Sourdough starter quantity predictive model

[Omidz]

Craig. I'm going to test out a sponge/bulk ferment/ball work flow this weekend. my ggarage is a cool and pretty consistent 59-62 degrees all day.

I wanted to run by  you what I am planning on doing for starter and time and see what you think.

Starter 1.5
Time 62(Thursday night to Sunday noon)   hours for party and 38(saturday)  for day before to try some pies. I will warm up a tray or two around 30 hours

Using your model looks like this should work. Am I missing something?
I figured I can always warm up the balls in my house running around 74 if need be so a few hours on the longer side is wise.

[JD]

If your refrigerator is 45F, you have another problem - that's dangerously too warm for a fridge - it should be 38F max, and ideal is closer to 36F. If it's actually 38F, the model would have predicted 13.7%, at 36F, 15.6%. My guess is that you should have used somewhere 62% and 82% more starter than you did (given 11 hours at 65F). For 8.5 hours at 65F, you would have needed more than 2X what you used. Of course all of these figures come from the red zone, but it sounds like the might not be too far off?

CL

First, thank you for bringing the fridge temp to my attention. Clearly I had no idea 45 was too high and I adjusted the temp this morning.

A longgg Second:

I took multiple temperature readings thoughout my experiment and it was in fact 45* in the fridge, and the middle of the dough ball. I did not guess at that number.

So I used your auto-calculating tool to help me figure out what my warm temp time would be (see attached picture). The only thing that is not a variable in the tool is the warm temp time. My starter percent would remain 8.5% since I had already made the dough. Also my house stays at a cozy 65* in the winter so that will not change. After 108 hours @ 45*, the only thing I can adjust to "complete" my fermentation is the warm temp TIME. Please review the spreadsheet and let me know if I'm using your tool correctly.


If my calculations are correct, I stand by my original statement that little to no fermentation had occurred at 45* & 8.5% starter. I checked my second doughball this morning (which is now on day 5.5 at 45*) and it too shows little to no signs of fermentation.

I strongly believe that if you are only using a starter, the fridge will almost completely arrest yeast fermentation at these low percentages. If this is true, this would be a huge benefit as far as planning is concerned, where I could make a doughball 2 weeks in advance and not worry about degradation of the doughball. However, the bacterial processes are not affected in the same way so you may reach a point of no return where the dough is overly sour.

There was a recent post by EV where a 2 week old Lehmann style dough was made, and it looked beautiful. Furthermore, he used IDY which in my opinion has a greater resistance to cold than my Ischia starter. If EV can do 2 weeks with an IDY, I bet I can do at least 3 weeks using a starter.

It is not my intention to push the boundaries in a glutenboy fashion, but simply to see if you could be a little more flexible in your dough making schedule if cold "storage" is a viable option.

Open to all opinions, however I'm going to use my second doughball to carry out this experiment. I think I'll start with 2 weeks and see how that goes (which means I'll make the dough around Friday the 25th of January).

If you prefer I start my own thread, please let me know.

JD

[TXCraig1]

Craig. I'm going to test out a sponge/bulk ferment/ball work flow this weekend. my ggarage is a cool and pretty consistent 59-62 degrees all day.

I wanted to run by  you what I am planning on doing for starter and time and see what you think.

Starter 1.5
Time 62(Thursday night to Sunday noon)   hours for party and 38(saturday)  for day before to try some pies. I will warm up a tray or two around 30 hours

Using your model looks like this should work. Am I missing something?
I figured I can always warm up the balls in my house running around 74 if need be so a few hours on the longer side is wise.

Sunday looks about right. I'm not exactly sure what you are saying about Saturday. Are you going to start warming after 30 or 38 hours at 59-62F?

You got balls going blind like this for a party. I'd start paying close attention to it at least 8 hours before the party. You should know by then if it is going to need to be warmed. My guess is warming for less than 6 hours or so at 74F will have little immediate effect.

CL

[TXCraig1]

So I used your auto-calculating tool to help me figure out what my warm temp time would be (see attached picture). The only thing that is not a variable in the tool is the warm temp time. My starter percent would remain 8.5% since I had already made the dough. Also my house stays at a cozy 65* in the winter so that will not change. After 108 hours @ 45*, the only thing I can adjust to "complete" my fermentation is the warm temp TIME. Please review the spreadsheet and let me know if I'm using your tool correctly.

