help with a grape starter

[thezaman]

 i am trying to develop a starer from some organic red grapes.this is where i am now can anyone help me develop a usable starter. i took 2 pounds of red grapes tied them in cheese cloth covered it with flour and water same weight of each.it soaked for a week. i squeezed the grapes into the flour and water discarded them.it was very red in color.i feed it twice with 200 grams of flour and water over two days.today i threw half of the batch away and was left with 10 pounds of a bubbly liquid. i added 6 pounds of flour and 4 pounds of water.tonight it is very active topping out a 21 qt container.i stirred it down. the color is no longer purple and smells sour.should i feed it the same as today. discard half and use 6 pounds of flour and water.when can i use it, and how much for 20 pounds of flour??

[TXCraig1]

How long do you want to ferment?

You probably only need to feed every couple days if you are not using it.

[thezaman]

 hi craig, how do i know when it strong enough to raise my dough?my dough amount is 9632 g flour, 19.26 cake yeast, 260 salt,6020 water. all grams. i usually do 1 hour bulk,two hours in balls then overnight in my cooler. the next day 4 hours to dough temperature of 65 degrees.can a starter be used this way?
 
  right now i have 18 pounds of my mixture i need to keep building it what should the feeding schedule be?is that way more starter than i will need.for my winery that i am going to use this for we usually do two batches of the above.
 

[TXCraig1]

When the starter is very active (doubling or coming close to it) in 6-8 hours after feeding at room temp (~75F), it’s good to go. 

You know I’m not a big fan of refrigerated fermentation for SD, that being said, for 62.5%HR and your “1 hour bulk, two hours in balls then overnight in my cooler. The next day 4 hours to dough temperature of 65 degrees” fermentation routine, I think I would start with starter equal to 12% of the weight of flour. I could see it being as low as 10% or as high as 15%. You will probably need to pull out some of your formula water to accommodate it as I’m guessing your starter is wetter than 62.5%.

I would highly encourage you to do some small scale test batches – maybe 10%, 12%, and 15% starter and then adjust as necessary. There is just no telling how your starter is going to behave until you try it.

Hopefully Norma or someone else who has done more work with cold fermenting SD will chime in.

[norma427]

Hopefully Norma or someone else who has done more work with cold fermenting SD will chime in.

Craig,

I have worked with cold fermenting SD dough balls and the taste of the pizzas are good, but not as good as when the dough balls are controlled temperature fermented.

If Larry wants the link to where Peter helped me with cold fermenting a SD, I can give it to him to look at.

Norma

[TXCraig1]

Craig,

I have worked with cold fermenting SD dough balls and the taste of the pizzas are good, but not as good as when the dough balls are controlled temperature fermented.

If Larry wants the link to where Peter helped me with cold fermenting a SD, I can give it to him to look at.

Norma

Does 12% starter sound reasonable to you for the fermentation routine he described: "1 hour bulk, two hours in balls then overnight in my cooler. The next day 4 hours to dough temperature of 65 degrees?"

CL

[norma427]

Does 12% starter sound reasonable to you for the fermentation routine he described: "1 hour bulk, two hours in balls then overnight in my cooler. The next day 4 hours to dough temperature of 65 degrees?"

CL

Craig,

I really don’t know, because when I was playing with the Ischia starter I was trying it out for market for a NY style pizza.  My level of starter was a lot higher and then the dough balls cold fermented for 3 days.  I am not good at judging what might happen.  I do things more by experiments, or if someone helps me.  I have played with different amounts of SD for Neapolitan pies and cold fermenting, but they were just experiments.

I think your expertise is a lot better than mine with SD.  Your idea in theory sounds great, but Larry would have to test it, like you posted before.

Norma

[norma427]

Craig and Larry,

After thinking this over a little while, since Larry is going to be using his own wild yeast starter (made with grapes), it will probably need some experimenting.  I have played with wild yeast starters and they aren't as predictable as proven starters (at least for me), such as the Ischia SD starter. 

Maybe Larry will be lucky and have a great predictable starter with his grapes. 

Norma

[thezaman]

 going to take pictures. now at replenish stage and tonight at close

[Matthew]

going to take pictures. now at replenish stage and tonight at close

Larry, check your email.

Matt

[thezaman]

 i used my starter this week ,not so good. my starter doubled in under 8 hours so i took 20 percent of my flour amount and did a small batch of dough. it took 24 hours for the dough to bulk rise double. i balled it and let it sit 8 hour then made pizza. as i stated it was inedible.the dough was hard to stretch without creating very thin spots that turned into small holes. the pie was doughy and not much rise.what did i do wrong?

[thezaman]

pizza

[TXCraig1]

i used my starter this week ,not so good. my starter doubled in under 8 hours so i took 20 percent of my flour amount and did a small batch of dough. it took 24 hours for the dough to bulk rise double. i balled it and let it sit 8 hour then made pizza. as i stated it was inedible.the dough was hard to stretch without creating very thin spots that turned into small holes. the pie was doughy and not much rise.what did i do wrong?

Larry, do you mean you used 20% starter (i.e. 20g starter per 100g flour)? If so, that is a pretty large amount. 25% is as high as I have been able to go with Ischia without instantly dissolving the dough. The ball in upper left corner looks like it has reached catastrophic gluten degradation from a high enzyme/acid environment. The splits on the surface are typical of such a condition. This would explain why it was difficult to stretch without tearing. I wonder if it took 24 hours to double because the damaged gluten could not hold in the gasses?

I'd cut the starter back to 12% and try it again. You might try 2 batches (12% and 6% starter) at the same time so you can see the differences.

CL

[thezaman]

craig i used a recipe from john darsky. 14 oz starter, 30 oz h2o, 47 oz flour, 1.25 oz salt.looks like the percentage of starter is way high.
 if i feed the starter and it doubles do i then remove what i need and proceed??

[TXCraig1]

craig i used a recipe from john darsky. 14 oz starter, 30 oz h2o, 47 oz flour, 1.25 oz salt.looks like the percentage of starter is way high.
 if i feed the starter and it doubles do i then remove what i need and proceed??

That's

100% Flour
64% water
30% starter
2.7% salt.

That's some pretty wet dough by the time you figure in the starter water. And, at 30% starter, I' not at all surprised that the starter destroyed the gluten. I'd still suggest something in the 10-12% range for the starter.

CL

[The Dough Doctor]

Also, you won't know what kind of flavor the starter will impart until you actually bake something with it. This is because it is anybody's guess what kind of microflora is being cultured. If you like the flavor imparted by the SD be sure to split it up into multiple containers in DIFFERENT locations and regularly feed each one on the same schedule. This way if you loose one batch of starter you can always use another as an inoculate to start another SD with the same microflora.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[thezaman]

craig i added flour till it was workable. it was a small batch and did not seem wet.this was a recipe published with his article 

[TXCraig1]

craig i added flour till it was workable. it was a small batch and did not seem wet.this was a recipe published with his article 

Can you send me a link to the recipe?

[thezaman]

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=19817.0 craig i posted this recently and the percentages were added

[TXCraig1]

Thanks. I couldn't remember the post name. Maybe he has a very mild starter - or one based on bakers yeast.