#I keep googling 'sourdough starter too active' and people are like 'there's no such thing :)'

[liesonthefloordramatically]

how do I nerf my sourdough starter

[bethsfoodblog]

My Sourdough Starter Journey

Lock down means we all have more time at home. This gives us time to try things we never felt we had time to do before. For me, that was having a go at making sourdough from scratch which inevitably meant making my own starter.

Having previously posted about what sourdough is and how it works, I wanted to have a go myself. I have never made any form of sourdough before so although I know the science behind it, beyond this, I have no idea what I am doing. The final push to actually make sourdough came when I saw a big feature piece all about how to make sourdough (including sourdough starters) in the May edition of my BBC Good Food Magazine. It looked relatively straight forward and all you needed was some bread flour, water, kitchen scales, something to put it in and a lot of patience. 

I began my sourdough starter journey following the recipe provided in the magazine. This was spread over a period of six days with a caveat that it could take longer than this for it to become active enough to use. I have summarised the recipe below:

Day one: Mix 50g of flour with 50g of tepid water, leave semi-covered at room temperature.

Day two: Mix 50g of flour with 50g of tepid water and add this to the mix from yesterday. Leave semi-covered at room temperature.

Day three - six: Repeat steps from day two until the starter smells yogurty and is active enough to float in warm water.

How did it actually work for me?

Day One 

This was the easiest day because I wasn’t expecting it to do anything. However, what the hell does semi covered mean? Do I leave the lid completely off? Do I put the lid half covering the tub?  Do I pretty much seal the tub with the lid leaving a little gap? I opted for what I deemed to be the middle ground - the lid half covering the tub.

I didn’t have a spare glass jar (which seems to be what most people store their sourdough in) so I opted for a plastic tub, similar to one you might use to put leftovers in, as it was all I had.

Day Two

When I came to my starter on day two I could see a few bubbles and it looked a bit thinner compared to yesterday. Following the recipe I mixed together the flour and water until it was all combined. I then fed this to the mix from yesterday and stirred it thoroughly. This was left at room temperature semi-covered.

Day Three

Day three saw a few more bubbles and more of a yougurty smell which is what I was supposed to be looking out for. Again, I fed the flour/water mixture to my starter and left semi-covered at room temperature.

Day Four

On day four I noticed that I was getting a bit of clear liquid forming on the top but this stirred back in. The starter continued to smell yogurty and was still bubbling. I gave it another feed and left it for another day at room temperature semi-covered.

Day Five

The clear liquid on the top was even worse on day five and made my starter look like it was split. This liquid was hooch (alcohol produced by the yeast) and its presence suggested that my starter was hungry. This would make sense because following the recipe in the magazine meant that the volume of starter was increasing but the amount of food being given was remaining the same.

This is where I decided to put my scientific head on and do a bit of experimenting. When I was researching into hooch I noticed that most other sourdough starter recipes called for you to discard some of your starter at each feed. This is to ensure that the ratio of starter to flour to water remains the same through the process. Obviously the recipe I was using did not call for this which made me wonder - would this recipe result in a good starter?

So I decided to follow the advice in the magazine for ‘refreshing’ the starter. I did this by discarding half of it (by my estimation taking the weight of the starter to 200g) and then feeding it with 100g flour and 100g tepid water. Leaving it semi-covered at room temperature overnight. 

Note - ‘refreshing’ the starter was not mentioned in the recipe for the sourdough starter that I was following. This was something that I felt might help to prevent the hooch forming.

Day Six

When I came to check on my starter I noticed no liquid sitting on the top so my efforts yesterday seemed to have worked. However, despite smelling yogurty and being bubbly, it still wasn’t floating when you dropped a spoonful into warm water. I had also noticed that my starter was not ‘rising’ up between feeds which is also said to be a sign it is ready to use.

Cue further recipe experiments. I stumbled across a Lakeland blog post about making your own sourdough which was similar to the advice I had seen online about discarding a certain amount of starter and then having an equal ratio of starter: flour: water during feeding. 

I decided to discard half of my original starter but instead of throwing it away placed it in a glass jar along with equal amounts of flour and water (200g starter / 200g flour / 200g water). For reference, I did not start from the beginning of the Lakeland method as I felt that my starter was already somewhat active. I then left this jar at room temperature with an elastic band placed where the top of my starter reached in the jar. This was to help me see if the starter had risen at all.

As for the rest of my original starter, I reverted back to the recipe in the magazine. I ‘fed’ with 50g flour / 50g water and left at room temperature with the lid resting over the top.

Day Seven

My original starter was still bubbling and smelt yogurty but it showed no signs of rising. It still did not float when place in warm water. This suggested that it wasn’t super active and ready to use yet.

In comparison, my new starter had risen slightly above the elastic band and also seemed to be more active with obvious bubbles throughout. Although, this could be due to the difference in the containers I was using. In addition, when I put a spoonful in warm water, although most of it sunk there were a few pieces which did float.

For my original starter I followed the recipe, feeding with 50g flour / 50g water. In contrast, for the other I reduced my starter amount to 200g and fed with 200g flour / 200g water. 

Day Eight

Impatience is setting in now. However, I came downstairs this morning to find that my newer starter had risen even more today and seemed super bubbly!! In addition, when I put a teaspoon into warm water it floated. 

Interestingly my original starter, where I have mainly followed the BBC Good Food recipe, is still looking active with bubbles (although not the same visual as the newer one) and has yogurty smell. I decided to put a teaspoon of this in water and some of it floated too. 

After feeding my newer starter with 50g flour/50g water I noticed it actually rising. By noticed, what I really mean is that I got so excited about it that I was doing a little happy dance. To add to this, the rise I was seeing here was not a little bit that was barely noticeable but so large that I had to move it into my larger glass container. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, I found the experience of making my own starter exciting and stressful. I looked forward to seeing how it was different each day but would then worry that it wasn’t working right. I am also quite impatient so having to wait for over a week before my starter seemed ready was frustrating.

I think that I might have just been a bit too impatient with the magazine recipe because by day eight it was almost all floating in water. However, the second starter does seem more active in a quicker time compared to the original. 

I often found myself consulting google for advice about what was going on with my starter which then made me question everything I was doing! I think the key take-away for me would be that eventually any starter will work if you:

Feed it regularly

Keep it warm

Remain patient

I have subsequently decided to get rid of my first starter and stick with the second one I made, which I have now named Steve. Apparently it is sourdough starter law that you must name it!

Stay tuned for more details about how my sourdough journey progresses.

Recipes referenced

BBC Good Food - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sourdough-starter

Lakeland - https://blog.lakeland.co.uk/how-to-make-sourdough-starter/