UPDATE: This post has been updated to add some modifications to the process of creating your own lievito madre or pasta madre. The new information will be in colored boxes like this paragraph.
Hello everyone!
As promised, hereās my guide to building a lievito madre or pasta madre to make panettone. I will use both names because it came to my attention that some people are using the term lievito madre to refer to liquid sourdough and it’s not the same. I want you to get familiar with both names so you know that lievito madre or pasta madre are the same thing š
First of all, I want to say that all this is not my idea. Iāve been reading blogs and watching videos to have a better understanding of the whole process. Evaās posts were full of information. I’ve been tracking down everything the Italian Pasticcieri had online and read scientific publications to understand better how bacterias work (surprisingly there’s not much research on this).
This guide is a summary of everything I’ve read and everything I’ve learned every day, and I hope it can be useful to you. It’s focused on building and training the lievito madre. The next step will be the 3 refreshments before making panettone, which I will write about once I’m more familiar with the process.
For a better understanding of how sourdough bacteria grow, I recommend you read this post first. It’ll help you understand how pasta madre works.
When I first heard about panettone, I never thought it was this incredibly challenging bread! It never even occurred to me that it was made with sourdough or how laborious the process was!
To be honest, I do have a panettone recipe here, and trust me when I tell you that I spent a lot of time trying to get the dough right, but now… I feel like I was cheating! (I still think it’s a good place to start getting familiar with very enriched dough and gluten development).
A few notes about pasta madre
First and foremost, is not just a firm sourdough starter. This stiff dough is indeed a sourdough starter, but a special one. It requires a very specific maintenance routine and it has a very specific purpose: to bake grandi lievitati products such as panettone, pandoro, colomba…
If you want to make some rustic Italian bread using sourdough, you can create a stiff starter, or use your own sourdough starter. You wouldn’t need lievito madre, because you wouldn’t need the specific characteristics of grandi lievitati products in a rustic loaf.
Grandi lievitati bakes also require very strong flour, and most likely, your regular bread flour won’t be enough. Also, I wouldn’t say that nobody uses whole wheat flour, but I believe that’s not the most common way to maintain pasta madre.
Things you need to know before you start
These are things that Iāve learned along the way and that I think everyone should know before making the decision to start this journey.
- Be aware that itās going to take 15 days to get the lievito madre ready. There are two major parts in this process: building the stiff starter and training it.
- I encourage you to do a few experiments to see if you can find a place where you can keep a constant temperature of 30C/86F. This step is crucial in the first couple of days and also to ferment the panettone dough.
- Check your schedule and plan accordingly. Donāt start making the starter on a Saturday at 1 pm if you wonāt be home at 1 pm during the week because the cycles are either of 12 or 24h.
- Gather all your ingredients before you start and make sure you have enough flour. You will need it. I bought 15lb and itās enough to prepare the pasta madre, train it and make at least 1 batch of panettone (probably more).
- If the quality of your water is not good, buy water (you donāt need a high mineral concentration in the water). If the quality is fine, I suggest you filter the tap water.
- Get your mind in the right place. Some days you will be tired and will want to go to bed, but youāll have to feed your pasta madre, this is very important when youāre training it. The whole point of this is to reduce the acidity. Once is matured, you can put it in the fridge and feed it once a week.
- Be patient. Use your eyes and, especially, your nose to let the dough tell you whatās happening.
The process of creating your lievito madre
| Building period | |
| Day 1 | Make apple yeast water |
| Day 2 | Create a 100% hydration sourdough |
| Day 3 | Convert into a stiff starter and start anaerobic fermentation (wrapped log) |
| Day 4 | Wait. Nothing to do |
| Day 5 | Collect the core of the log, refresh it with flour and water and start fermentation in water |
| Training Period | |
| Days 6-10 | Refreshments using same amounts of flour and starter +30-50% of the weight of flour in water |
Building the lievito madre: 5 days
The first step of the building period is to activate the wild microorganisms found on apples. In other words: create an apple yeast water.
