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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Trouble Starting Carl's Starter

Carl's sourdough starter is famous on the web - it's an old starter from 1847 that's been propagated in recent years by Carl Griffith and his friends, who now send free dried sourdough by mail to interested bakers all over the world, the cost being only a self-addressed stamped envelope with first class postage.  Hardly able to believe such a wonderful offer existed, I decided to send for some and try to start my own batch of Carl Griffith's starter.

Now, sourdough starter can last for a long time - centuries.  But in the U.S., we think five years is a long time.  A hundred and fifty years is positively historical.  Very curious about how this starter would differ from my own wild yeasts, and not against the idea of helping to preserve history while I'm making bagels, I sent off for the sample, my one reservation being that my child has nut and seed allergies, and who knows what might have cross-contaminated the starter over the years?

After a few weeks of checking the mail with unhidden obsessive-compulsiveness, I received the little envelope.  Fifteen minutes after it arrived, I started trying to activate it.  It's four days later and I'm still working on reviving the starter.  The problem is, activating it isn't as easy as everyone says it should be.  I followed all the instructions - not the ones for using potato water, but the set of instructions using just flour and water that's posted on the Friends of Carl Griffith website.

I've always had trouble keeping a white flour starter.  All my current starters that bubble nicely and are fragrant and healthy are whole wheat.  My whites, though, go sour in a bad way, not a good way.  They smell bad and develop tiny bubbles that don't do anything and a layer of unappetizing liquid on the top (not hooch).  When I convert the whole wheat starters to white, they go down the same route.   I don't know why.  Different enzymes?  Lack of patience?  Bad karma?

So I wasn't surprised to have trouble activating the starter.  I tried using Hodgson Mill bread flour, then King Arthur bread flour.  The flour's fresh, so that's not the problem.  I tried moving the glass containers.  Using small containers and big containers.  Stirring frequently.   Keeping it more liquidy. Drier.  Loose lids.  Tight lids.  Changing the filter on my water filter.  And finally, after moving the starters-to-be (plural, because I've got several attempted batches going) to a warmer location, and continuing to feed despite all adversity, and wait impatiently, and whining to everyone who would listen, I'm seeing bubbles.  Good bubbles. The smell isn't quite as bad.  Finally, there's hope.

Some tips based on my trials and errors:

  • Use loose-lidded containers.
  • Place starters-to-be in a warm location (warmer than 70 degrees, cooler than 85).
  • Stir well and often.
  • Checking for bubbles every hour does not, in fact, hurt the starter's ability to start.  But I'm not sure it helps.
  • Be patient.
  • If you're still not having luck, and things are beginning to smell not nice, and your patience is beginning to wane, then try this:  When it comes time to feed, divide the non-starter into two containers.  In one, refresh with flour and water as usual. (This is your control in case the other version fails.) In the other, refresh the yucky-smelling stuff with water from soaking raisins for an hour (non-chlorinated, as usual).   See if the raisin-enhanced and/or the original control manage to activate in the next couple of days.  Trust me, all this experimentation will make you feel like you're doing something to help the cause.  (As it happens, both containers eventually activated...!)

I'll report back when I (hopefully) can report that my Carl's starter progeny is stable.  As for the allergy problem, what I intend to do is refresh the starter a number of times before I let my kid have any bread made from it.  Or maybe I won't let him have any bread made from it for a year.  I tend to be a little paranoid about his allergies; having Epi-pens lying around at the ready can do that to a mom.

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3 comments:

  1. can you tell me where to order this starter? The web links don't seem to find a current address...wph22840@gmail.com

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  2. Win, you're right - the website seems to be gone! There's a cached version I found, but I'm wondering if the program is still going on...?

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2h92Kv-NhfUJ:carlsfriends.net/source.html+carl's+starter&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

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  3. I just checked last night and carlsfriends.net is live again. It was gone, but now it's back. Yay!

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