment and surrounding because this can be different for everybody of course. But following the directions and tips we find that most people already get good results at the first attempt.
A variation on the pain rustique is the ‘fluitje’ made with spelt flour. www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ith-spelt/ The recipe gives you two smaller loafs of about 500 g each. Nice for sharing too.
Happy baking and thanks again for your warm words!
Marieke
Frank says
Hallo,
Thanks for the recipes, I love the 80% hydration baguette!
As for the starter: when there’s a smell of nail polish this means the starter needs to be fed. All sugars have been eaten and now it is feeding on the fat producing acetone. If the acetone odour is not too strong it can still be ‘saved’ by refreshing.
When stored in the refrigerator the processes are slowed down so the starter lasts longer without refreshing. Me too, I keep my starter in the refrigerator.
Weekend Bakers says
Thanks for adding this useful information Frank!
Monique says
Oeps ,zie nu net al een deel van mijn vraag al beantwoord bij 13 oktober…maar graag toch advies over waar de starter vanaf nu te plaatsen.
Weekend Bakers says
Hoi Monique,
Leuk dat je starter het goed doet! Niet voeren en verversen als je je starter meteen gaat gebruiken. Na voeren moet je minimaal een dag wachten voordat je hem gebruikt. Als, zoals je zegt, je starter nu actief is dan kun je hem, als het gaat om maximaal twee dagen op een koel plekje in huis bewaren (maximaal 18 graden). Als je hem langer wilt bewaren dan is de koelkast de beste plek.
Als je de starter voert, altijd eerst een dagje op kamertemperatuur laten groeien en dan pas in de koelkast zetten.
Heel veel succes ermee,
Ed en Marieke
Monique says
Hoi, ik zit inmiddels op dag 5, na wat haperingen , maar nu lijkt de starter goed actief te zijn.
Kan ik hem nu beter in de koelkast plaatsen en dan bijv. op dag 7 weer voeden/verversen, of kan ik hem op kamertemperatuur bewaren? En stel dat ik 1 brood wil gaan maken, na dag 7, neem ik dan de benodigde gevoedde starter …en wat doe ik met het overgebleven deel ? Graag jullie advies!
Monique
Monica says
When my recipe says rye starter (150%) fed at 1:7:10.5 (starter:flour:water), What does this mean. I have baked bread before but have never used a starter except for sourdough pancakes following my Grandmas instructions of eyeing this much. Please help me to understand in laymans terms.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Monica,
150% (this is called a bakers percentage) indicates that your starter consists of 100 parts flour to 150 parts water (so about 1/3 more water than flour, so rather a sloppy starter). (100 to 150 is as 7 is to 10.5).
For example: you maintain your starter by adding 70 grams of flour and 105 grams of water to 10 grams of starter, which brings the total of the starter to 185. If you refresh your starter you only keep 10 grams of the total starter and bake bread (or make granny’s pancakes) with the 175 gram you have. To feed the starter again add water and flour at the same ratio of 70 grams of flour and 105 grams of water.
BTW, there are almost as many refresh ratio’s to be found on the internet as there are bakers, everybody seems to have their own preferred refresh ratio.
Hope this helps and the recipe works.
Happy baking and feeding,
Marieke & Ed
inge says
Novice sourdough user – I’ve never baked bread using a sourdough starter, so am pleased to say my rye sourdough starter has come alive! but your help would be needed in that I’ve put it into the fridge as I’m unable to use it during the week (long working hours etc), so when I take it out of the fridge, do I only bring the amount I need to use back up to room temperature or all of it?
Your help would be much appreciated.
inge
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Inge,
We also keep ours in the fridge and use it mostly at weekends (Weekend bakers 🙂 and yes we work with the whole jar.
You get the jar out, and take what you need to make your poolish or preferment. If you take just a little bit out to make just one loaf, you also need to trow away about half the content of your jar and fill it up with new flour and water to refresh it. (We bake much more than one loaf and use about 2/3 of the jar anyway so in that case you just fill it up and do not have to trow anything away). Then you leave it at room temperature for 12 to 16 hours to get fully active, put it in the fridge and leave it there till your next bake.
