Sourdough Starter: Very fast rise (doubles in an hour)

Question

I started a sourdough culture a week back and have some questions about rising time.

• I did not add any yeast to the culture.
• I am using regular whole wheat flour.
• The temperature at my place is 30*C(at 1 pm)

Day 1-6 I used 10 Gram Flour. Day 6 I used 20gram, Day 7 I used 50gram

The progress so far has been as follows with 100% hydration:

Day. Status

1. Equal parts water and flour.
2. Equal parts water and flour, No Activity, smells rotten!
3. Equal parts Fresh Orange Juice and flour, Doubles after a few hours Repeat Same feed after 10 hours.
4. Equal parts Fresh Orange Juice and flour, Doubles after a few hours Repeat Same feed after 10 hours.
5. Discard 50%, Equal parts water and flour: Doubles in an hour. Smells Yeasty!
6. Discard 50%, Equal parts water and flour: Doubles in an hour. Repeat feeding 3 times a day when the dough starts falling.
7. Discard 50%, Equal parts water and flour: Doubles in less than an hour!

Now most Sourdough bread recipes that I see online are based on an assumption of 8 hours rise time With my dough doubling in an hour or less, I had the following questions:

1. Is it the "right culture"? Should I be using it for baking?
2. If it can be used for Baking Is there a modified recipe available for fast acting yeast?

My Starter Jar right now looks like this!

Edit 1: I Made a whole wheat bread with the started.

• The hydration was low(70%),
• the crumb a bit dense.
• There was little or no over spring(Did not use a dutch over, used a pan with boiling water and a tea towel on lower shelf)

...but the bread was tasty :)

Answer 1

I'm not surprised your starter is very active given that it's being incubated at a cosy 30C. But the only way to know for sure that it has a suitable population of yeasts is to use it to bake a simple loaf. Just take a simple recipe and go for it. Your starter looks healthy so I expected you'll get good results.

For a very quick check, just fry a couple of teaspoons at about 100% hydration: if you can see bubbles forming on the surface there is active yeast.

Answer 2

Is it the "right culture"? Should I be using it for baking?

This is impossible to say from your description only. The observation of growth is necessary, but not sufficient, to recognize the right culture. So, if it hadn't been growing, you would have had to wait longer for sure. But now that it grows, it may be the right culture growing, or it may be so young (it seems you are at day 8) that the right bacteria have not yet taken over. You have to tell that by smell.

If it can be used for Baking Is there a modified recipe available for fast acting yeast?

You seem to have found not so good recipes, or to have misinterpreted them. You cannot determine proper rising by time. A good recipe should tell you when your bread is risen by terms describing the rise itself, usually "until doubled in volume". So find a recipe of that type and follow it. If it also suggests a possible rising time, but your dough rises in a different time, just disregard the time.

As a side note, there are bread baking recipes which are built around holding times, where you are really expected to wait for that duration by the clock. These times are usually during periods during which the dough isn't supposed to be rising though, such as retardation in a fridge. This type of retardation is kinda redundant in sourdough recipes, and while you can find recipes which do retard sourdough loaves, I would suggest to stay away for them at least for the beginning, until you have mastered the work with your starter in simpler recipes, and have a good base from which to explore more complex methods.