Sourdough starter used too early
So I was making my sourdough starter for almost three weeks, and it still wasn’t floating in water. I used this recipe: https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2019/03/beginner-sourdough-starter-recipe/ However, when I was searching, I could not find I could not find unbleached all-purpose flour. So I used bleached flour instead. I do not own a proofing box, so I proofed my starter in an oven with the light on. I didn’t notice it rise much, but I continued to feed it. It was showing some bubbles, but not enough to make it in the dough. For almost three weeks, I kept feeding. After then, it did have bubbles, both big and small, but a lot of times it would have a brown-ish liquid before feedings. It smelled like unbaked bread dough. I was becoming impatient, and decided to make the sourdough dough with the unripe starter. Everything was mixing well, and I followed the directions until I got a nice dough consistency. It was 4 hours into the bulk rise, when my dough hadn’t grown a centimeter. I concluded that this was because of my young starter. Will it still be okay? Any tips for finishing the bread? How can I make a future sourdough starter less time consuming? Thank you!
Best Answer
Using a starter with insufficient activity is basically the same thing as forgetting to add yeast to a non-sourdough loaf. If there's very little activity in the starter, then you don't have an established colony of wild yeast so there's nothing there that will make the dough rise. At this point, your bread is pretty much a loss. You could try to turn it into some form of flatbread by frying small rounds of it in a pan if you don't want to throw it out, but you're not getting a loaf of bread out of it.
As for your starter, the brown liquid is most likely hooch. It typically indicates that you're not feeding your starter often enough. Typically, your starter should be ready for use in 7-10 days from starting it. However, lots of factors like the temperature in your kitchen and precisely what kind of flour you use can affect the time it takes for a yeast colony to establish itself. Using it before you have a stable colony of wild yeast is a waste of time and ingredients since without the yeast it cannot replace commercial yeast in your bread. Patience will get you there faster than rushing.
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What happens if you use your sourdough starter too early?
It takes time for a starter to strengthen enough\u2014to contain enough yeast\u2014to bake with. Baking with an immature starter will result in dense bread, or even bread that does not rise at all.What happens if you use sourdough starter that is not ready?
Active, but not ripe, sourdough starterIt's beginning to expand, and has many more bubbles. If you watch it for a minute, you can see the bubbles forming and coming to the surface in slow motion. This is an active starter, growing and expanding, producing bubbles of carbon dioxide.How long before I can use my sourdough starter?
If you're starting a brand new starter from scratch, it will need 7 to 10 days before it's ready for bread baking. The first four to five days will be spent getting your starter active and bulking it up.Can I use my starter early?
If your starter was fed a day or two before, it's possible to use the starter straight from the refrigerator. Give it a float test to make sure it's active. The dough may take a little longer to ferment since the temperature of the dough will be colder.SOURDOUGH STARTER HINTS AND TIPS! WHAT NOBODY TELLS YOU
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Answer 2
Some people think cultures tend to develop from microorganisms pre-existing in the flour rather than from the local environment. The idea was put forward by proponents of other types of wild fermentation (e.g. lacto-pickles) and is backed by experiments with sterilized flour. I first learned of this on pizzamaking.com.
It sounds like your culture has aquired some microorganisms but perhaps no yeast. I would think it will be easier to start again with an organic flour, even if it's not all-purpose. I'm not too sure there's a problem with the enzymes being different, as per the linked recipe. The main thing though, is to start the culture with a non-sterilized flour. Once you have an active culture you can introduce bleached flour. It might slow it down but it should still rise.
Another option is to buy a culture online. I've bought and made many over the years but the only one I kept is a 300 year old Italian one I bought from sourdo.com.
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