Any Home Bakers Here?

[Aria]

Rye will contribute to making a STRONG starter.

 

[SnapdragonQ]

OAT FLOUR and how about RYE? Rye has no gluten. They would be my choice. Ron I am sure could help. Rice flour NOT mychoice.

Rye flour is lower in gluten, but still contains gluten and cannot be consumed by celiacs.

I dont have straight oat flour at the moment. I may try straight sorghum if this second starter molds, however I think it's more of an environmental issue combined with the difficulty of capturing wild yeast in gluten free flours. That's why so many people purchase a starter culture
(Something else I need to use extra caution with because kiddo is severely allergic to dairy and most starter cultures have dairy. That would mean an epi-pen and subsequent trip to the hospital.)

 

[Aria]

Do you have OATS? You can grind old fashioned oats and you will have oat flour. Most sourdough starters have water and flour.

 

[Aria]

You can purchase plain white gluten FREE flour. Use 1/2 cup of plain white gluten FREE flour and 1/2 cup water. You have gluten free Sourdough Started started.

 

[Blooie]

Rye will contribute to making a STRONG starter.

Amen to that!! I meant to post these when I was waking up my no-discard starter for yesterday’s loaf, but I forgot.

Scrapings out of the fridge, warmed up to room temp, and ready to go. I needed 100 g of starter so I added 50 g each water and rye flour.

10 hours later….. The beauty of this is after I took out what I needed, there were just the bits and blobs left in the jar. Popped the lid on, and into the fridge it goes until I need it again. No once or twice daily feedings, no discarding, and no waste.

@SnapdragonQ, I just don’t know what to tell you about your new starter molding so quickly. I’m not one bit familiar with flours other than those I use regularly so I’m no help at all.

 

[Sally PB]

Could the mold have just been out in the air, and "found" your starter?

My starter really likes my half oat, half brown rice flour. My kitchen is probably around 65-70 degrees, depending on the time of day and what's going on as far as cooking.

 

[SnapdragonQ]

You can purchase plain white gluten FREE flour. Use 1/2 cup of plain white gluten FREE flour and 1/2 cup water. You have gluten free Sourdough Started started.

Packaged white gluten free flour is actually a mixture of flours like I mentioned above. It is not just AP flour with the "gluten" removed because that is not possible. Gluten is in these grains:

Wheat (and all it's derivatives like traditional flours)
Rye
Barley
Spelt
Kamut
Triticale
Farina
...and the list goes on


Here are the ingredient lists to the packaged GF flours you may be thinking of:

King Arther GF flour-
Specialty flour blend (rice flour, tapioca starch), potato starch, whole grain brown rice flour, vitamin and mineral blend (calcium carbonate, nicinamide (vitamin B3), reduced iron, thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2).

Pillsbury GF flour-

Ingredients​

Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Pea Fiber, Tapioca Starch, Xanthan Gum.

Great Value GF flour-

Ingredients​

Brown rice flour, rice flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca starch, sorghum flour, cornstarch, potato starch, xanthan gum

See how they all contain flour mixtures? And each contain one of the rice flours?
That is because no one single flour can do what wheat, or gluten containing flours, can.

There are some SD starter recipes out there formulated for using those packaged mixes, however the added gums and starches tend to retard the process for wild yeast production and have high failure rates, so I am trying to avoid those.

 

[SnapdragonQ]

Could the mold have just been out in the air, and "found" your starter?

My starter really likes my half oat, half brown rice flour. My kitchen is probably around 65-70 degrees, depending on the time of day and what's going on as far as cooking.

It's possible.
Instead of just grabbing a jar from the cupboard, I washed an already clean jar along with all the utensils, just to be sure, and dried them well. None were metal either. But, I did get some of the paste on my fingers and it could have easily gotten contaminated even though I washed my hands.
With my altitude I think it was too pasty and maybe too warm.
Trying a cooler approach with the second starter.

I had read that gf SD starters do best with brown rice initially, or sorghum, then one can transition over to a blend pretty quickly and that's what I intended to do- start with rice and transition over to the oat/rice mix since I already have it. (Bought it online thinking I'd use it for baking but just haven't yet)

 

[SnapdragonQ]

Amen to that!! I meant to post these when I was waking up my no-discard starter for yesterday’s loaf, but I forgot.
View attachment 3028974
Scrapings out of the fridge, warmed up to room temp, and ready to go. I needed 100 g of starter so I added 50 g each water and rye flour.

View attachment 3028977
10 hours later….. The beauty of this is after I took out what I needed, there were just the bits and blobs left in the jar. Popped the lid on, and into the fridge it goes until I need it again. No once or twice daily feedings, no discarding, and no waste.

@SnapdragonQ, I just don’t know what to tell you about your new starter molding so quickly. I’m not one bit familiar with flours other than those I use regularly so I’m no help at all.

That's a gorgeous jar of bubbles!

*sigh* Everything with baking GF is more difficult. That's just the nature of GF. I've been at this for over 15 years and while ingredients are easier to find in general (no more driving 2 hours to find specialty stores...now I can order online) the parameters haven't changed much.

It's one of the reasons I've been putting off doing this because failure rates are high. With GF flours already costing 4 to 6 times more than traditional flours, and extra hard to get the last few years, I could not afford the failures.

Now, with the upcoming shortages of wheat and traditional grains that Ukraine exported, a lot of items will probably become harder to find again because regular folks might start having to use GF flours more.

 

[Blooie]

Could the mold have just been out in the air, and "found" your starter?

My starter really likes my half oat, half brown rice flour. My kitchen is probably around 65-70 degrees, depending on the time of day and what's going on as far as cooking.

You know, that’s a really good thought. @SnapdragonQ, if you did put your starter over by the router fan as you planned, it could have been circulating all kinds of things that don’t affect us but could definitely affect the starter. I mean, we want our starters to utilize the yeasts in the flours we use and what they grab from the air, so it stands to reason that an over abundance of those things all at once could have an impact. I dunno, I’m grabbing at straws here. I don’t think 74 degrees around your router is too high for starter, but what you don’t know is if that temperature has spiked and then gone back down. Starters don’t like that! They also aren’t fond of one side of the jar getting really warm and the other side not. So that might be something to think about.

I was just thinking…..over and over we hear stories of fur trappers, gold miners, and pioneers traveling with starters that are already old, settling into a place, and starting to use that starter almost immediately. They tucked their crocks of starter under their coats as they tromped over snow covered mountains. They wrapped it in shawls and stuck it in the corner of their wagons. They fed it along the way, when they could. It’s just like raising chicks - seems the more we fuss and the more convenient aids we use to get the job done, the more issues we have.

Oh, I just remembered something….I order my 00 flour and my Semolina from Nuts.com. I’ve been very happy with the freshness and quality, and how fast the delivery is. They have all kinds of specialty flours. You might check them out for what you might be able to use.