My sourdough starter went a bit nuts...

Ok, so I started a sourdough starter about 36 hours ago, and just got around to checking it now. It was in a pint container, which was (obviously) about half full with a cup of water and a cup of flour. When I got home about 5 hours ago, it had some good bubbles showing on the surface. When I went to check it now, it was plotting its escape from the container!! :fro: It had completely filled the container, and was looking a hell of a lot like bread.

From everything I've found online, it's supposed to take a few days before you get any bubbles of any sort at all. Now, I do have a small kitchen, and within the last couple weeks I've made bread, kombucha, and beer all in the same space... is this starter just full of some combination of bugs from all of that? Am I going to be out of luck getting this thing to actually be sourdough?

I took out half, added another half cup of bread flour and water, and moved it to a different spot... I guess I'll see how it goes from here. I'm sure I'll end up with something good regardless, but I'd definitely like some nice funky sourdough out of it.

You might want to rig a blow-off hose... oh wait sourdough..

Yeah I bet your kitchen just had a lot of yeast etc. floating around. It should be good in the end anyway though, I imagine you'll get plenty of good sour bugs in there.

I'm no sourdough expert but have had a strain going at home for a while. Some people I've talked to said the yeast and bugs came more from the flour and other adjuncts you use instead of in the air. I'm sure there are some airborne things getting in, but I imagine they would have a tough time taking hold in something overrun with bacteria/yeast already.

Move your culture to a bigger container and keep feeding it for a week or so and see what you end up with. You'll have to remove half of your culture at each feeding or it will take over your small kitchen.

Bokonon said:

I'm no sourdough expert but have had a strain going at home for a while. Some people I've talked to said the yeast and bugs came more from the flour and other adjuncts you use instead of in the air. I'm sure there are some airborne things getting in, but I imagine they would have a tough time taking hold in something overrun with bacteria/yeast already.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that is what I had heard too. I think typically the bacteria/yeast content of the flour is pretty low...otherwise there wouldn't be a 2+ lag time for it to really take hold. What surprised me was how fast this stuff went, when it was just water and flour. I did use bread flour, which has a bit of malted barley flour in it to give the yeast something extra to chew on.. maybe that helped.

I checked it again this morning, and within less than 8 hours it had doubled in size again. I'm going to use some tomorrow for some sourdough biscuits and see how they turn out. The yeast is obviously happy, now I just need to make sure that the lacto in it stays happy too.

Something very interesting has happened with my starter... the growth has slowed dramatically. I did some research, and I think I've figured out what happened. Based on my reading, any bakers yeast that you add to a starter will likely be killed off by the lacto growth. It's just not able to live under those conditions. What is needed is a yeast that can symbiotically grow with the lacto, and not every yeast can.

So I think there was a healthy dose of yeast in there, and it lived long enough for the starter to grow well- until the lacto took over. Now I just need to wait for the yeast that can thrive alongside the lacto to do its business. It's bubbling now, just not a whole lot... certainly not the gangbusters escape-from-the-jar bubbling.

Here's what I was reading:

Sourdough Home - Starting A Starter

Interesting! I'd never thought of the lacto killing regular yeast, makes sense though as both lacto and yeast make compounds to deter grrowth of other organisms (alcohol, lactic acid). I know these are byproducts but they seem to have a dual purpose.

I wonder if just tossing some brewers yeast in the sourdough starter will get it going, I figure brewers yeast and lacto can play nice together.

conpewter said:

Interesting! I'd never thought of the lacto killing regular yeast, makes sense though as both lacto and yeast make compounds to deter grrowth of other organisms (alcohol, lactic acid). I know these are byproducts but they seem to have a dual purpose.

I wonder if just tossing some brewers yeast in the sourdough starter will get it going, I figure brewers yeast and lacto can play nice together.

Click to expand...

That would be an interesting idea. Just a pinch of nottingham in the starter or something, to see what happens... the next time I split and feed the starter, I might just have to try that with the other half to see what happens.

I've also wanted to try making regular bread with different brewers yeasts to see what kind of final product it produces... people here have posted that it didn't work out well, but I think if it was done with a starter sponge (much like beer) that it would work out a lot better. I'll probably try a couple different dry yeasts with basic white bread recipes just to see how they turn out.

IIRC bakers yeast will take over any sourdough starter, and I read somewhere that when a bakery has a sourdough starter they have to keep it at the bakers house or something, because the amount of bakers yeast in the bakery will take over any starter that you leave anywhere within the building. This is why I will only leave my sourdough starter open outside on the porch, hoping to keep the yeasts that inhabit my house out of the starter the best I can.

Ale yeast used in bread is a different thing all-together. It won't rise as fast, but has some interesting results. I recently did some Spent grain bread that I used blow-off yeast from a WLP023 fermentation as the only source of yeast, It acted kinda interestingly, producing more of a chabatta like bread (although that could have been because the dough was really wet (I forgot to account for the liquid in the spent grains). It turned out really tasty though.

Funny, I was searching because I had a supremely active day one barm climb out of its container yesterday.



Started with the seed culture recipe as written in The Bread Baker's Apprentice (feeding over several days, using unsweetened pineapple juice day one and two in lieu of water) and transferred a portion to this large container with a sizeable feeding of flour and water.

I made a starter the other day and it grew out of the container I had it in too. I think it has to do with the temperature, higher temps really favor the bacteria growth.

I started one a few weeks ago and it didnt seem to do much. Then I went on vacation for a week and forgot about it. Came home to find a couple dead flies floating in it. So I had to start over. The next one (with a clean jar) took off a lot better and the next day was up to the brim of one of those large spaghetti jars.

Question: How do I know when it's time to put it in the fridge and slow the feeding?

I keep my active sourdough jar about a third full so it has plenty of room. Its two quart capacity.

When I know I am going to use it I'll get it out the night before, feedit one cup each water and flour, leave it on the counter a couple hours and then stick it in the fridge overnight.

If I get it really depleted I'll feed it two cups of each, leave at room temp overnight, then back in the fridge in the morning.

Works for me anyway.

I had a sourdough starter with lacto, and thought it would be interesting to add some Brett L. I fed it flour and water slowly and over the course of a few weeks in the fridge, it now seems to be totally dominated by Brett. The starter now smells like yeast, looks like trub, isn't sour tasting or sour smelling. I think lacto grows so much slower than Brett at the low fridge temperatures, and Brett can eat the starches in the flour, so it just took over. I'm not sure what to do with it now, because I like my sourdough...well...sour.