As you know, vegetables, fruits, cereals, etc have lactic acid bacteria and yeasts that are dormant and need to be activated.
These microorganisms, in general, proliferate better when their environment is moist. In science, we refer to this as āwater activityā. This number ranges between 0 and 1 (pure water being 1), so the higher the water activity, the easier it will be for the microorganisms to wake up and grow.
Temperature is also crucial. Fermentation can occur at different temperatures, but not all microorganisms are activated at the same temperature. For panettone purposes, we should make sure our culture is at 28-30C (82-86F) so we promote the fermentation of specific strains of lactic acid bacteria.
A typical sourdough culture can have dozens of different strains of bacteria and many different types of yeast. So we can select which ones we prefer by controlling the temperature, moisture content, pHā¦
Day 1: Start the apple yeast water
You will need:
- 1 or 2 pesticide-free and untreated apples (I bought organic and they worked great, they shouldnāt have wax or anything, the more natural the better. If you can go to an orchard even better!)
- A glass container with a lid
- A grater
- Water at 30C/86F ( I used tap water filtered with my Brita)
- A scale
- A knife
- A thermometer
- A warm place where you can maintain a temperature between 28-30C/82-86F (my oven with the light on is enough, if itās too cold and the temperature drops in the evening I put a glass with hot water on the other corner of the oven before I go to bed or when I wake up)
- Cut the apples in 4 and remove the core. You donāt need to clean the apples because if you do, youāll probably wash out lots of nice microorganism. If thereās dirt on the stem area, just cut that part out.
- Grate the apples and keep the peels
- Weight 200g of grated apples and peels an place them in the glass container
- Weight 200g of water at 30C/86F
- Add the water to the glass container and close it tightly. You can shake it a little bit if you want
- Place the container in your oven or fermenter and wait for 24h
Thatās it for now!
Day 2: create a sourdough starter with the apple yeast water
After 24h you might see small bubbles in your container, it can make a fizzy noise when you open it, it can smell like cider or maybe you canāt tell if something happened in there. Thatās why this step is important. If after 24h, your starter doesnāt show activity, start with the apples again because something went wrong.
You will need:
- Fermented apple mixture from day 1
- A strainer
- A tall and transparent container*
- A spatula or a spoon
- 200g of Manitoba flour
- A scale
- Sharpie or rubber band to mark the container
Today is an easy day, enjoy it, because things get more complicated!
- Strain the apple mixture from the day before and collect the liquid. In my case, I didnāt see small bubbles, but it did smell like cider.
- In a medium bowl weigh 200 g of Manitoba flour and add 200 g of the fermented apple water. With a spatula mix well until you donāt see dry flour particles. It should look like a regular 100% hydration starter.
- Carefully transfer the starter to the tall container. And let it ferment at 30C for 24h. I put it in the oven with the light on. After 24h the starter will raise and collapse. At the very least it should double in size. Thatās why itās important to not leave dough stuck on the container wall because while the starter rises and collapses itāll leave a mark on it, so youāll be able to tell how far it rose. If there was anything there before, you might get confused.
NOTES:
You donāt have to put a lid on the container, you just need to place a napkin on top it there is any risk of something falling inside.
If you have it in the oven, try not to open the door all the time. That way you avoid streams of colder air coming inside and changing the temperature. The more constant the temperature the better. I checked my oven before going to bed and in the morning if the temperature changed too much overnight or I felt the house very cold.
Make sure the container you use for this is tall enough that can hold the dough even if it quadruples in size. Also, just in case some starter overflows, put a plate or a tray underneath.
*my container is a coffee canister that I bought in Walmart for less than $2. Itās 10x9x20 cm (4×3.6×8 in)
Day 3: Convert the starter into a stiff starter and do an anaerobic fermentation
Today is when you should start seeing activity in the sourdough. After 24h at 30C, your sourdough shouldāve grown and collapsed. There should be some debris on the walls of your container that indicates how high the starter rose. It shouldāve, at the very least, doubled in size. If it didnāt, at least, double, Iād start again. There arenāt enough bacteria or the ones that are in the culture, are not strong enough.
