HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU

August 6, 2024 8:27 PM

You ever try making a sourdough starter, but around day three, it starts to smell super pukey, like the Devil's Own Cheese? Apparently that's due to pH levels letting the wrong bacteria thrive before the right ones settle in. Turns out you can skip that foul-smelling phase by simply using pineapple juice rather than water for your initial starter (and part two) to get the pH just right from the start.
posted by DoctorFedora (28 comments total)

Even easier & more reliable is to use kefir to start sourdough. It'll be strong enough to make a decent Pain de Campagne by the third day.
posted by lastobelus at 9:03 PM on August 6 [5 favorites]

I just got access to a bread maker and I love sourdough.
posted by luckynerd at 10:08 PM on August 6 [1 favorite]

Interesting. I wonder if a little lemon juice or even dilute vinegar would get you there.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:20 PM on August 6

So interesting. Like most of the world, I tried making a sourdough during lockdown, but it became very stinky. At the time, the internet told me it was probably because of my dog. Maybe I should try again. The idea of using kefir appeals a lot.
posted by mumimor at 12:16 AM on August 7

There is mention of an orange juice and cider apple vinegar solution. I’ve been meaning to grow my own starter for a while now, I just assume the process would always work - it’s worth noting that it’s possible to buy sourdough starter in many places
posted by The River Ivel at 12:24 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

I made a couple of sourdoughs way in the past, both from capturing wild yeast and from utilizing the dregs of a bottle of a Belgian beer, but the one I've been keeping alive for the past decade was procured at a French bakery, and is bulletproof. Just bring an empty yogurt pot or something and ask your favorite artisanal baker for a hit of levain. The worst that can happen is they'll refuse.
posted by St. Oops at 12:24 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

I just wish sourdough was faster. I make bread for my kid's school lunch and I can and would use sourdough if it didn't take all day or longer. Using fresh yeast I can completely forget and have bread in under three hours on Sunday night before school on Monday. Dried isn't much slower.
posted by deadwax at 12:38 AM on August 7

Perfect timing; I'm trying to make a starter again (after successfully making and then killing several, years ago, but weirdly not at any point during the pandemic). I'll try vitamin C. Unfortunately the one I have right now is buffered, so it may not work, but the very cheap generic I normally get is probably pure ascorbic acid.
posted by confluency at 12:43 AM on August 7

Interesting. I wonder if a little lemon juice or even dilute vinegar would get you there.
Spoken like a scientist. Is that a controlled experiment I hear assembling in the pantry?

My starter went rogue ten years ago, so I asked my neighbour Carole for some of hers. In contrast to _starting_ a starter from scratch (as detailed in part 1), an established ferment is remarkably forgiving. It's better if I can cycle it through loaves every tuthree days, but in an empty nest, that's a bit aspirational even including bread-and-butter pudding and croutons. I operate under a fantasy that starter prefers rye flour; and I defo prefer wheat bread, so I usually introduce the starter to a handful of wholemeal flour in a cup or two of water and leave them to get acquainted for some hours before making dough. I bless the arrival of Polish shops here since Poland joined the EU 20 years ago: not only several varieties of rye flour but also 100g blocks of fresh yeast which keep for a month in the fridge and can give a yeasty boost to some batches.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:47 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

it’s worth noting that it’s possible to buy sourdough starter in many places
Yes, I have one on my countertop right now. I hope it will be the beginning of a grand new future. If it survives, I'll call it Kamala. I have lost my sense of smell and taste because of COVID-19, so it'll be a while before I bake again. I have a really beautiful bread, but since I can't taste it, I don't eat it.

and I defo prefer wheat bread, so I usually introduce the starter to a handful of wholemeal flour in a cup or two of water and leave them to get acquainted for some hours before making dough
I recently reread a cookbook from the 70s (you really get why older people hate vegetarianism), and they said wholemeal flour is absolutely the thing for starters for some chemical reasons. Since then I've used wholemeal for my yeasted starters and they are indeed very good. Well, as far as I can see: beautiful crumb and color.
posted by mumimor at 12:56 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

A bit of whole wheat flour as a little treat now and then certainly keeps the starter happy. Occasionally I'll get some fancy flour from some small mill place and the starter is usually pretty stoked when it gets that. The regional biodynamic community's flour falls flat though.
posted by St. Oops at 1:35 AM on August 7

Deadwax: after a couple of hours at room temp, I let my shaped dough rise overnight and I just bake first thing in the morning. But what you can do is make a lot of dough and leave some in the fridge for another day, even several days later. It will have a stronger taste but you might like it even better. So that's a strategy for immediate baking, in the sense that once you get to the cold rise in the refrigerator there's a lot of flexibility after that. Worth experimenting with if you've a mind to play around.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:07 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

Sourdough Science - an abbreviated version of the excellent experimental analysis Migoya et.al did in Modernist Cuisine; a corresponding much more-detailed video.
posted by lalochezia at 4:04 AM on August 7

Metafilter: fancy flour from some small mill place and the starter is usually pretty stoked
posted by sammyo at 5:48 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

Important note for breadmakers: flour is a fresh food product and if you like me can convince the bakery below your house to order you a little extra flour from the mill your bread will be noticeably better and more consistent than when you use the grocery store flour that has been in the warehouse for one to infinity weeks. I am not a baking scientist, but I cannot deny the results.
posted by thedaniel at 8:44 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

Bread makers casting around for another deep end to dive into: thedaniel is absolutely right but those of us who don’t live above a friendly baker can get into milling our own.

