Its been a week and no rise

Sourdough Starter
1

I did the steps per the video and it rose about an inch. Then I read if it seems sluggish to stir it but dont feed it
but instead it went flat and I lost the rise I had. Fed it again per the third step in the video and nothing has happened for two days. No rise just bubbles. Need helpProcessing: 16927340593992816045918895378821.jpg…

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2

First of all that’s a huge jar for the amount of starter. Try to find a jar 1/3rd of the size.

Try giving it some small feeds using wholegrain rye, or wheat, flour. Not too much too soon. Start off with taking out about 1/3rd and topping back up. Once a day. See how it reacts.

3

Agree with @Abe about a smaller jar.

Something about your description and picture make me wonder if you may have a viable but liquidy starter. If the hydration (ratio of water to flour) of your starter is high enough, then you’ll get bubbles BUT NO RISE.

If that’s the case, you can actually use the liquidy starter as-is, but I suggest that you try thickening that starter up by adding some more flour (but no water) until the consistency is thicker. Then see if it rises.

4

Thank you. Moving to smaller jar. The consistency is about like a pancake batter. Is that too liquidity?

5

Not fed for a week and very watery? I agree with @homebreadbaker. Even if it started off the right consistency it’ll become very liquidy over a week.

When you have found a good sized jar giver your starter a very good stir. Transfer some into the new jar and thicken it up with some wholegrain flour.

6

I guess thats where i’m a little confused. This is my first time so what should the consistency be? Also Ive been using unbleached flour so I need to change to wheat?

7

Unbleached flour is fine. Whole grain flour is usually a bit better at feeding the microbes so tends to make everything happen faster.

Pancake batter is definitely too thin. If you can pour it at all, that’s liquidy. The consistency you want to aim at is somewhere in between pancake batter and playdough. If you tilt the jar on its side, the starter should just slowly kind of ooze over to the low side, not start to pour out of the jar.

1 Like
8

Don’t have to but it’s good for the starter so why not?

9

Thank you!

10

FWIW, the consistency that we’re suggesting is mostly just a practical convenience because it makes it easier to see the activity level of your starter due to the rise in the jar.

If you have the right microbes in there - which you probably do given that you are seeing bubbles - then it would work absolutely fine as a leavener of your bread as-is. (Depending on the recipe you are following and how much starter it calls for, you might want to make some minor adjustment in the amount of water you use overall in the recipe, but that’s just a total nuance that you can mess with down the road.)

There are more advanced reasons to sometimes want to use a more liquidy starter in some contexts or a more stiff starter in other contexts, but that is yet another nuance to tackle down the road. For now, to get going, aim at a starter consistency that lets you easily observe the rise in the jar and go forth and bake bread.

11

Thanks everyone so much

12

So I thickened it up some and it rose about an inch overnight but not getting the doubling I saw in the video. What do I do next?

13

For the time being feed as follows…

1:1:1 every 24 hours.

E.g.

  • 50g starter
  • 50g water
  • 50g flour

If you see a lot of activity then it may be increased to every 12 hours.

14

So I take some starter out and put in another container and mix? What do I do with the rest of the starter

15

No, keep it in the same container. No need to keep changing.

16
  1. Great, you have an active starter culture
  2. After you feed it, starter will rise and then after a few hours IT WILL FALL (the warmer it is, the faster the rise and fall will happen). So if it was “over night” you may not know whether it doubled or not because the inch you are seeing the next day might not be all that happened.
  3. In any case, try baking some bread. Start with a simple recipe like this one:

If you haven’t found this page on the breadtopia site, you might want to read through it:

17

Yeah it finally doubled. Thanks everyone!

2 Likes
18

Now you want to slowly increase the amount of food and how often to match the strength of the starter. So if you have been doing a once a day feed, every 24 hours, then try twice a day 12 hourly feeds. Should it continue to double then switch to a 1:2:2 feed and see how how quickly it bubbles up. When you can get 12 hourly feeds at 1:2:2 then try a bread with it.