Yes, it looks like you did the mechanics correctly.

If my calculations are correct, I stand by my original statement that little to no fermentation had occurred at 45* & 8.5% starter. I checked my second doughball this morning (which is now on day 5.5 at 45*) and it too shows little to no signs of fermentation.

I strongly believe that if you are only using a starter, the fridge will almost completely arrest yeast fermentation at these low percentages.

You may be right, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you were. Notwithstanding, it thought it was clear in my original post that the red-zone data was for discussion purposes only and not to be trusted for pizzamaking. I just added some conditional formatting to the spreadsheet to point it out there as well.

If this is true, this would be a huge benefit as far as planning is concerned, where I could make a doughball 2 weeks in advance and not worry about degradation of the doughball.

There are limits; enzymatic activity also slows, but it does not stop, and sooner or later the proteolytic enzymes (and acids) will degrade the gluten matrix to the point the dough is unusable. I don’t think this will take two weeks.

However, the bacterial processes are not affected in the same way so you may reach a point of no return where the dough is overly sour.

Bacterial processes are also affected by temperature. The LAB growth rate slows similarly with yeast at low temps.  The lactic-acetic acid mix swings towards the more sour tasting acetic as the bacteria get colder, but the total acid production slows dramatically. I tend to doubt that sourness is going to be the limiting factor. I think the enzymes and acids will degrade your dough first.

There was a recent post by EV where a 2 week old Lehmann style dough was made, and it looked beautiful. Furthermore, he used IDY which in my opinion has a greater resistance to cold than my Ischia starter. If EV can do 2 weeks with an IDY, I bet I can do at least 3 weeks using a starter.

I’ll take that bet. I don’t think a SD can go that long without turning into a pile of gloop. I know 3 weeks can be done with baker’s yeast, Tom (Tscarborough) uses 20-21 day dough fairly regularly, however when using baker’s yeast, you have much less in the way of acids and enzymes to contend with.

It is not my intention to push the boundaries in a glutenboy fashion, but simply to see if you could be a little more flexible in your dough making schedule if cold "storage" is a viable option.

Open to all opinions, however I'm going to use my second doughball to carry out this experiment. I think I'll start with 2 weeks and see how that goes (which means I'll make the dough around Friday the 25th of January).

In my experience, cold (refrigerated) fermentation with SD has a meaningful deleterious effect on texture and browning even after only a few days. I'm curious to see your results. Even if it works mechanically, I think you will pay a price in flavor which I've found to be optimized aroud 65F.

If you prefer I start my own thread, please let me know.

I’m curious to see your results. You are welcome to post here or start a new thread if you prefer. If you get some good and useful results, it probably deserves a new thread.

In an earlier post, you commented:

I have a suspicion that most of the visible bubbles are actually from bacterial by-products instead of yeast, and it wasn't until the dough was moved to the 65* temperature that the yeast actually started fermenting.

On what do you base that suspicion? CO2 is always an indicator of carbohydrate metabolism in yeast, but not necessarily so with LAB.

CL

[JD]

You may be right, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you were. Notwithstanding, it thought it was clear in my original post that the red-zone data was for discussion purposes only and not to be trusted for pizzamaking. I just added some conditional formatting to the spreadsheet to point it out there as well.

It was 100% clear that a red zone number was more of an unknown. I was hoping to provide some valuable feedback so you can eliminate some of that red area.

There are limits; enzymatic activity also slows, but it does not stop, and sooner or later the proteolytic enzymes (and acids) will degrade the gluten matrix to the point the dough is unusable. I don’t think this will take two weeks.

I suppose I was thinking on a much less scientific level than required. This is well beyond my knowledge, thanks for sharing.

In my experience, cold (refrigerated) fermentation with SD has a meaningful deleterious effect on texture and browning even after only a few days. I'm curious to see your results. Even if it works mechanically, I think you will pay a price in flavor which I've found to be optimized aroud 65F.
I’m curious to see your results. You are welcome to post here or start a new thread if you prefer. If you get some good and useful results, it probably deserves a new thread.

I'll do a 2 week cold ferment and post my results in this thread. If it warrants further investigation I'll start a new thread where hopefully people with more knowledge on the scientific background will want to help.

