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Re: Sourdough bread not rising

"Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com>
Sun, 05 Jan 2003 11:13:34 -0700
v103.n002.6
On 2 Jan 2003 torosebud1@webtv.net (Rose) wrote:

 > I am just learning about sourdough breads. I have gotten some starter
 > and books from Ed Wood. So I jumped right in and got the starter going
 > and made my first batch of regular bread and it handled great. It
 > appeared like it was going to rise quite well only it didn't. So I am
 > wondering what part of this picture I am missing.

Sadly, without a recipe and an idea of what you did, it's hard to make 
suggestions.  Why don't you post your recipe and what you did, and we'll go 
from there.  You could send me that information directly, and I'll answer 
you more quickly.

 > The culture activated very rapidly so I split it in half and activated
 > 2 jars instead of 1 and it only took 48 hours. I then prepared the
 > culture for baking which took another 18-24 hours. The dough handled
 > great and responded well. But that is as far as it went. It seemed to
 > run out of energy. The recipe said to let it proof for 2-3 hours. I let
 > it go for almost 8 and hardly got a rise out of it.

As a side note, I like Dr. Wood's first book, "World Sourdoughs from 
Antiquity" much better than his more recent books.  The first book was 
simpler, more straightforward, and less likely to confuse someone new to 
sourddough.

The usual reasons for failure to rise are using a starter that is not fully 
active, rising the bread a a temperature too high (above 95F) or too low 
(below 65F or so), and letting the surface of the bread dry out.  Letting 
the surface dry out acts like a girdle and keeps the bread from rising.

My test for whether a starter is ready to be used is, will it at least 
double in size after it is fed?  Different starters will reach this point 
in different amounts of time, but if the starter can't double itself, it 
surely won't raise your bread.

You mention other baking, so I am reluctant to comment that all the usual 
things that keep any other bread from rising apply here.  Too little riser, 
too dry a dough, and so on.

Mike

Mike Avery
MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com