Barb at King Arthur

April 6, 2020 at 9:18am

In reply to by Chet (not verified)

Hi Chet, at this point I always like to check about the type of container you have your starter stored in. If you're using a wide bowl or tupperware container, this can make it more difficult to see the starter "double in size." A wide mouth glass jar that is taller than it is wide is more likely to exhibit this type of doubling activity. It doesn't have anything to do with plastic vs glass, but just the size and shape of the container can make it more or less difficult to see rising activity. Second, if you're really not seeing any rising activity you might want to try switching up your feeding routine a bit. Try feeding once a day by weight 2 parts (starter) :1 (water) : 1(whole wheat flour). This will increase the acidity of your starter and may help encourage the wild yeast to kick in. Once your starter is rising predictably, you can switch back to the twice a day feedings with AP flour and whole wheat flour, but I would recommend doing equal parts by weight of starter, flour and water at that point. Every time you change your starter's feeding routine it will need time to adjust, but once it's rising predictably with the twice a day feedings, then you should be good to go. If you're concerned about the amount of flour you're going through you can certainly reduce the size of your feedings, just make sure that whatever container you have your starter stored in allows some depth for the starter, so it isn't spread too thinnly on the bottom of a large jar. Good luck and let us know how it goes! 

Barb

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.