I’m a bit lost and I was hoping if I could get some guidance with my starter. It is about four weeks old and there is definitely some activity, but I’ve been struggling with it, because it doesn’t want to double - until this morning.
For the past two weeks I have been feeding it about every 12 hours at a 1:1:1 ratio with no luck.
The day before yesterday I read one thread on this forum and decided to try the 1:0.8:1 ratio according to the instructions given to another person. I waited patiently and after about 23 hours it had not doubled. It smelled a little bit like nail polish remover so I fed it again with the same ratio (4:30 pm).
I live in Finland and it’s a bit chilly here, so I moved the starter to the oven under the light. The temperature there is about 28 °C when the oven door is slightly open. During the night the door had closed and in the morning the temperature was 32 degrees. But the starter had doubled!
I fed it with the same ratio (6:30 am) and left the oven door slightly open again. After six hours the starter had risen only slightly, so I closed the door. When the temperature increased again to 32 degrees, it started to rise again. Now ~12 hours have passed since the last feeding and the starter has risen quite well.
Now I’m wondering if 32 degrees can be harmful to the starter, because I’ve read that the optimal temperature would be 28 - 27 degrees? Should i continue feeding at the same ratio and how about that temperature?
It started to smell like acetone on 12 hour mark so I decided to fed it again with a 1:0.8:1 ratio. While feeding, I noticed that the acetone-like smell had disappeared and now I’m afraid that I fed it too early. Lol.
1: lower hydration favours yeast so I thought it might help to boost the yeast.
2: not all flours absorb water the same. Two different brands might be the same hydration but one is more liquidy than the other.
An acetone smell means it’s hungry so give it a bigger feed and wait till it rises to feed again.
Thank you so much for your reply. What do you think about that temperature? I know 32 degrees won’t kill the starter, but i’m wondering if in the longer term it can somehow mess up the balance of bacteria and yeast? Can something like that even happen?
This morning the starter hadn’t quite doubled but smelled slightly like acetone. The picture was taken just before feeding.
I wasn’t sure if I should continue with 80% hydration, so I split the starter into two and fed one with 1:1.6:2 ratio and the other with 1:2:2. I’ll follow their progress and keep the one that is doing better. Back in the oven they went.
12 hours after the last feeding, the starter looked exactly the same as in the previous picture. So it had not doubled. Based on the smell, I decided to feed it. I used a 1:2.4:3 ratio because it seemed happier at 80% hydration.
Not much happens at 78F. Some bubbling for sure, but it doesn’t rise much. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to activate at all at “such a low temperature”.
The constant high temperature has made the bacteria predominant and weakened the yeast. That is why it rises better at 32C. This condition also stresses the starter. It’s like running a marathon every day. This is my hypothesis for your problem. I would recommend letting it rest in the fridge for 4-6 days (at 4C if possible) to rebalance and stabilize. Then try again at 27C.
If I remember correctly, @Abe used the same method on certain occasions.
Thank you very much for your advice! I moved the poor thing to the fridge to rest. I also decided to experiment a little. Gave some of it a feed and moved it to 27 degrees to see if it would still manage to stabilize at the right temperature - in the name of science.
Maybe after week or so I can check again which one looks healthier and keep that one.
This was the situation 12 hours after the previous feeding. It spent the night at 29 degrees.