Good luck with it!
Marieke
Ibrahim says
Hi Marieke,
I am now at my first day.. but the equal parts of whole wheat rye flour and water is brining me a solid (dough consistancy) mixture. It looks like the flour soaked up the water totally. Is this normal or would you advice me to do (use) something different.
Cheers!
Ibrahim
By the way.. the Naan Bread was perfect!! Lovely with the butter and cilantro.. and garlic 🙂
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Ibrahim,
Glad the naan turned out so well, it’s one of my absolute favorite flatbreads.
About the culture: sounds like it could use a little more water. It should be a consistency that can still be stirred with a spoon.
Ibrahim says
Thanks for your reply.. I suppose adding a bit more water should do the trick. I will do my best 🙂
Francois (again) says
Should I make my sourdough culture with a lower hydration; 80 ratter than 100 percent? I think it would be great, in reason of the temperature of my house (25). I think that the pale colour of my culture is due to an over presence of bacteria, ratter than natural yeast… it doesn’t smell good as well. 80% water, 25 degree, 24hre intervals… does it seems okay ?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Francois,
Yes, we would suggest you give that a try. Like we said, it is not an exact science so you have to play around with it a bit to find your own optimal culture climate. Most people have to give it a few (or more) tries in order to get it going.
Good luck!
`paul van den broek says
happy! thanks for your reply and advise. It still seems a somewhat misterious proces (part of the fun). Yesterday i tried revive it, i threw away 2/3 and fed it 40gr rye and less water then described because I thought the mixture was to fluid. i think i added 20ml water and that did the trick. already yesterday evening it was more then trippled! Should i now give it a rest for 2 days or do a feed again?
regards, Paul (@fooddutchie)
Weekend Bakers says
Great news Paul,
You are right, that is why everybody has to find his or her own way with this process. We would advice to feed it one more time to proof it is really active. If it doubles / triples again you can try and bake something with it, or store it in the fridge until needed (also read the piece about maintaining your starter and our updates about the subject above).
Happy baking!
`paul van den broek says
nice site, tanks for puting it out there. It inspired me to try to build up the rye starter. From your video timelaps i can see how fast the starter is growin. I’m now in day4, had some activity yesterday: a small rise but by far not double. It even looked like it collapsed a bit. Today (day4) a bubble here, there but no real activity, it smells good by the way. Is this a fail or can this be saved? Does it often happen that no or almost no activity is there?
regards, Paul van den Broek
By the way, it very nice to see so many people starting to get interrested by food and esspecialy by our daily bread. Thanks for your good explenations on your experiences.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Paul,
Thanks for your lovely compliments. We would suggest the following for your starter: If there is still activity you can just continue with the steps. If this does not work, and you think there is no activity at all anymore, go back to day 2 and take it from there. If this fails, throw away two third of the mixture and add 40 g of flour and 40 g of water. Make sure the environment for your starer is warm and wet enough. If it still leads to nothing, you can also look at the rye flour itself. You see in our little clip that the rye we use is very active. We use organic whole rye flour from a mill and it seems to have a lot of natural yeast cells to get the starter going. It could be that the brand /type you use is not so easily activated, so maybe changing flour would help too. You can also read the comments and tips above of other people on the subject, maybe you find some of them useful too.
Wish you good luck with the starter and happy baking!
Ed and Marieke
Irene says
Dear Weekend Bakers,
My starter is really active now (7 days) and I think I can refrigerate it (cannot get my house cool enough, minimum 25 degrees). Is it correct that after the feeding I should wait for 12 hours for starter to become active, and than refrigerate it? I wonder whether the starter will loose its volume when I refrigerate it, is it OK? And do I have to bring it back to the room temperature before I can use it for the next baking?
Also, could you tell whether it is normal for a starter to have a thicker layer on top (like a crust)? Under this “crust” it is very active but air bubbles do not come through the top. I thought maybe this layer keeps starter from getting more volume (it only doubles, not more).
