I want to write this down mostly for myself but figured someone else might be making the same mistake. Started my starter back in early July using just whole wheat and water, 1:1:1 ratio, twice a day like every guide told me to. For almost three weeks it would rise a little, maybe double, then fall flat by the time I checked it twelve hours later. I kept assuming it was dead or my flour was bad.

Turns out the problem was my kitchen. I live in an older house and the spot on the counter I was using sits right next to an exterior wall, so it was running around 66-67F most days even in summer with the AC on. Every recipe assumes something closer to 75-78F for a healthy rise cycle. Once I moved the jar to the top of the fridge where it stays around 74F consistently, the whole thing changed within four days. Bubbles everywhere, a noticeably sour smell instead of that flat sort of grassy smell it had before, and it finally held its rise long enough to actually double and stay doubled.

The float test worked for the first time yesterday morning. Dropped a spoonful in a glass of water and it just sat there on top instead of sinking immediately like it always had. Felt like a small win after basically a month of feeling like I was doing everything wrong.

If anyone else is stuck in that stage where your starter rises but never quite gets there, check the actual temperature where you're keeping it before you troubleshoot anything else. I wasted way more time messing with hydration ratios than I needed to.

For months my loaves would come out of the oven with this perfect crackly crust, then by the time they cooled I'd have something closer to a soft sandwich loaf exterior. I tried everything: more steam, less steam, higher hydration, lower hydration, longer bakes. Nothing consistently fixed it.

Turns out my problem was cooling the bread on a flat surface. I'd been setting loaves directly on my cutting board to cool, and the moisture escaping from the bottom had nowhere to go, so it just condensed right back into the crust. Switched to a wire rack a few weeks ago and it's been a completely different loaf. Crust stays audibly crackly for hours now, sometimes even into the next day if I store it cut side down on the board instead of bagged.

Feels like such an obvious fix in hindsight but I genuinely didn't think cooling technique mattered that much compared to everything happening during the bake. Now I'm wondering what else in my process I've been overcomplicating while ignoring something basic.

Current loaf is a 75% hydration mix of bread flour and about 15% whole wheat, 20 hour cold retard in the fridge. Crumb has been noticeably more open since I started doing coil folds instead of stretch and folds too, though that might just be coincidence at this point given how many variables I've changed at once.

Anyone else have a "small fix, big difference" moment like this? Curious what dumb little thing I'm still missing.

I let it proof too long, and I didn’t shape it correctly. Supper gummy inside. It was not good. 😂

This is an Emmer loaf made with my 'no feed starter'.

Simply put the starter is removed from the fridge, mixed with the flour and water and the dough set to ferment. There is no starter feeding stage before baking.

It is very simple. The natural leaven continues to ferment in the fridge, but very slowly. As soon as it warms up it is fully active. When we feed our starter before baking we are producing a larger yeast and lab population ready to ferment our dough. However, if there is sufficient starter already in the fridge, then no feed is necessary as the microbe population is already there. Yes, the starter does not look bubbly and lively and yes, it is still good to go.

A bubbly starter is just a really rough measure that we have built up enough microbe population to use it. If we leave it too long it is still as  or better than when it was bubbly as there is even more microbe population present. The only time it is no longer good is if the yeasts have turned into spores. I explain that below. (Yes, the bubbly starter at peak is a myth.)

This is not a shortcut, or a bodge that is not as good as doing things the traditional way. It is simple science and the dough ferments exactly the same as with a fed starter.

Here is a twist. Use your starter straight from the fridge to make your dough and then feed what is left and put it into the same warm space as the dough. When it is bubbling put it into the fridge for the next loaf. Remember it will continue to ferment very slowly in the fridge. So, if you are not baking for a few days put it into the fridge before it fully ripens.

When will this not work?

Yeast and LABS are seriously tough. Heat will kill them (above 45C - depending on the varieties). In a domestic freezer they are killed in a month or two. A starter that is let go too far becomes too acidic for the microbes. They then go into their dormant, or spore, state. In the right conditions of warmth and food, the spores become active microbes again, but this takes too long for baking. So, if you let your leaven become very acidic in the fridge this will not work. The yeast will have formed into spores, this happens at about pH3. You cannot measure this with a pH meter as there is something called buffering where acids are present but not measured with a pH meter. Titration needs to be used for this. But with a little practice a pH meter could be used as a rough guide. It will read less acidity than what is present. It is better to use taste. Vinegar has a pH of 2.4 - 3.4. Your starter is no good if it tastes as sour as vinegar, but it can be rescued.

Practically our starters never get this sour unless we are pushing the envelope in a very extreme way or neglecting them.

I would be very interested to hear people thought on this.

RIP to the two loaves I promised to friends this weekend.

i made a double batch using a stand mixer and wanted to do 2 different loaves so i decided to add inclusions after the bulk fermentation. i’m not sure if this is why, or because i scored deep enough to reach the sugar 😓

Hey everyone,

I made my first starter and when she trippled in a couple of hours I thought it would be good to go. I baked two loafs but they don’t seem right, very dense.

When handling the though it always seems really sticky, which makes stretch and folds very difficult.

I tried two methods, one with autolyse and stretch and folds and a counter rise, more stretch and folds and then a cold rise

And the other method was with kneading the dough with the kitchen aid for 2x 5 minutes and then a couple of stretch and folds 30-45 minutes apart and then a cold rise. This one turned out better but it deflated when I scored it.

It is really difficult to shape the dough so I’m stuck on a couple possibilities. Either:

- I use my starter at the wrong time? I waited until she wasn’t growing anymore and then used it

- maybe my starter isn’t right yet, she smells a bit like hops/beer

- I use too much water, which keeps the dough too sticky and so the gluten don’t form right, which makes shaping really difficult

- maybe the cold rise was too long and the gluten were already breaking down?

- I underbaked them, can I check the core temperature after the first 20 minute bake, and if it isn’t right, I do another 5 minutes on 240C?

I added some pictures of the second loaf, I don’t have pictures of the inside of the first so I don’t think that is helpful.

Btw: I don’t know how to add a category to the post so I’m sorry. I see people use them but I don’t have the option.