Barb at King Arthur

January 4, 2020 at 11:24am

In reply to by Cora (not verified)

Hi Cora, if you read through the comments below you'll find that many bakers experience a lull in rising around day 4, particularly if they've seen a very exuberant rise earlier in the process. This early rising activity can be the result of a type of bacteria that gives off carbon dioxide, and isn't yet a sign of wild yeast activity. This type of bacterial activity seems to be linked to a subsequent delay in wild yeast activity. There's no need to start over however; eventually your starter will work its way out of this lull and begin rising predictably. If you'd like to try to kick start the yeast you could try an alternative feeding schedule which will increase the acidity of the starter and help encourage the yeast to kick in. For this alternative feeding routine you'll discard all but 100g of starter and feed it 50g of rye flour and 50g of water. Feed this way once a day until the starter begins to rise predictably. Once you see this kind of activity, you can switch to feeding twice a day and saving 113g of starter and feeding this 113g of water and 113g of unbleached all-purpose flour. The starter may hesitate a bit when you switch feeding routines, but once it's rising predictably with this feeding schedule, then you should be good to go. I hope this helps! Let us know how it goes. 

Barb

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