Thank you very much for all the good advice!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Irene,
Great news about the starter! Good idea to put it in the fridge. You are correct to wait for 12 hours after feeding before doing this. Yes it will collapse and this is ok, it is only the air escaping. It is not necessary to bring it back to room temperature before using because you will use only a tiny amount compared to the rest of the preferment ingredients and usually this stays at room temp for about 12 hours so it will be OK.
Again the thing you mention about the crust sounds like something that happens to a wheat culture (not so much with a rye culture which only shows a slight discoloration at the top). We assume you do put a lit on your jar, like it says in the instructions and that your crust is not really a hard crust but also more along the lines of a discoloration.
Our suggestion would be to keep your starter a little bit stiffer, so it can rise a bit more. It is more important that the smell of the culture at this stage is yeasty, yogurty, fruity and slightly alcoholic (and not varnishy and off putting). If it smells nice and yeasty yogurty we think the moment has come for you to give it a try and bake a loaf with it. (see recipes for our pain rustique, mini boules, soft wheat rolls and whole wheat levain).
Happy Baking!
Irene says
Hello Ed & Marieke, first of all thank you for the great site with an opportunity to ask a question and get an answer! For the beginners like me it is very valuable!
I tried your advice with feeding starter with more flour and water, but it did not work. After 24 hours I smelled nail polish remover, so i discarded the starter. Also I started a new “batch” with an non-organic flour just to try. It gets active, but it needs more than 24 hours after each adding. Though, again, after 3 days (like with organic flour) I don’t see any activity, even after 30 hours. Does a taste can say anything about whether it is working or not?
So, bottom line is that my starter with organic flour develops way faster (about 12 hours, instead of 24 as you describe), non organic flour starter develops much slower (30-34 hours). Do you think I can adjust the times accordingly, or does a starter always need at least 24 hours to develop? My problem with organic flour was that the process went as you describe for 12 hours (bubbles, doubling in size, right smell and color), but i waited 24 hours and at that point my starter lost its volume, got less activity and it got a layer of water on the surface. Do you have any advice for that? I want to start a new one tomorrow morning….
Thanks a lot.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Irene,
It seems to us that your starter is so active that it maybe needs even more feeding. It is absolutely normal for a starter to rise and collapse, this is not a sign that something is going wrong. The ‘water’ on the surface is called hooch and it contains the alcohol made by your yeasts, you can poor it of. We have never seen it on a starter made with rye flour so we assume you are using wheat flour. We would like to point out that you only see activity after feeding, so when all the food has been eaten all the activity stops until you feed it again, this is normal, it does not mean anything is wrong. If you see no activity, do not stop, just keep on throwing away half and feed it again. You can try feeding it a bit sooner than you did up till now (maybe your surroundings are very warm?). So in short if your starter is very active and it is also very warm at the moment you could try going to a 12 hour feeding schedule instead of the 24 hours mentioned. Just try to keep it up for a week, do not stop at day three, with the more frequent feeding it should be alright.
Good luck again and remember you are learning a lot from this process, also the things that seem to go wrong, you are getting to know your starter, it takes a bit of time but you will get there!
Irene says
Dear Ed,
thanks a lot for your explanation. It is now a Day 3 of my starter and I am having a problem! On day 2 I added 20 gr flour and 20 ml water, and already after 3-4 hours starter was doing very well (a lot of bubbles and it has more than doubled in size). But now, 12 hours after adding 20 gr flour and 20 ml water it lost its volume again and bubbles are fewer but they are bigger in size. It is also less stiff than it was.
It is already second time that it happens, should I just proceed as you describe on the day 3? Any idea what can be the problem?
I am using organic flour and spring water, and temperature is 22-23 degrees.
Thanks in advance!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Irene,
It is hard to pinpoint the problem without seeing the actual starter. It sounds like your yeasties where already done eating because they ate all the sugars and stopped producing gas and so stopped making bubbels. They decided to go in hibernation, it doesn’t mean they are dead. Maybe they needed a little bit more than the 20 grams.