You must always keep in mind that making panettone is a difficult task and fermenting all that dough full of sugar, butter and egg is difficult too. So, we need to make sure that the bacteria we select and will train is the strongest.
The starter should be very runny, the same as a 100% hydration starter that has reached the peak and collapsed. It should have small bubbles on the surface and a pungent aroma. Donāt freak out if it smells like something rotten, so far, itās normal. The bacterial colonies are fighting against each other, everything we do is to promote the survival of the ones we want.
The second time I built my LM I didn’t wait until it completely collapsed (24h), instead, I decided to proceed with the next step after 12h. This way most of the bacteria were still in the stationary phase, which means that I collected more live bacteria. Ultimately, my PM was more active than the previous one.
You will need
- 200 g of yesterdayās starter
- 200 g of flour (more if needed to achieve desired consistency)
- A rolling pin
- A scale
- A Ziplock bag
- 2 cotton cloths
- 1 meter/1 yard of some strong rope or string
- Collect 200g of the starter and add 200 g of flour.
- With your hands mix everything well. The dough should be dry and relatively hard, it shouldn’t stick to the counter but should be soft enough to work with a rolling pin. It is OK if you need to let it rest a few times to relax the gluten.
- Once youāve incorporated the flour, with a rolling pin start working the dough until it gets a little bit more elastic. It doesnāt have to be extremely soft and smooth, but it shouldnāt have lots dry flour or chunks of dry flour either.
- Shape the dough into a rectangle-ish thatās about 20cm long and 15cm wide and roll it into a log. Place it into the ziplock bag and wrap it well. Wrap the packet with a cotton cloth and then with another cotton cloth and tie it with the rope or strings you have. It doesnāt need to be too tight, just enough to keep the cloths in place.
- Put the dough in an empty pot and put the pot inside of your oven (this is precaution, it can explode due to the built-in pressure). You donāt need to leave the light on. Just make sure that nobody turns the oven on and burn your pasta madre.
- Let it ferment for 48h. As time goes by the log gets harder and harder. Thatās a good sign. It means that it is fermenting and as a result, the pressure is increasing.
Day 4: No need to do anything
Day 5: Collect the fermented stiff starter and begin the fermentation in water
After 48h the log might not feel as tight as after 24 or it might still feel a bit tight. Anyhow, today weāre going to unwrap the whole packet. Be careful because it can explode. Most likely, youāll see how, due to the pressure built inside, the dough tore apart the plastic bag and some of it came out and itās dry and stuck on the cloth. Donāt worry, itās absolutely normal.
You will need:
- A knife
- A scale
- 200 g of stiff sourdough
- 200 g of flour
- 60-100 g of water at 30C/86F
- Mixing bowl
- Rolling pin
- A tall and transparent container
- Water for the bath
- Unwrap the log carefully
- With a knife cut the bag and open the log lengthwise. You should see small alveoli. The dough should have a dark color (from the apple water) and it should smell better, more of a fermentation smell than in the previous step.
- With a clean spoon, collect the inside part of the log (the ācuoreā as Italians say). The strongest bacterial colony is in the core of the log. The bacteria undergo a very rough 48h where an anaerobic fermentation takes place and only the strong survive, and those are the ones we want.
- Collect 200g of dough or as many as you can.
- In a bowl add 200g of dough, 200g of flour and 30-50% of the weight of flour in water at 30C/86F. That is 60-100 g. Start by adding 30% and move up if needed. The dough should be dry and hard, it shouldn’t stick to the counter but should be soft enough to work with a rolling pin.