Buying whole grain in less-than-boxcar quantities is sometimes an adventure to start with.
posted by clew at 9:03 AM on August 7

Is the “super pukey” bit what happens when you accidentally make Salt Rising Bread starter? SRB is the durian of breads: many people can't get past its furious pong, but it rewards those who do*. It's traditionally a winter bread, since it's uncontrollably active in warm weather.

*: I've had SRB twice, a long time ago, both times from a likely closed bakery near Kansas City. It has an unusual texture: the individual crumbs are quite chewy, but are held together in a soft creamy matrix. It smells like rancid training shoes, and you will gag if you breathe in while eating it. Toasting it can smell like someone lit an outhouse on fire. It makes a wonderful pastrami sandwich, if you don't mind eating alone.
posted by scruss at 9:42 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

Buying whole grain in less-than-boxcar quantities is sometimes an adventure to start with.

Here's a plug for Barton Springs Mill, where you can get a variety of whole grains in smaller quantities. I'm a big fan of their Rouge de Bordeaux and Yecora Rojo flours for my sourdough.
posted by Runes at 10:31 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

Uh oh. I had a newborn at the start of the pandemic, when everyone was going through their sourdough phases. But reading this article has maybe made me want to start one now? Someone give me a reason not to!
posted by Night_owl at 10:35 AM on August 7 [1 favorite]

This is fascinating and I'm very interested in trying it if / when I ever try to replace the starter that I managed to kill last year, after several years of baking with it.

Some people (I haven't tried this) skip the stinky starter phase by simply using commercially made baking yeast in the initial mix of starter. The wild yeasts and lactobacilli come along after a few days, but there's no window of time where other things are likely to outcompete yeast.
posted by Western Infidels at 11:59 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]

In fact I just baked some sourdough (out of the oven 5 minutes ago) and the flour is stoneground, fresh from a farm about 50km away... so yeah guilty as charged. It's great bread though, and the local artisanal bakers charge 8 or 9 NZ dollars a loaf, whereas my input costs are $2.30 for the very fancy flour and maybe 50 cents of electricity. I can't buy shitty white sandwich loaf in a bag for that much.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:19 PM on August 7 [2 favorites]

Oh, and if you want to get a well-developed starter culture, I can recommend Sourdoughs International. I've been using their French starter for a couple of years.
posted by Runes at 2:30 PM on August 7 [1 favorite]

I don't know if someone answered above, but you can use vinegar to help your state get the right pH. At least I use some to rescue a bad smelling starter and it worked perfectly.

Getting a routine set for sourdough takes a bit of time but afterwards it's easy and takes very little time.
posted by anzen-dai-ichi at 7:00 PM on August 7

Interesting. I wonder if a little lemon juice or even dilute vinegar would get you there.

The original post says vinegar doesn’t work because it inhibits yeast growth. The previous poster disagrees. I have no idea, just thought I’d mention they did address the question.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:58 AM on August 8

I think they were looking for something that could be used as a 1:1 replacement for some or all the water rather than a fiddly smaller measure that would be diluted/added to the water. So not so much that vinegar wouldn't work it just wasn't appropriate for their use case.
posted by Mitheral at 7:29 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]

I did a close read. They said vinegar "in the doses required to lower the pH" was inhibitory. So maybe there is something specific about acetic acid (as opposed to ascorbic, citric, malic, whatever) that the yeast don't like. Or something else in vinegar.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:11 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

Western Infidels: the start-with-regular-yeast thing worked well for me, after several revolting starts of my own that went feral really fast. My current starter is more than a year old now, smells like boozy fruit-cake, happily survives neglect in the fridge (although the three-four weeks over Christmas did make it a little sulky, I'll admit) and - if you feed it the night before - is raring to go by the morning, even in a winter cold house.

It's called Bob. I haven't done any defensive baking with Bob, but I'm sure I could if pressed (IYKYK)
posted by ninazer0 at 2:57 AM on August 9 [2 favorites]

Vinegar is literally the byproduct of microbial metabolism going anaerobic, if I were a yeast cell I might very well be nervous in its presence. So to speak.
posted by clew at 6:42 AM on August 9