Further, at 8.5% and 65*, my New Years Eve pizza was done in 24 hours (as per your chart as well as actual results). I dont think it was enough time for LAB effect to add enough flavor, so just for clarity you do a much lower % at 65 for a longer ferment, correct? You mentioned this to me a while back and I never had the opportunity to try it because of the heat, but now that winter is upon me my entire house is a 65* proofing box.

On what do you base that suspicion? CO2 is always an indicator of carbohydrate metabolism in yeast, but not necessarily so with LAB.

Just a hunch since my dough was significantly under-fermented after the 45* cold stage. The dough had great flavor (due to LAB) so I'm assuming a by-product of LAB is a small amount of CO2, but again, just an assumption. It very well could have been a small amount of yeast fermentation.


Thanks for the reply & insite

[TXCraig1]

just for clarity you do a much lower % at 65 for a longer ferment, correct?

Yes, 1.3-1.5% for 48 hours. It usually ends up being between 61 anf 64F for about 40 hours and then 77F for the last 8 or so.

CL

[JD]

Just a hunch since my dough was significantly under-fermented after the 45* cold stage. The dough had great flavor (due to LAB) so I'm assuming a by-product of LAB is a small amount of CO2, but again, just an assumption. It very well could have been a small amount of yeast fermentation.

Just did a quick google search to see if there was and truth behind my assumption, and found this along with an article that goes way above my understanding of LAB:

"Starting from glucose, homofermentative LAB
mainly produce lactic acid through glycolysis (homolactic
fermentation) while heterofermentative LAB produce,
besides lactic acid, CO2, acetic acid and/or ethanol"

Full 20 page .pdf found here: http://www.microsour.com/pdf/7-lactobascilli-and-sourdough-fermentation.pdf

I'm sure someone here is familiar with it

[TXCraig1]

Just did a quick google search to see if there was and truth behind my assumption, and found this along with an article that goes way above my understanding of LAB:

"Starting from glucose, homofermentative LAB
mainly produce lactic acid through glycolysis (homolactic
fermentation) while heterofermentative LAB produce,
besides lactic acid, CO2, acetic acid and/or ethanol"

Full 20 page .pdf found here: http://www.microsour.com/pdf/7-lactobascilli-and-sourdough-fermentation.pdf

I'm sure someone here is familiar with it

Yes, I’m familiar with article, and I don’t think that quote says anything to support your assumption. I didn’t say heterofermentative LAB don’t produce CO2. Rather the model takes into account that they do. That citation is pretty much what I just told you: "CO2 is always an indicator of carbohydrate metabolism in yeast, but not necessarily so with LAB." That’s all it says.

The bottom line is that you can’t look at a bubble in the dough and say with any level of confidence that is was made by yeast or LAB (or both).

[JD]

The bottom line is that you can’t look at a bubble in the dough and say with any level of confidence that is was made by yeast or LAB (or both).

Yes I agree.

Maybe it's coming across differently in text format, but I'm not arguing against anything you are suggesting. I'm thirsty for knowledge, which is why we're all here in the first place isn't it?

[Omidz]

Sunday looks about right. I'm not exactly sure what you are saying about Saturday. Are you going to start warming after 30 or 38 hours at 59-62F?

You got balls going blind like this for a party. I'd start paying close attention to it at least 8 hours before the party. You should know by then if it is going to need to be warmed. My guess is warming for less than 6 hours or so at 74F will have little immediate effect.

CL

Ok I hope I did the quote function correct here Craig. What I meant about saturday is I am going to warm a tray or two on that day so I can get two days
of cooking out of my weekend. Imy sounds like you are saying if things are looking pretty raw then I should warn up 8 hours before the party cause a few hours with this process won't do much correct?

[JD]

As promised, I am posting the results of my 2 week fridge ferment.

Quick recap: I did a 2 week cold ferment in the fridge + 24 hour warm rise at 65* to find out how much the dough actually ferments in the fridge. Long story short, the dough turned out to be fairly weak as Craig suggested would happen. However fermentation was surprisingly very much in line with a dough that came right out of the mixer. In other words, it is my opinion that the dough was not over-fermented which may be suggested by my pictures below. In addition, it was the most flavorful & perfectly colored crust I've personally created.

The down side of the long ferment is that there were a few holes that needed patching when opening the skin since elasticity diminished. After I loaded the toppings, a shake of the peel kept opening new holes. I was actually able to save the pizza, but it was too fragile to be worth the extra fridge time.

