Hei fellow Indonesian, I might be able to help a little. It's actually pretty normal for the mixture to not showing activities on day 3 to (maybe up to) 6. Outrageous activities on the first two days might include the involvement of Leuconostoc bacteria, which we don't expect to be present on our future starter. After day 2, as the pH of the starter turns acidic, Leuconostoc can't withstand such acidic environment and begin to decline. If you ever worked inside microbiology lab, you may already know that certain bacteria need certain conditions to be fulfilled to be able to reproduce, such as salinity, pH, temperature, you name it. Because there is a decline on majoring bacteria, it will encourage other microflora to grow and develop. Don't think of your regular Saccharomyces cerevisiae bread yeast, because S. cerevisiae can't really withstand the acidity of sourdough starter. Think of Candida spp. Unfortunately, during imunosuppresion condition, certain living Candida species can be pathogenic to our body, so it's not advised to taste raw starter. During the beginning of day 3, the titer of yeast cells are still minute. They need time to reproduce. In fact, I was panicking at the moment that I had the urge to put my starter at top of rice cooker (beware to keep your starter temperature not exceeding 35 degree celcius) which later after questioning certain people it's not necessary to do that since warmth will encourage acetic acid producing bacteria turning your future loaves really sour. Just keep on going. As a side note, Jakarta's tap water temperature is around 29 degree celcius during afternoon, so you want to use bottled water straight from the fridge to refresh your starter. When considering to use your starter, make sure refresh your starter twice (or until it takes no longer than 3.5 hours to double. Remember, Jakarta is hot) before adding the starter to the levain. I personally prefer 25% flour prefermented with 10% starter to limit the sourness level. I also find that our people don't quite like the earthy and tangy flavor of sourdough loaf, so you may consider using poolish loaf when entertaining people at home. Hope this can help, I'm still learning too.

• Reply