- Roll the dough into a rectangle, fold it in 2 or 3 and roll it again. The procedure is very similar to working with laminated dough.The dough should get smoother and smoother. It shouldnāt have pieces of dry flour in the middle.
- Roll the dough into a long rectangle that is slightly narrower than your container and about 1cm/0.5 in thick.
- Fold the rectangle into 3 or 4, put it inside of the plastic container and fill it with water just to cover the dough.
NOTES:
If your kitchen is:
- Cold-Very cold: you can use room temperature water for the bath
- Not too cold, not too warm (around 20-23C, 69-73F): you can use room temperature water and check how it evolves, you might be able to do refreshments every 12h or every 24.
- Warm-very warm: use cold water. Keep a bottle of water in the fridge, or cool it with ice cubes and when itās cold enough add it to the container.
Pay attention to how the dough behaves. Warmer temperatures will accelerate the fermentation process and colder will slow it down. Avoiding over fermentation is crucial.
In my case, my kitchen was not too warm and not too cold, but since Iām not home all day, I didnāt want to risk the dough to over ferment and lose a lot of it, so I started using cold water. The dough didnāt show much sign of fermentation in the first 12h. After 16h it was floating and after 24 it had clear signs of fermentation (alveoli), the layers werenāt visible anymore and it had developed a dry skin on top.
Something I realized was that this sourdough starter likes routines, so try to always do the same thing and keep it at the same temperature. During this process, there was a night when the temperature dropped a lot and the pasta madre didnāt rise as usual. In my experience, consistency is key!
The reason the container and the dough should be almost the same width is that when the dough starts fermenting and the layers get thicker, the container will retain the dough and prevent it from expanding to the sides. Therefore, the dough doesnāt have a choice but to grow upwards.
Training your pasta madre: 10 days
Days 6-15: refresh the lievito madre every 12 or 24h
According to the Italian regulations for Artisanal Panettone, the lievito madre has to be trained for at least 7 days. In our case, itāll be trained for 10 days.
From now on you need discipline because you must feed your LM at the very least every 24h. Whether youāre tired or sleepy. Therefore, you need to think well about which schedule works for you best.
For example, I leave my house around 8:45 am, and come back home around 8 pm, thatās my window. I started the process at 8:30 pm and then I was doing the refreshments at 8:30 pm every 24h. I chose this time because not only is it when Iām home, but itās also a time that works for me on the weekends. Because your pasta madre doesnāt take weekends off!
Iām saying this because if you start working very early, you might do refreshments at 5 or 6 am, butā¦ will you wake up that early on a weekend? If you will, then itās fine! I know I wouldnāt, Iād probably turn my alarm off and regret it later.
You will need:
- A knife
- A scale
- 200 g of stiff sourdough
- 200 g of flour
- 60-100 g of water at 30C/86F
- Mixing bowl
- Rolling pin
- Tall and transparent container
- Water for the bath
- A large bowl to discard the water or the kitchen sink
I changed my container to a shorter but wider one after day 6 or 7. It allowed me to control and shape the dough better.
The procedure is similar to day 5.
After 24h, the lievito madre shouldāve risen to the top of the container and probably developed a dry skin. In the bottom, you will see some flour. Your pasta madre will be very soft and slimy on the outer parts. What we need is the core of the dough.
- Remove the dry skin that developed on top. It might not be completely dry, but even so, remove it. Itās the part that has been exposed to dust and particles falling on top of it.
- Hold the container with one hand and with the other try to separate the dough from the walls of the container so the water to come out but you can hold the dough, and remove the water.
- Squeeze the dough to drain water out of it and massage it so the slimy mushy part falls out and you only keep the dough that was not degraded.
- In another bowl weigh 200g of Manitoba flour, add 200 g of the drained pasta madre and add 60-100 g of water at 30C/86F
- Knead everything and incorporate all the flour. If you need to let the dough rest, do so.
- Roll and shape the dough the same way you did the day before
- Place the dough in the container and add water to cover it.
