A couple of months back my starter fed whole red fife became very sluggish again. As I did when this first happened I fed it whole rye for several days and got it active again. However, in the hopes of keeping it healthy and active I decided to keep it on a whole rye diet and couldn’t be happier. Where I couldn’t make a good white flour levain now I can get a 3.5-4 x rise with a white levain.
So what is it about rye that makes it such an ideal flour to feed starter? Well one thing is that it has more amylase in it than other flours, at least that is my understanding. There are other factors but keeping this one factor in mind I decided to see if I could make whole red fife a more potent feed for starter by boosting its amylase and devised this small experiment.
I will compare three mini levains, each started with 5 g of starter, 1:2:2.
The first one will be fed 10 g of whole rye. The second one 10 g whole red fife and 2% diastatic malt. Finally the third one 10 g whole red fife.
I then monitored their growth at 72-74ºF room temperature and found the following. After 6 hours the rye levain had grown 2.47 x, while the red fife with diastatic malt levain had grown 2.6 x and had lost its dome, while the red fife had grown 2.24x. I rechecked the rye levain and it had grown to 2.59x at 6.5 hours and was still domed. At this point it was getting very late so I stopped the experiment.
I think that this experiment confirms that one of the factors that makes rye a great food for starters is the fact that it has more amylase than other flours. The greater concentrations of amylase makes more food available for the microbes in our starters than in other flours and is one factor in why rye is such a great flour for feeding starters.
By adding diastatic malt at 2% to whole red fife, I was able to get a greater rise from a feed with red fife than feeding just red fife alone. In fact, I was able to get a similar 2.6x rise in 6 hours where it took the rye 6.5 hours to reach that rise. However, the both red fife levains peaked while the rye was still rising. Therefore, unsurprisingly there are other factors at play that make rye such a great flour to feed our starters beyond just its amylase concentrations.
Well the first thought that springs to mind is a lot of people see only the rise as an indicator of a starter is good. But take 100% whole rye and 100% wholegrain red fife each at 100% hydration and you see the rye is a lot thicker. It’ll rise more because at that hydration the rye will trap more gas. The gel in rye can form more quickly and easily in the rye without much work but the gluten has not been developed in the red fife. The bubbles are bigger in the rye because of the aforementioned reasons but a lot smaller in the red fife. While the rye has risen more I don’t think this will necessarily translate wholly in the final loaf.
In a nutshell I think the rise in a starter can be a good indicator but it’s not the full story.
Very good point Abe, this is one of the reasons I now develop some gluten in my white levains. I didn’t use to stir as aggressively when I made white levains and never had good rise, but now that I develop some gluten it is able to hold the gases better. I now work my levains more to develop the gluten in order to trap more of the gases and that includes the mini starters I created last night for this experiment.
The point I was trying to show in this experiment was that the greater concentration of amylase is one of the factors that seems to make rye such a good feed for starters and by adding amylase in the form of diastatic malt to a different flour such as whole red fife, one might be able to give it a boost. I believe that I was able to show this effect in this experiment. Now as with any good experiment it needs to be reproducible so it would need to be run by others to confirm the results.
However the gas bubbles in the red fife are a lot smaller and yet they risen almost as much as the rye. I think you’re also going to have to try and get the same viscosity and that might be lowering the hydration of the red fife. However it’ll have to be eyeballed and go by feel so the experiment might be flawed somewhat.
How many times have we seen starters triple and the resulting loaves are poor and often a more modest rise with a nice tall loaf at the end. There are a lot of variables at play. People feed their starters multiple times before using and refuse to make bread with it till it triples. My starter can sit in the fridge, go straight into a levain build and makes a nice loaf.
To me starters are just seed and a place where bacteria and yeasts are kept. As long as they’re active it’s fine.
OK excellent points about viscosity and of course changing the hydration will affect the fermentation as well which throws that off. On the other hand, I do think that the experiment shows that adding the diastatic malt to red fife does have an affect on the fermentation rate and give it a faster rise. Perhaps that is the only finding that this experiment can show.
True! But that’s the whole purpose of diastatic malt. That is not what jumps out at me. What I see more from your experiment is perhaps you thought your starter was lack lustre when feeding it red fife when it probably wasn’t! and your starter was just fine.
No it really was lackluster, the doughs it would make were taking as much as twice the time to rise as they used to. So no, I am quite certain it had become very sluggish because the slow rise of the doughs made from it were very very obvious for weeks. That all changed when switched to rye feedings and now the levains it makes and the doughs all ferment with my more vigor.
I guess my experiment was a flawed design from the start, because of the differing characteristics of the flours being compared and the criteria being used to assess them (rise).
I was going to start a post on something similar however I don’t actually know the reason for it and my conclusion might be incorrect. My starter has become very strong and has taken on a new lovely flavour ever since I turned it into wholegrain kamut flour. I last fed it a few weeks ago, it’s been sitting in my fridge and I just stir in the hooch. When making a levain it springs to action and has a really lovely aroma. Much more so than previously. I’m really enjoying this new characteristic of my starter and while my reasoning may be incorrect (as there are always variables) I just thought I’d point that out to you in case you wish to try it.
Interesting about the Kamut. Unfortunately it is quite expensive here and not that easy to get a hold of so I don’t think I want to use it to feed my starter at this point especially when I’m having such luck with the rye. But very interesting that you’re seeing this change in your starter with the Kamut.
That’s a neat experiment. I followed a bit of what you and Abe were discussing and my takeaway is on the practical side:
For people new to sourdough starter management, in particular, the use of high gluten flour or rye flour (or a mix like I’ve been doing lately) may be helpful. It will allow them to see results in their jar more easily and possibly more quickly.
