Barb at King Arthur

July 20, 2020 at 5:39pm

In reply to by Sharon (not verified)

Hi Sharon, I'm assuming when you say you're feeding 1:1:1 you're doing so by weight rather than volume. A starter that is maintained with equal parts by volume will be much thinner in consistency than our starter, and won't be able to show the same type of rising behavior. I'm also assuming that you left the starter out overnight at room temperature, and haven't yet refrigerated it. 

While I don't know exactly what happened with your starter, I suspect that feeding every 12-14 hours may have caused the yeast to become sluggish. To keep yeast activity vigorous ideally you want to feed your starter when it's at its peak of rising, or just beginning to fall. Allowing the starter to fall significantly between feedings can lead to sluggish yeast behavior.

While the 1:1:1 (starter:water:flour, by weight) generally works fine under cooler conditions, if your home is warmer this time of year, this may be causing your starter to peak much earlier than the 12 hour mark. In order to line up your feedings closer to the peak you may want to try offering your starter a relatively larger meal (1:3:3 or even 1:4:4 ratio of starter:water:flour). Keep in mind that a relatively larger meal doesn't mean you have to use up more flour, since you can reduce the amount of starter relative to water/flour fed. For example, a 1:4:4 feeding might look: 28g starter + 113g water +113g AP flour. 

I hope this helps! Let us know how it goes. 

Barb

 

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