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Re: chemical smelling starter

Mike Avery <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com>
Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:47:54 -0500
v111.n015.1
On 3/27/2011 6:23 PM, Jim Shaw wrote:
>Since then I have tried to get a new starter going. I have followed 
>specific directions from several books as well as just following 
>common sense and leaving flour and water to ferment - feed it etc.
>
>Each time I have ended up with a starter that bubbles along nicely 
>but has a distinctly chemical - organic solvent sort of smell. Not 
>the clean yeasty smell I had before. I have never had problems like 
>this in the years I have been making bread.

I don't think the new kitchen furnishings are an issue.  There are 
lots of contradictory sets of advice online about starting 
starters.  And while I am sure that all of them worked for the people 
who wrote them, in some cases I suspect they worked by luck more than skill.

The smell you talked about is an indication that your starter is not 
good.  Some bacteria have the ability to eat protein.  They usually 
cause an acetone/cheap fingernail polish type smell.  Starters 
usually develop this ability when they aren't fed enough - that's 
when the bacteria that can eat protein have a survival advantage over 
those that can't.  Once a starter does this, it is best 
discarded.  It is almost impossible to weed those bacteria out of the 
culture.  A number of experts have told me when your starter does 
that, just discard it and start over.  My experience suggests they are right.

My first suggestion is to get a known good starter from a friend or 
baker who uses sourdough.  It's fast, easy and reliable.  I don't 
know who would ship to New Zealand, but you might check with
Sourdoughs International <http://www.sourdo.com/>
Northwest Sourdough <http://www.northwestsourdough.com/>
King Arthur flour <http://www.kingarthurflour.com/> (their Yankee 
sourdough starter only)
or one of my favorites:
the Carl Griffith 1847 Oregon Trail sourdough starter distributed at 
no cost by the Friends of Carl <http://carlsfriends.net/> (their 
website is up again).  While all they ask for their starter is that 
you include a stamped self-addressed envelope, I encourage anyone 
using their starter to send them a couple of dollars (or more).  They 
are good folks and it's a good starter.

If you are really determined to start your own starter, here's what 
has worked for me.  I detail it, and two other reliable methods, for 
starting a starter on my web page,
Sourdough Home <http://www.sourdoughhome.com/startingastarter.html>.

First, you aren't catching the starter from the air.  There are a lot 
more microorganisms on your flour than in the air.  Next, you don't 
need, and shouldn't use, anything but flour and water.  Grapes, 
cabbage leaves, yogurt, kefir and bakers yeast all have yeast on 
them, or contain lactobacillus bacteria.  But in each case, it's the 
wrong yeast and the wrong bacteria.  In the case of bakers yeast, 
bakers yeast can not survive in a healthy sourdough starter.  You 
won't have a healthy sourdough starter until the starter kills off 
the critters from the grapes, cabbage leaves, etc.  It's faster to 
just use flour and water. You'll enjoy the grapes, cabbage, kefir, 
and yogurt more than the culture anyway.  And you can make better use 
of the yeast.  (One book says a speck of yeast will help draw wild 
yeast to your culture.  Yeast are not ducks, yeast goes where the 
wind blows them, they don't have the capacity to notice your speck of 
yeast and decide to settled down on your starter.

Your flour - you want a flour that is described by as many of the 
following words as possible - fresh, stone ground, organic, and whole 
grain.  You do not want flour that was ground in a micronizer, that 
was bleached, or that has been refined.  All of those things reduce 
the number of microorganisms in the flour.  A friend tells me he has 
never been able to start a starter with white flour.  Either whole 
wheat or rye are good.  I'd avoid gluten free flours at this point.

Next, mix 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup flour.  Or about 50 grams of 
each. If you use cups, sift the flour, spoon it into the half cup 
measure, and scrape off the excess with a straight edge.  You want a 
thick mixture - like a glazing compound.  I usually mix this in a 
stainless steel bowl, though you can use a glass bowl if you 
prefer.  The admonition about metal and sourdough is an old husbands 
tale and doesn't apply to stainless steel.  Cover the bowl and set in 
a reasonably warm area.  Say 65 to 85F or 18 to 30C.  Cooler 
temperatures slow things down too much. Warmer tends to odd organisms 
taking over and giving you off tastes.  To some extent, the organisms 
that take over your starter will be dependent on the temperature of 
your starter.  However, you can get a good starter at any of these 
temperatures.