Repeat this every day for the next 10 days paying attention to how the dough smells, how the alveoli look after the fermentation cycle etc. Also, smell everything. The dough, the water you discardā¦ Your nose will let you know how the lievito madre is doing more than your eyes will.
Things you need to know
- You need to keep everything extremely clean to reduce the chance of cross-contamination.
- Keep in mind that youāre going to use a lot of flour just to build your starter. If youāre a pro at this, probably you can use smaller amounts of flour and LM because you can tell how the dough is doing just by looking at it. But if youāre like me, in the learning process, you might want to keep relatively large amounts of flour for each refreshment until you learn to feel the dough and see if it needs more or less water, 24 or 12h refreshment cycles, etc. I learned this method this way and larger amounts are easier to deal with and to avoid over-degradation of the dough. This is especially handy when youāre not home all day. I see this as an investment, from now on Iāll take care of my lievito madre and, hopefully, I wonāt have to do it again!
- Your hand will suffer, keep your moisturizing lotion close by! After a few days I noticed my hands were getting very dry. I guess itās normal, youāll be washing your hands all the time, and let me tell you… this dough is difficult to get rid of! Warm water is your best friend here. Also, youāre going to be working every day with a slightly acidic dough. So yeah, keep the lotion close by.
- If you can find/afford 2 containers with the same dimension, get them. Itāll make the process a bit faster because you donāt have to stop to wash it to put the dough back in.
That is all for now!
This is all for now. If you have any questions you can contact me through email, DM on Instagram, or send me a message on Facebook and Iāll try my best to help you!
Letās start a movement for homemade artisanal panettone! Tag your pics with the hashtag #missionpanettone so we can all see how everyoneās lievito madre is doing.
You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, and you can also subscribe to my Youtube channel.
This post contains affiliate links and any sales made through such links will reward me a small commission ā at no extra cost for you ā that allows me to keep running this blog.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and if you are celebrating Thanksgivingā¦ Happy Thanksgiving!
Maria.
Hi Maria
I attempted LM last year but failed, I guess mostly because I couldn’t keep up the fixed schedule and didn’t know how to troubleshoot the problems.
However, I am attempting again this year, and I think I am getting it, except I unsure about 1 thing. I am in the midst of training my LM, do I keep it in the same location (temperature is stable, at 24 degrees Celsius) all the time? Depending on the condition of my LM, I only have to adjust the feeding ratios (e.g. if LM is weak or too acidic) and temperature for the soaking water? For example, the water for soaking the LM has been 14Ā°C since day 1. Some days I have to adjust feeding ratios due to weak LM or too acidic. If my LM starts to disintegrate before 12hr, does that mean I should use colder water to soak it? Thank you.
Hi Phyllis,
if your LM is disintegrating too fast the temperature might be a bit high. Also control the hydration of your LM since slightly wetter doughs tend to ferment much faster, especially if the environment is warm. I would also suggest to keep the flour:LM ratio 1:1 until you figure out what works and what doesn’t. After that you’ll be able to anticipate your LM behavior better š Hope this helps! sorry for the delay!!
Hi Maria!
This is an old post, so you might not see this, but still worth a shot! I just started my journey in making Pasta Madre and I’ve been reading about using 95% alcohol to clean up equipment (ie. stand mixer) especially after mixing doughs with butter and eggs to avoid cross contamination. What do you use to clean? I live in the UK where unfortunately I can’t find any foodgrade 95% alcohol š any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much for putting this post together, it’s been incredibily helpful and clear!
