Hello all.  I am new to posting on the board, but I’ve been lurking for a while.  I started baking bread about 2 years ago and have been trying to perfect my techniques as I go.  I love my “Bread Bible” and have decided to try making a sourdough starter.  I’ve followed the instructions to the letter (except for the organic rye, I was only able to find “all natural rye” flour.)  My question is how old does the starter need to be, to be able to bake with it.  I am on day 3 right now and my starter doubles after feeding within 4 hours.  It had tripled by this morning and it started to deflate when I moved it.  Do I necessarily need to wait at least a week for flavor or are you supposed to wait because of nasty bacteria that still may be present?  Thanks for any help.

Yeast production is faster than the production of acidity during the early stages. That’s why you see activity. Keep going. Older cultures have more complex flavors than young ones with the additional development of both lactic and acetic acid. The lactic provides smoothness (think yogurt), while the acetic gives more of a sour bite. Time not only develops them, but brings them into balance. They are the by-product, btw, of beneficial bacteria. Not all bacteria are nasty.

I would follow what bread bible says when creating your starter.  Think of the starter as a long time friend, planning to keep it for life.  I keep mine’s as stiff starter and used to feed it once a week as bread bible says.  6 years has gone by, now I only feed it once a month!

I began my sourdough starter yesterday and I noticed that on day 3 you throw away half the starter before feeding it.  Why is that?

As far as I know, the reason for discarding half is that it would quickly get to be a swimming pool sized starter if you were constantly doubling it and not throwing any out.

Exactly.  But once you have a mature starter (a month or more) you can save what you throw out when feeding or making bread and freeze it.  There are several applications for this, what we call old starter.  My favorite:  thin pizza crust made with 100 percent old starter.

Hector and Lets Go Hokies are absolutely right. To get a vigorous culture going that will attract yeast and bacteria that will happily coexist to produce both leavening and flavour, you need to add flour and water that together weigh approximately the same as the culture you’re adding to.

I love how Jeffrey Hamelman describes the reasoning to keep the quantities workable: “...if we didn’t discard a portion of the culture, we would soon need a cement mixer to hold the contents of the culture.”

the first year of my starter, i religiously threw the discarded part away.  but after that, i keep it in the freezer, for the many other uses possible.  you could even air dry it and pulverize it in your food processor and use it as gravy thickener!

when a starter is young, flavor isn’t as great and beneficial bacteria is more delicate.  but after 1 year, the starter is very strong and most full of beneficial bacteria.  this is proven because you will notice your mature starter hardly ever gets contaminated.

Thank you very much everyone for your feedback.  For someone reason the starter turns to the consistency of pancake batter at Day 5.  This is my second attempt and the exact situation is repeating itself.

Day 1,2
Day 3: Active Dough.  about triple in size
Day 4: Still looks active but did not rise as much as Day 3
Day 5: a couple of bubbles but it really looks more like batter.

I normally keep my house at 67F during the day and it would go down to 62F during the night.  On the first attempt, on day 4 I put the down in the oven with the light on.  The thermometer indicated 85F in the morning.  I thought that it was too hot and I must have killed the yeast.  On the second attempt, On day 4 I put it in the oven without the light on and in the morning the temp was 65F.  I figured that a high temperature would kill the years but if the temperature was low it would slow down the process but not kill the yeast.

I fed the yeast again this evening.

Did anybody experience this?

I just recently successfully created a starter, but it took me several months.  Reinhart’s procedure didn’t work for me and I tried it over many weeks, starting over several times.  I had a bit better luck with the grape starter method, but even after the starter was complete, it was very weak.  The one load of bread I made needed a boost of commercial yeast.  As I constantly refreshed the starter, one day it suddenly leapt into a flurry of activity after just a few hours.  Now it was clearly very strong.

The consistency of the starter will depend on the ratio of flour and water you add when you refresh.  If it’s 1 to 1, it will probably get more liquidy over time, compared to the ratio normally recommended as the first batch.

(Your home temperatures seem fine.)

I really think e_martel, you are doing just fine.  http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2008/05/tips_from_hector_on_nurturing.html

I used the same ratio as in the Bread Bible book 1/2 c of Flour and to 1/4 c water.  1 to 1 by weight.

Thank you for the replies.  I will continue to feed the beast until it awakens or run out of flour .  It looks like there is some yeast because I can see a couple of bubbles but it is very week.  The dough has a nice citrus aroma.

Some people mentioned that I could do something with the starter instead of throwing it away.  Where do I find ideas about that?  I hate wasting.  I could add it to pancake batter or any other bread where I want to add an additional flavor component.

Thank you again.

Type leftover starter in the search box at thefreshloaf.com

Tons of ideas!