Sourdough question

Good morning Permies!
I have a question about my sourdough starter - why isn't it rising? I've read that there are two tests for readiness to make a leaven: (1) the starter doubles in size after refreshing and (2) if the starter floats in a glass of water.  Mine passes the float test (floats when I spoon some into a glass of water) but never expands.

A few details about my starter: It was 'born' about 7 days ago using all purpose flour. It has been consistently bubbling nicely. After once-daily feedings the first few days, I started noticing hooch on the top. I then switched to twice-daily feedings and the presence of hooch and alcoholly smell have mostly subsided and the bubbles continue.

Any ideas on what I can do to get it to rise?
Thank you all!
Jim

What kind of flour are you using in the starter?  I found that, for instance, a spelt starter took much longer to really get going than a wheat one - I had to feed it daily for weeks before it worked reliably.

Ambient temperature matters a lot, too - you may be noticing less activity in the starter simply because air temperatures are dropping.

Hey Steven,
Thanks for the reply! I'm using all-purpose flour and I've been keeping my starter in the kitchen at a steady room temp of around 71°F.

I'd say give it more time, then.  Sometimes starters take a while to really get going.

One thing I do to avoid having to feed the starter multiple times a day is to scrape out almost all traces of the starter from the jar, then add a _lot_ of flour and water (about 3T each).  It takes a while for the starter to eat its way through such a (relatively) large feast, and it seems to make it easier to prevent the starter from going into the hooch phase.

I found it took me many attempts before I felt I really had my recipe down well. Let's just say the dog didn't mind the learning curve.
You might need a few more weeks of trial and error before it comes together for you. (Pun intended.)

As for your question about whether your starter is active: Sometimes I can catch my starter in the "dome" stage some recipes call for, but what I use to determine if it is at an active level (after feeding) is to look for the presence of large and small bubbles from the yeast/bacteria eating the wheat protein. When I add ww flour to my starter and mix it in with filtered water, I see the entire top of the starter filled with bubbles. I only feed my guy once a day if I am not bulking it up for a recipe, but I add 1/4 cup ww flour at each feeding. I no longer measure my water and just pour in enough to make a solution that is like pancake batter. Sometimes it's thicker and other times it's on the thinner side. All depends on what I intend to do with the starter when I build it up for a recipe. I bake with it at least once a week, so it sits out on my counter at ambient temp in warm weather and 68 degrees the other nine months.

When I first became interested in sourdough, I caught my own starter like you did. However, it never really took off like gangbusters. Thinking I would like something to compare to, I sent away for the dehydrated offspring of a starter that came across the Oregon Trail and has been used in the same family. Immediately after rehydrating that starter I could see it was ALIVE and then some! Needless to say, I threw away my wild starter and have been happily working with the pioneer starter ever since.

Forgot to add that if you, or anyone, is interested in getting the pioneer starter from the Oregon Trail, reply to this and I'll post the information.

Mine only really took off after a couple of months, it still baked ok bread after a week but quite dumpy.
The trick to getting this thing going is oxygen, stir it heaps, up and over to force air through the whole thing.
I use mine once a week or sometimes less if I'm being lazy and it only gets fed when I make the new sponge.
If you get a little hooch on your sponge you can stir air in without feeding and you'll still get another small rise.

Different flours work differently  - dramatically so.  I've found that King Arthur's organic white flour feeds my starter the fastest, about twice as fast as other flours.  So you might try that...

Because the yeast you have invited in are bums not used to doing a full shift of work in a couple of hours.  Domesticated yeast, the kind that bakeries use and is sold in stores, has hundreds, nay even thousands of generations of selection going for it. Its reason for living is to rise quick in a few hours.  You can't expect wild-type yeast wafting in on the breeze to behave like that.  It has to compete out in the wild, where slow and steady wins the race.  After you have raised hundreds of generations by adding more flour and water and shaking it up (i.e., a couple of months, as another poster has pointed out), you too will select for the trait of quickly multiplying in a short time when given a full meal.

So you have two choices: (1) WAIT.  Wait three or four times as long as a recipe says for your slow-poke wild-types to get their act together.  And then wait some more. or (2) Cheat by adding some store-bought into the mix.  Then you will have the wild-type for its unique flavor qualities, and you will have domesticated yeast servants whose duty it is to pump up the dough.

And as others have pointed out, if you have a very finely milled white flour, it may have significantly more surface area, that even the slower yeasts will be able to reproduce quicker.