If there is still activity I would suggest you just continue with the steps. If this does not work, and you think there is no activity anymore, go back to day 2 and take it from there. If this fails, throw away two third of the mixture and add 40 g of flour and 40 g of water. Remember, it is not exact science, a little bit less or more does not mean success or failure. You just have to find out how your starter reacts to the food and adjust a little accordingly.
Good luck with it!
Ed and Marieke
Ìrene says
How much starter do I need to use for a bread made with 400 gram flour? Does anyone know how to determine how much starter does one need for making different breads (small loaf/large loaf)?
thanks!
Weekend Bakers says
When using a preferment like a poolish or a biga I only use about 10 grams of active sourdough for each hydride loaf (a combination loaf of sourdough and yeast like our pain rustique) or about 15-20 grams of sourdough for a sourdough only loaf (like our whole wheat levain). With this small amount of sourdough you create during the night a fully active sourdough preferment which you will use to build the final dough. This way you can keep a small starter and still and have the full sourdough flavor. You can find both the recipes for the pain rustique and the whole wheat levain on our website.
Ed
Peter says
Ik volg al een tijdje jullie website en bewonder de resultaten.
Zelf bak ik al een jaar of twee men vind dat dat over het algemeen heel aardig gaat. Tot nu toe is het maken van een starter miet gelukt, maar heb besloten het met jullie aanwijzingen nog eens te proberen.
Nu kan ik echter bij de molen in mijn woonplaats roggemeel en roggebloem kopen. Welke van de twee is het beste te gebruiken om een starter te kweken? Ik dacht in eerste instantie roggemeel, maar mijn mengsel van de eerste dag is donkergrijs in plaats van het lichtbruin/grijs zoals op jullie foto’s.
Graag zou ik jullie advies krijgen. Alvast bedankt voor de moeite.
Weekend Bakers says
Hallo Peter,
Dank je wel! Met roggemeel (liefst biologisch want daar zitten potentieel de meeste gistcellen op) zit je goed zeker goed. Je hoeft je geen zorgen te maken over de kleur. Grijs hoort bij het jonge stadium van de cultuur. Na een tijdje, na het voeden en het verdubbelen in volume zul je zien dat de kleur verandert richting beige, dit is een teken dat de cultuur rijpt en dat de bacteriën zuren produceren. (en kleuren zijn op foto’s en bij verschillende beeldschermen ook moeilijk goed te beoordelen en vergelijken).
Succes met je starter!
Ed en Marieke
Peter says
Hallo Ed en Marieke,
Het lijkt niet helemaal goed te gaan met mijn starter. Gisteren was dag 3 en hij was ongeveer verdubbeld, rook lekker en er zaten lekker veel luchtbel en in. Gisterenavond heb ik volgens de instructies 30 ml water en 30 gram roggemeel toegevoegd en geroerd.
Vandaag echter is er qua volume niets gebeurd en ruikt het naar de hierboven genoemde nagellak remover.
Heeft het zin om 2/3 weg te gooien en bij te voeden als op dag 3 of kan ik beter opnieuw beginnen?
Bedankt alvast voor de hulp,
Peter
Weekend Bakers says
Hoi Peter,
Als eerste zou je kunnen proberen om nog eens 30 gram water en 30 gram meel toe te voegen, heel goed door te roeren en een dag te wachten. Als dat niet gewerkt heeft, dan ga je over naar de optie van het 2/3 weggooien en bij-voeden.
Hoop dat dit resultaat heeft,
Succes!
Ed en Marieke
gill flesher says
I also had the nail polish thing happen to my starter, but mine was only a couple of months old. On day 4 of a new one and all going well so far, although forgot to refresh it before dashing off to work. If I am just refreshing each week (whether I bake or not) can I just check that I should throw away about two thirds each time? Thanks, Gill
Weekend Bakers says
Yes Gill, about two thirds that is correct. If your starter is stiff, like a paste, you can feed it ones a week, if it is more liquid, you should probably refresh it twice a week. Some people use the ‘excess’ starter, the stuff you would trow away, to make a pancake batter, bake waffles, make English muffins and that sort of baking. see: www.thefreshloaf.com/node/…gh-starter
Fran says
I was determined to make my own starter so I decided to do some simultaneous experimentation. I started a rye batch and a batch with whole wheat. On day 3 instead of throwing away half of the mixtures I kept them all, feeding some with wheat, some with rye and some with white bread flour.