So in summary, I believe you can make a dough with a starter, throw it in the fridge and use it within (x) amount of days and disregard any "fermentation" time while in the fridge. Max time in the fridge would still need to be determined, but I would imagine it would align with Glutenboy's results of 10+ days. Me personally, I'm going to try 7 next to see if I get some elasticity back.


If at the very least, I can make some dough on Sunday and use it at my discretion during the week with positive results, I'm a happy guy.

JD

[dineomite]

Craig,

   I'm on vacation and look forward to come back (even though it'll be fifty degree difference), so I can start playing around with this info. Very cool. Thanks.

[TXCraig1]

Craig,

   I'm on vacation and look forward to come back (even though it'll be fifty degree difference), so I can start playing around with this info. Very cool. Thanks.

You're welcome. I look forward to seeing the results.

[Everlast]

Craig, thanks for posting this. Your generosity in sharing information continually blows me away. Per the Multiple Stage Starter Prediction Model, if you were to bulk ferment at 65F for 24 hours, then ball and ferment for another 24 hours at 65F, then proof for 3 hours at 75F, the model calls for 0.6% starter. Don't you usually recommend 1.3% for this fermentation schedule? Am I overlooking something here?

Damian

[iblive]

Wow.... I've been WAY under thinking the sourdough pizza I've been making. I've put absolutely no science into it and it turns out pretty darn good.... based off how fast it disappears. 

[JD]

For anyone following my fridge experiment: I made another 8.5% starter dough and now have a hunch that something else is going on.

I'm pretty sure Craig said it somewhere a little while back, but I believe putting a dough in the fridge has a larger negative effect on the yeast than I previously thought. As usual I didn't change anything in my dough, but this time did a 5 day cold ferment and 24 hour warm ferment @ 65*F. The dough had many small bubbles but didn't really increase in volume. Additionally my spring & top color were both very poor.

I did use a different baking surface (steel instead of firebrick), however this should in theory produce a better spring, not worse. I had enough heat in the steel... pic below was about a 6 minute bake @ 525, obviously slightly overdone. I used a broiler for 2ish minutes and my cheese/toppings were cooked very nicely. The top crust was so pale and unappetizing and the only variable was the cold ferment time.

I'm going to open a new thread on this subject since I don't want to overload this one anymore than it already is. My next experiment is going to be adding a certain % of additional starter if my intent is to cold ferment to make up for the poor performance due to cold fermenting.

Thread started here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,23250.new.html#new

[DenaliPete]

So, just to be clear, as math isn't using my strong suit.

If I were to make dough that I wanted to use 24 hours later and were allowing the dough to ferment at 75 degrees, I would want to use 1% starter?

If that is correct, I'm unclear as to how long I should do the bulk ferment and at what point I should ball the dough.

And also, say I was still fermenting at 75% but wanted to use the dough 12 hours later, I would use 9.6%?

Could I expect the two different doughs to perform the same then?

Sorry for the silly questions, but this is a troubling topic for me.

Pete

[TXCraig1]

So, just to be clear, as math isn't using my strong suit.

If I were to make dough that I wanted to use 24 hours later and were allowing the dough to ferment at 75 degrees, I would want to use 1% starter?

Yes

If that is correct, I'm unclear as to how long I should do the bulk ferment and at what point I should ball the dough.

That's up to you, but I would give two points of guidance based on my experience - 1) you don't want much signs of visibly activity (bubbles) when you ball, and 2) you want at least 4 and probably 5+ hours in balls. I usually do 12-24 hours in balls.

And also, say I was still fermenting at 75% but wanted to use the dough 12 hours later, I would use 9.6%?

You mean 75F, not 75%, right? If so, yes, about 10% for 12 hours at 75F.

Could I expect the two different doughs to perform the same then?

Yes, they should perform about the same; the crumb structure might be a little different. They probably won't taste the same.

[DenaliPete]

Another stupid question.

When we are talking about starter %, is that % a reflection on flour weight, water weight, or total weight?

[Chicago Bob]

Another stupid question.

When we are talking about starter %, is that % a reflection on flour weight, water weight, or total weight?

Denali.
No such thing as a stupid question....
All %'s of ingredients follow after the total(100%) flour weight.