In article
ountainbitwarrior.com>,
says...
> Probably oversoured/undernourished - for sure after the last 24 hours. I am
> not sure if you mean by "mixed" after 12 hours that you fed it again. It's
> not clear how you fed it after the second step -
>
> 1 - 24 hours: reduce and double
> 2 - 12 hours: activity, reduce and double again
> 3 - 12 hours: no more activity - not clear if you fed again
> 4 - 24 hours: no more activity - not clear if you fed again

No, I didn't feed it when I mixed it (stirred it) after 12 hours. I fed
it every 24 hours until it stopped reacting. At that point I backed away
to see what would happen.

> What's somewhat strange is the separation/floating you describe after step 2.

I wonder if I had too much water for the flour. This morning I noticed
a separation of foamed flour atop a layer of water, which was atop the
main flour mix.

> If you have sour smell and nothing or little putrid/disgusting/strange
> smell, you are in business and need to keep nursing. In your case, that
> would have been after 36 hours.
>
> Somewhat correlating with:
>
> http://samartha.net/SD/MakeStarter01-5.html
>
> The tricky part is to recognize oversouring and take countermeasures i. e.
> stronger dilution. If it's happening and you don't keep going, it gets quiet.
>
> It could be that the LB's are not doing much gassing, but are active and
> kill everything else off and then shut down themselves.

It's going to be a bit difficult for me to know what good starter smells
like. The only one I have is a non-standard starter from a friend that's
feed with sugar and potato flakes. That starter has a smell not unlike
beer with a hint of vinegar. The one I'm trying to capture is soured and
earlier Wednesday it had overtones of a sweet smell. It reminds me of
fresh sugar cane juice. By Wednesday evening it had a slight yeasty smell
and a steady stream of tiny bubbles rising to the surface.

OTOH, my first starter attempt, which was from a dough ball of unbleached
flour, had the aroma of cheese. That one developed mold and was promptly
discarded. I tried this method assuming it would be harder for mold to
gain a foothold.

Here's something interesting: I stirred it while allowing the flour to
warm to room temperature and by feeding time all action had stopped. This
makes me suspect that something on the sides of the jar is inhibiting the
yeast. The yeasty smell was all but gone and only a souring smell
remained. Based on this suspicion I've changed containers. Now I'm using
three non-dairy topping bowls covered with paper towels.

> It's often not clear if it's undernourishment or oversouring and the way
> out of it is to go both ways - split it, use one part with strong dilution
> - 1 : 10, the other part go on as before.

Makes sense. I wondered whether to wait for a stronger starter and then
add a small amount to clean flour. If I understand you correctly, then by
over souring the bacteria that produces lactic acid might have gotten the
upper hand and is inhibiting the yeast. Is that correct? Therefore by
splitting it and diluting the starer, I'm giving the wild yeast a
chance to multiply in a low lactic acid environment.

Based on your suggestion, I've divided the starter into three batches.
The first is a continuation of the original, using whole wheat flour. The
second is five teaspoons of the original mix to one cup of standard all-
purpose flour. The third is 1/2 cup original to 1/2 cup standard all-
purpose flour (I was tired and miscalculated: I intended to use 1 cup of
the original less the five teaspoons). I also added only enough water to
make a thin dough and not just blindly dump in half a cup, on the chance
I've been using too much water. And we shall see what we shall see.

> Also, stirring helps moving the nutrients around, get some air in (the
> critters like it) and get a control on gas production.

Nods. That's why I was stirring it.

> It could well be that your quiet mixture comes up again, when you do a
> strong dilution and continue feeding.
>
> Growth rates are geometric in the area of doubling maybe every 1 1/2 - 2
> 1/2 hours, so going at full blast, you can have like a 64-fold increase in
> 12 hours and a 4096-fold increase in 24 hours if no hindering factors
> (souring, nutrient depletion) come into play which happen
>
> Maybe it gives you some ideas what could be going on.
>
> In any way - congratulations to trying this. Can be a rewarding experience.

Many thanks to everyone for the help.

- Kevin Cheek