Some people use pineapple juice instead of water.  This makes the mix 
more acidic and prevents some bacteria from taking over.  However, 
these bacteria won't survive in a mature starter, so I've always 
preferred to just drink the pineapple juice.  Feel free to use 
pineapple juice, just make sure it is free of preservatives and 
things that might kill your starter.

Now wait.  After 12 hours, look at your starter.  If it's not 
bubbling, wait 12 more hours.  If it's still not bubbling, wait 12 
more hours.  If it's still not bubbling, give it 12 more hours.  Once 
it bubbles, skip to the paragraph that starts, "it's bubbling!".  If 
it hasn't bubbled after two days, you have a problem.  I'd suggest 
trying a different brand of flour.  If it still doesn't work, switch 
to a bottled spring water.  Not a distilled water, you want the 
minerals.  A very few tap waters don't work well with sourdough.

It's bubbling!  So, it's time to feed it.  Add 1/4 cup of water and 
stir vigorously.  Then add 1/2 cup of flour and stir that in.  Cover 
and set aside.  In 12 hours, it should be bubbling vigorously.  If 
not, give it 12 more hours.

Now, discard 1/2 the starter, add 1/4 cup of water, stir vigorously, 
and add 1/2 cup of flour and stir again.  At this point, you'll do 
this every 12 hours.  You want the starter to get to a point where it 
will reliably double in size between feedings.

A digression - every sourdough starter feeding should be enough to at 
least double the size of the starter.  If you don't double the 
starter size, you'll end up starving it.  Imagine if you feed your 
Great Dane puppy half a cup of dog food every day.  If you want him 
to grow up, you have to feed him more.  Same with starter.  You can't 
discard half a puppy, you can discard 1/2 the starter and keep it at 
a steady state. If you don't discard, in 10 days you'll have a 
swimming pool full of starter.

A sourdough starter at room temperature should be fed twice a 
day.  12 hours is an approximation.  If you stop off after work for a 
few pints and it's 18 hours since the last feeding, that's 
OK.  People who don't feed their starter twice a day tend to be able 
to tell you how easy it is to start a starter.

Once your starter stabilizes, you can set aside the starter you are 
taking out of the main starter and use it for other things.  However, 
at this stage you don't really have a starter, you have a biology 
experiment and I don't think it's ready to be eaten.

End of digression...

Once your starter is reliably rising to twice it's size, it's time to 
wean it off whole grain flour and get it onto white flour.  Overall, 
I find that white flour starters withstand abuse and neglect better 
than whole grain starters.  It also helps refine the starter to the 
few microorganisms you want - every time you add more whole grain 
flour, you are adding a lot more microorganisms, and we want to 
encourage our friends and discourage their enemies.  Biologically 
cleaner white flour helps at this point.

So, over a period of 3 or 4 feedings add more and more white flour to 
the feeding until you are using all white flour.  The starter will 
become thinner as white flour doesn't absorb as much water as a whole 
grain flour, and that's OK.  So, first 10 or 12 grams white flour - 
or a tablespoon or so, and the rest of the half cup, or 50 grams 
should be whole wheat.  The next time 25 grams white flour - or 1/4 
cup, then about 35 or 40 grams white about 3/8 of a cup, and then all white.

I prefer to not use a starter until it passes two tests.  It must be 
able to double in size through rising between feedings, and it must 
be at least a week old.

When you're ready to bake, just stop discarding half the starter at 
each feeding and double the starter's size at each feeding.  You'll 
have enough to bake with in a hurry.

Your starter will continue to mature for 30 to 90 days.  After that, 
you can refrigerate it between uses.  I talk about how to do this, 
and more, in the starter primer. 
<http://www.sourdoughhome.com/starterprimer.html>

As a side note, if you find you've used all the starter, I have a 
page on emergency starter rescue. <http://www.sourdoughhome.com/emergency.html>

Good luck, and please let me know how your new starter works out, 
whether by my approach or another,

Mike
*Bake With Mike <http://www.bakewithmike.com>*
Mike Avery

A Randomly Selected Bread Saying Of The Day:
"Bread and water--these are the things nature requires. For such 
things no man is too poor, and whosoever can limit his desire to them 
alone can rival Jupiter for happiness."
-Seneca