Some people here buy a special starter and they say they keep it going
for years.

Other people here say that any starter is quickly taken over by local
or domestic beasties and that maintaining the special cultures is a
myth.

I would like to know if there's any science behind that debate. (I
mean science as in peer-reviewed journal articles based on experimental
studies.)

Can Chembake or anybody else with a toehold in the science give us any
citations?

Thanks.

Carl-vB

(OK, what I really want to know is if my so-called 1847 Oregon Trail
starter from the late other Carl has any 1847 Oregon Trail microbes in
it, or if it's all just 2006 Canadian Prairies after a few feedings.)

will

Why not make up a 2006 Canadian Prairies and see if it is different?
Then you know more than the microscopic view <g>... you know if it
makes different bread.

samartha deva

That's proofen otherwise, but what's science, when you can save all the
effort and just be fanatic? It's much simpler.

go there, on the [<number>] are links to some references. http://samartha.net/SD/SourdoughDefinition.html#SEC8

Hardly, if you treat them nicely, and as long as the bread comes out good?

If you really want to know, you could sponsor a microbiological ****ysis
of the Carl's.

Samartha

tg

HI Carl,

I don't have access to any peer reviewed research but but in my
experience feeding my starters they all have stayed true to type
regardless of the flour they were fed with or being kept here in
London.

Before taking seriously what anyone says you should check them out to
see if they are prone to superstition or reasoned cause and effect
based thinking. Or if they just have an axe to grind.

Best of all don't worry what others are saying check it out for your
self. Who cares where the organisms come from or if they are Carl's or
Ed's. Do YOU like what they do to your bread? Whatever the starter cost
you you'll save heaps of $£¥฿₢₫ baking your own bread. Don't
worry about it.

Put it another way 159 years since 1847 even at just 3 generations a
day that's equivalent to 3,484,500 years in human terms. With 24
generations per day that's equivalent to 27,876,000 years. On that time
scale you wouldn't recognise your ancestors. I really wouldn't worry
about it.

TG

tg

Good idea Will,

Carl, why don't you do that and tell us what you found.

TG

tg

Good idea Will,

Carl, why don't you do that and tell us what you found.

TG

hofer

OK, just a little bit science, but not too much. From the book
"Microbiology of Bread Baking Industry", 2003 by O.V. Afanas'eva,
pp.96-97

"In thick rye starters yeast S. minor play a major role (table 13).
So, in thick starters that are prepared on pure cultures S. minor, the
yeast micro-flora is distinguished by its species homogeneity. Species
S. minor also dominates in spontaneous thick rye starters... The same
time in thick rye starters on compressed [bakers, commercial, Hofer]
yeast or pure S. cerevisiae, these species are superseded by yeast
S.minor.
Different races of yeast S. cerevisiae introduced to thick starter, are
observed in it not more than 10 days (table 13)

Table 13

Way of Acidity
Species content, %
starter preparation S. minor
S. cerevisiae

Thick on pure LBs and S.minor 14
100 0
Thick spontaneous 14
94-95 5-6
Thick on compressed yeast 14 95
5
Thick on pure S. cerevisiae 14 100
0
Liquid on pure LBs
and S. cerevisiae 11-13
0 100
Liquid on pure LBs,
S. cerevisiae and S.minor 11-13 50 50


And now back to Prairies. My bet: if it is Carl's and you make thick
wheat starter, it is supposedly keeps going and it could be Candida
milleri and L.Sf, if they were there from the very beginning (who
knows).
If, like me, you make thick rye starter with what once was Carl's,
all the chances that it is for times something else with many S. minor
and L. brevis inside.