Barb at King Arthur

May 17, 2019 at 3:47pm

In reply to by Kimberly (not verified)

Hi Kimberly, it sounds like your starter hit a lull, and the wild yeast may not have fully kicked in yet. Often early activity like you observed in your starter can be due to bacteria that give off carbon dioxide, rather than the wild yeast. To encourage the wild yeast, it may be helpful to alter your feeding regimen to cultivate more acidity. Don't worry too much about the grey film you're seeing, which is probably just due to oxidation. If you're not already covering the bowl well with plastic wrap, I would recommend doing so. For the new feeding routine: try going back to feeding your starter with just whole wheat flour once a day, but switch the ratio of ingredients to 2:1:1. So, you'll be saving 4 ounces of stater and feeding it 2 ounces of flour and 2 ounces of water. Continue feeding in this way until your starter rises in a predictable fashion after feeding. At that point you can switch to feeding with the 1:1:1 ratio of 4 ounces each of starter, flour and water and begin feeding twice a day with all-purpose flour. It may take a few more days for your starter to adjust to the all-purpose flour and begin to rise predictably, but once you see that, you should be good to go! Barb
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