Conclusions:
1) They all worked. 🙂
2) Rye smells nice than wheat. Wheat gets more liquidy and smells a little beery.
3) No need to measure everything to the nearest gram. Now I add enough water to the flour to make a thick paste and mix the paste before adding to the existing mixture.
4) Container is irrelevant, jars, bowls, tupperware all work fine.
5) Water temperature doesn’t matter, I used it straight from fridge.
Doing the experiments increased my comfort level with the process. I suspect that there was nothing wrong with my previous attempts, I worried too much about them doubling in the volume.
I’ve baked a couple of pain rustiques and while there is lots of room for improvement, the results are on a different planet from previous breads using only packaged yeast! I am ready to tackle the SF sourdough.
Thanks!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Fran,
I do so love that you didn’t give up and that you found your own way of getting comfortable with the stuff. This will stick with you for the rest of your life! And I am sure other people will benefit from your addition to this posting too!
Thanks very much and enjoy the baking and the sourdough!
Fran says
I am also having the day four problem. Starter looks superb on day 3, but after that there are no bubbles and it just sits in the jar. It still smells really nice, fruity just as you describe. I’ve tried three times, using organic rye flour, warm Tesco water and the temperature in my kitchen should be perfect.
BTW – the raisin bun recipe is great. I’ve made them several times!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Fran,
If it looked great and had bubbles on day 3 then there was life in it, so that was a good sign, and the smell is also perfect you say. If you see no activity it could be it needs more ‘food’. You should just feed it then (on day 4) and see what happens.
Always hard to judge without seeing it but maybe you will give it another try, also with the help of the kind suggestions you can find in the comments by other bakers.
Just to be sure: I am assuming you use whole grain rye flour. Last tip would be to try another brand maybe.
Glad you like the raisin buns!
Steve says
Hi,
Firstly I have to agree, what a great website!
I’ve had a wholemeal wheat starter going for 13 days now and all seems to be going well. Not as fruity in smell as I expected but ‘yeasty’ nonetheless.
I want to bake my first loaf with it this weekend but am not sure how much to use. Looking at the above usage figures (60-100grams) it appears that you use 10 grams per loaf; would this be sufficient for 1 loaf?
Also you mention rising times take longer, is there a rough time guide for 1st and second risings?
Many thanks for your help.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Steve,
Your wholemeal wheat starter is not as fruity as a rye starter, probably more ‘yogurty’ so it should be OK.
I would suggest using 10 grams per loaf if you make a loaf like our pain rustique that also has a little bit of added yeast in the final dough. If you use only sourdough starter I would use 15 grams for a loaf.
As far as rising times are concerned you can check our recipes for San Fransisco Sourdough, Mini Boules and Soft Sourdough Rolls. For the ‘hybrid’ version (little added yeast) check out the pain rustique and the loaf with toasted walnuts.
Using only sourdough everything will take longer, but you also have to take into account the temperature of your dough which is really important. In our recipes the times indicated are about correct when your average dough temperature is 24ºC / 75ºF. You can find our tips on the subject here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…mperature/
Good luck with the baking and keep the starter alive ;)!
Sarah says
Thank you for this site. I’m starting a rye starter this month. It is not different than making any other kind of starter, which I have plenty of in the fridge, and in my closet.
Here is a tip for people who are having problems with their starter. the water must be quite warm, a little above body temperature. I don’t know if you have crock pots where you live, but you can keep your starter in warm water where the temperature is more regulated. Try keeping your starter in a dark warm closet.
I live in Canada and today it is -33C outside and my house, inside my house is 15c and my starter thrives really well.
