Hi Blake,

It sounds like that initial burst of activity you observed over the first few days was more likely bacteria giving off carbon dioxide rather than the wild yeast in action. This is a common occurrence, which may be followed by a lull in growth around day four that can go on for several days. However, it’s hard to say whether your starter is in a lull, or it’s rising and falling while your sleeping or away at work, and what you’re seeing is the end of the process—after the starter is depleted and needs feeding again. Try feeding your starter with cool water when you’re at home for the day and see whether it’s rising, or just bubbling and then creating hooch. If you’re not seeing any rise, then taking some steps to increase the acidity of the starter may be helpful, which will encourage the yeast to kick in.

Steps that can increase acidity are—feeding only once a day, switching to feeding with whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, and increasing the ratio of starter to flour and water so that you’re including twice as much starter as flour and water, by weight (2:1:1) for each feeding. Given how warm your conditions are, you may not want to incorporate all these steps, but you could try feeding with whole wheat flour and perhaps adopting the 2:1:1 ratio of ingredients for a few days, while continuing to feed the starter twice a day. If your starter creates hooch, just stir it in and continue feeding with this routine until the starter begins to rise predictably. Once this happens, try switching back to the 1:1:1 ratio with all-purpose flour twice a day. Once this is rising well, then you should be good to go. Strategies for maintaining a mature starter in your very hot climate may require reducing the proportion of starter as compared to flour and water fed (something like ½:1:1, or perhaps even less starter), using cool water, along with refrigerating the risen starter in between feedings.

Barb

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