Hi Emily, without knowing the exact makeup of your starter and its feeding regimen it's difficult for me to determine exactly what's going on. Usually a starter will thin out and have lots of bubbles on top when it's at the end of the fermentation process and ready for another feeding, so it's possible that the starter is rising and falling while you're at work or asleep. If you're not discarding a portion of the starter this could also cause it to ferment more quickly, since you'll be giving it a relatively smaller meal each time you feed it, compared to the amount of starter being fed. If you are feeding your starter with a different type of flour, this could be yielding a thinner consistency, since different types of flour will absorb water differently. And if it just happens to be a very high hydration starter (the weight of the water is higher than the weight of the flour), this type of starter has a harder time maintaining a rise because the bubbles that are created aren't held in place within the starter as easily as a thicker starter. We don't find the float test to be a very reliable indicator of starter readiness, so this may not indicate an issue, in and of itself. I would check back in with the bakery where you got the starter and see what they say, but it doesn't sound like you've done any permanent damage. 

Barb

• Reply