Hi there! I don’t use 95% alcohol, what I do for pasta madre and sourdough is rinse everything with filtered water after I’ve washed it with soap, then I wash and rinse my hands with filtered water too. For things like kombucha, water kefir, homemade yogurt… I sanitize the bottles and tools with boiling water (you can do this with bowls and attachments of your stand mixer as well). You can also use white distilled vinegar and wipe everything well. But be careful not to leave vinegar residue behind. If you still prefer to use alcohol (ethanol) 70% ethanol is more than enough to sanitize, that’s what we use in the lab to clean our tools and rinse our equipment, and it’s a food lab š Other people also use a 20% solution of bleach to kill off other germs, but I don’t think it’s necessary. At home, as long as you wash everything and keep things clean you will be fine, the sourdough bacteria create an environment that makes it difficult for microbes or other pathogens to grow. Most of the time it’s us who carry the germs in our hands (nails, rings…). Hope this helps! š
Thank you for sharing your experience! I have 2 questions:
1) uring the training period, I noticed that the dough seems to float up earlier than the previous day, top crust forms earlier too. Do I still wait for the full 12 or 24 hours to refresh? or the guide is to refresh when the top crust is formed?
2) how do I know the pasta madre is finally ready? After that, what shall I do?
Thanks!
Hi there!
As your pasta madre gets stronger, it’ll float earlier and earlier until it’s trained and it should take about the same time to float and ferment, etc. You need to feed it basically when it needs to be fed. Don’t’ wait to have a lot of flour on the bottom of the container or for the dough to be extremely soft. Depending on the flour, temperature, etc.. some people might need to feed it every 12h, other every 24… I feed mine every 12h.
After 10 days of training, it should be ready to make panettone, but you’ll know for sure when you do the three refreshments. If it triples the 3 times at 28C it should be strong enough to start the primo impasto. However, that’s not the only thing affecting the strength of the pasta madre. The acidity etc will determine also how to dough of the panettone comes together, how well/bad it absorbs fats etc. So even as you’re training it, pay attention to it, try to keep it as healthy as possible (it shouldn’t smell super sour, or too alcoholic, etc.).
I have tried SO many other recipes for the Lievito Madre. Every one of them has failed- until this! Maria, you are WONDERFUL! Finally, I have a beautiful, super active and healthy Lievito Madre, that I used to make panettone today and the result was just mind-blowing!! The texture is light-years better than before. No where has anyone made such an effort to be so clear, and to have provided such helpful instructions. The best. š Thoroughly recommended.
That’s wonderful!! I’m so glad I could help! The secret of a good panettone is definitely in the lievito madre. That’s the biggest barrier I found in my panettone journey š
Hi Maria,
Grateful for your help! I used my 100% hydration starter to create a LM. I am using 14.3% protein bread flour and used an active starter to create the LM (150g starter, 60g water at 20c and 150g flour, as indicated by fullproofbaking).
I’m on day 3 and refreshing every 24h at a temp of around 17-18c.
My dough tends to rise in the first few hours and sits with half of it poking out above the water. The layers are still defined and there is no sign of any alveoli.
I would be SO grateful if you could tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Hi Heather, sorry for the late reply. I’m not familiar with the behavior of LM when it’s created from a liquid SD starter, but I guess since the conditions have changed a lot, it needs time to adapt to the new ones. From what you tell me I don’t see any problem with your method. It could also be that your liquid starter has different types of bacteria and thus behaves differently. If it doesn’t improve after several days, I’d suggest you start from scratch instead of wasting flour. If it’s floating there’s definitely activity, but you should see some alveoli.
It stops at day 10 but what do we do with the LM the day we make panettone? Do we put the LM in water then squeeze it out and use it as our starter for panettone . You do not mention how to prepare the LM on baking day.
Hey there! You can take some of the discards of any of the refreshments and proceed with another feeding. You can then keep it at room temperature and feed it every day or put it in the water and off to the fridge directly. Then when you want to bake, take it out of the fridge 2 or 3 days before. LEt it come to room temperature, if the dough is still strong you can do a bagnetto or you can feed it once, and do a bagnetto the next day. I like to feed my PM at least 3 times before I start with the 3 refreshments. And it it’s just maintenance feedings, feed it a couple of times and off to the fridge again. I use a 1:1 (pm:flour) ratio if it’s going to be in the fridge for less than a week and a 1:2 ratio if it’s going to be up to 2 weeks.