Akke says
You could try starting your starter in a coolingbox, together with some blankets and a nice warm waterbottle, next to the heating. I did it this way and it actually turned out fine.
Weekend Bakers says
Great tip Akke, thanks for sharing and hope your starter will have a long and happy baking life 🙂
Gerben says
Hi. My second starter also did not start up, despite my feeding and the attention I gave. Actually I am afraid it is the temperature that spoiled the fun. In my house it is always something like 18-18,5C during the day and colder at night. I have experimented with different places in the house, but without succes. Do you have any suggestions about how I can get the right temperature, without having to heat my entire house up to 20-22 degrees? Or should I wait until summer to try it again?
Yesterday I baked my first pain rustique, using a dried sourdough starter. And actually it was a success. Do you have eperience with dried starters? Does it make a difference compared to living starters?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Gerben,
Maybe you could try the tip by Akke. And make sure your added water is not too cold. Sometimes quality of water can be an issue, for instance if it contains to much chlorine. You could use mineral water instead. Another idea would be to try a different brand/type of rye. Our rye from molen De Zandhaas in Santpoort seems to be full of life. We always make sure ours is fresh and we also use organic, there could be a difference.
We do not have any experience with dried starters, but glad to hear it worked out fine and you made a great pain rustique. All I can add is give it another try with the tips and hints in mind. If I remember well ours was also ‘third time lucky’!
Gerben says
Hello Marieke,
I started a new starter a week ago and it is really active now. So it must have been the temperature I guess. I just read your 4 year old starter died… my condoleances.
Just to be sure, to maintain my starter I can just leave it for a week without feeding? How do I know if I have to feed it?
Thanks for this great site!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Gerben,
Thank you, the new one is doing well again. Like it says in the ‘how to maintain your starter bit’: if your starter is stiff, like a paste, you can feed it ones a week, if it is more liquid, you should refresh it twice a week (normally bakers would use it every day of course). A good indication if feeding is called for is the smell. You recognize the smell of your active starter as rather fruity I think. If this smell changes to something less fresh and fruity, more resembling ‘nail polish’ it is time to feed your starter. By refreshing and stirring you give your culture fresh food to ‘chew on’ and you make sure everything is evenly distributed again and there aren’t any (crusty) subcultures developing on top for example.
Hope your culture stays alive and happy!
melissa says
put the light on in your oven. This will keep the oven just slightly warm. Then put your starter in and close the door.
elvis pezlie says
I had the same temperature problem. I put a hot water bottle in my cooler bag then put the jar with my starter inside the bag and zipped it up. Refresh the hot water bottle twice a day. It totally transformed my starter and it is now beautiful.
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Elvis for another great tip! Glad it works so well for you.
Happy baking!
Marieke & Ed
Gerben says
Hello,
I was really inspired by this website! So I started my own rye starter and the first three days it really started to work, but the fourth day it seemed ‘dead’. Do you have any idea what did go wrong? I refreshed it every day, maybe it is the room temperature. What are the ideal temperatures for the starter to grow?
Thanks in advance!
Marieke says
Does you starter smell sour? Simply said; the bacteria make the acid/sourness, the yeast makes the bubbles. When a starter gets too sour the acid stops the yeast from growing and making bubbles. By refreshing you give your starter new food to eat and you dilute the acid environment so the yeast come back to live again. Room temperature should be ok so around 20-22 Celsius. I advice at this point to throw away 3/4 of your starter and add flour and luke warm water (around 28-30 Celsius). Also keep the starter a bit wetter, so it is still easy to stir without being sloppy. This removes the acid and gives a nice warm wet environment for the organisms to grow in. Hopefully it springs back to life!
Gerben says
Thanks. I already started a new starter. And will try your suggestions on this. The old one does smell a little sour, also I see a different colour on the top layer of it, but I didn’t feed it yesterday because I already gave it up, so that might be the reason. Again thanks for your quick respons.
Arden says
Heb inmiddels ook volgens jullie beschrijving een rogge starter gemaakt, staat lekker te bubbelen op mijn aanrecht :-).