Is it possible to convert a “regular” high hydration sourdough starter to this form and skip the culturing steps? I’ve had a very lively one going for a while but never tried starting one myself.
You can do that but I’d still suggest keeping a few days of training. The conditions for pasta madre are different so the bacteria need to adapt to them, and maybe new bacteria will wake up while other will stay dormant. However, I haven’t tried it myself, so I can’t say if it works as well or not š
Hi Maria,
I’m on day 6 of refreshing LM. My LM looks not risen a lot like your LM photo but I can see small alveoli. And the LM is floating and the surface is getting dry. It’s been almost 24h since I started fermentation. Is it ok to refresh my LM or should I wait for ferment more?
Hi! sorry for the delay, I’ve been very busy these last few weeks. If your LM is floating that means that there is gas trapped inside. And that means there are microorganisms working, so it’s a good sign! Every LM is different and grows differently. Also, depending on the container you have it in, the amount of water you put etc. It might seem like it didn’t grow much, but it did. I would suggest you feed your LM every 24h and if you see it’s very degraded and soft after 24h maybe you can change it to 12h feedings. And most important of all… be patient! š like I said, every LM has its own behavior, right now you’re learning a new type and method of sourdough AND also need to get acquainted with a new starter and learn its routines etc. Good luck! š
Hi Maria, Thank you so much for your reply! Now my PM is super active and ready to make panettone:) as you said patient is the key! Thank you again,
Minami
So good to hear!! Enjoy your panettone! š
Hi Maria! Iāve been struggling with my LM for a month or so. No matter what I try, it will only rise 2.25 after 4 hours at 83F. Iāve gone through about 12k of expensive Italian flour in the process. BTW – my LM was started from my original SD starter which Iāve had for years.
Do you think it wise to start a new culture using your method?
********If so, what is the recommended temperature for the first bound dough that is put in the oven with the light off? ********
You write, ā Put the dough in an empty pot and put the pot inside of your oven (this is precaution, it can explode due to the built-in pressure). You donāt need to leave the light on. Just make sure that nobody turns the oven on and burn your lievito madre.ā I have a Brod & Taylor proofer, so the temp can be closely controlled.
I am very appreciative for the time you took to write this article. I canāt read Italian and english information on this subject is extremely limited.
Danny Ayo
Hi Danny, if you’ve been working with it so much and it’s not improving maybe you can try a new starter. The truth is that sometimes the starters just “get tired” and you need new bacteria (this happens in our lab very often, people renew their strands every few weeks). I suggest you read my other post on troubleshooting my lievito madre to see if you can get any ideas from there: Troubleshooting my lievito madre
Also, the step in which you bind the dough it’s carried out at room temperature. Usually, an oven can keep a constant temperature (as long as it’s off!) regardless if the outside is too cold or too warm. This step is more about implementing anaerobic conditions rather than keeping a certain temperature, that comes later in the process š
Hi Maria,
Iāve been following your instructions on training a LM.
Iām on day 6 of refreshments, Iām refreshing every 12hrs. My LM rises and grows within the first couple of hours.
What is the next step?
Will I be able to make a panettone in the next couple of days.
Thank you for your informative posts.
Many thanks
I think I already responded to you on the previous comment š
Buenas noches MarĆa es Laura Canelon te escribo desde Venezuela realmente me gustĆ³ mucho tu artĆculo, yo me encuentro en esa travesĆa actualmente voy en el dĆa 5 al 6 y mi pasa madre no a logrado generar alveolos antes de desintegrarse, los dĆas anteriores a ido muy bien, pero ahora noc que le ocurre, noc que hacer en este punto agradecerĆa un montĆ³n tu ayuda!
Hola Laura! Es normal que a estas alturas se comporte de forma un poco erratica. Aun se esta adaptando. De todas formas monitorea la temperatura de tu cocina. Imagino que en Venezuela hace mucho calor y humedad, y quizas tengas que modificar un poco la temperatura del banho (estoy en teclado anglosajon, perdona jeje), o alimentarla cada 12h en vez de cada 24. De cualquier manera, no te preocupes por los alveolos, presta atencion a si flota, si ves que crece considerablemente etc. Si hay actividad, no esta todo perdido, lo importante ahora mismo es promover que haya actividad bacteriana y darle tiempo a que se adapte. Dia 5-6 es aun muy temprano en el ciclo, asi que puede que sea solamente cuestion de tiempo y paciencia. La primera vez q hice mi lievito madre justo en el dia 5-6 tardo MUCHISIMO en flotar y empezar a esar activa. Creo q lo mejor q te puedo decir es q seas paciente jeje. Suerte!
Hola Maria
I am following all steps and it seems everything is going well, my doubt is how to conserve the levito once all procedure is finish, I understand that ādryā on the fridge, and before I make the refreshment to begin the panettone. Many thanks!!!
Sorry for the late reply Maria! After you have created and trained your LM, you can either keep it at room temperature if you’re going to bake often (this requires daily feedings), or you can feed it, put in in the bath, and put it in the fridge. I don’t cover it when it goes to the fridge, I just put a ziplock bag on top so it doesn’t absorb smells from the fridge but still has oxygen flow. If you’re going to keep it in the fridge, you can feed it 1:2:0.35 (one part LM, two parts flour, and 35% of the weight o flour in water) and do weekly feedings. If kept in the fridge, you need to make sure it’s strong and ready before starting the panettone process. For that, you need to bring the PM completely to room temperature (depending on different factors it might take a few hours or up to 24h, basically once the LM floats and grew significantly in size, it’s ready!), then you can do the 3 refreshments (with no baking, just feedings), a bagnetto, 1 feeding, and let it grow overnight and the next morning start with the 3 refreshments again and prepare the primo impasto at the end of the day. Or you can keep it at room temperature a few days with daily feedings and whenever you want to make panettone do the bagnetto the night before, and proceed with the 3 refreshments and primo impasto. Keep up the good work!!
Hi Maria,
Thank you for your helpful posts. Iāve been following your instructions for training the levito Madre. Iām on day 5 of refreshments and refreshments Iām refreshing every 12 hrs.
Iām confused as to what the next step is.
Your other post doesnāt mention the 10 days of refreshments. And what is the bagnetto?
My LM rises and grows in the first couple of hours. Will I be able to start making a panettone in a couple of days?
Many thanks!
Hi Sarah, every day until day 15 is pretty much the same. You feed your PM every day, once or twice depending on how it goes. It’s the training period. After day 15 you can either prepare it to make panettone or feed it 1:2:0.35 (PM:flour:water), put it in that water bath, and off to the fridge for 1 week! Usually, it’s better to have your PM very well trained before starting panettone. The acidity must be controlled very well, that’s done throughout proper training, consistent feedings, and allowing the bacteria to have a nice place to live. The smell shouldn’t change either, once you can tell you PM has the same smell every day, you’re closer to being able to make panettone. If you think your PM is strong enough you can go ahead and do the 3 refreshments. then if your PM can triplicate in 3-4h at 28C each time, you can proceed with the first dough (it should triple in 12h if it doesn’t, something went wrong and it will be very difficult for the second dough to rise). Basically, “when” you can make panettone depends on the strength of your PM, and that’s for you to determine because you see it every day and see it develop every day etc. š
Also, the bagnetto is like a purifying bath. It helps release some acidity that could be built up in the dough. If your PM smells very acidic, a bagnetto the night before or the same day you’re making panettone can be very beneficial. But don’t do it every day, because it could debilitate your PM.
For the 3 refreshments before making panettone you can check my next post on the topic, I explain everything there. Then you just need a reliable panettone recipe from any of the Italian maestros and practice practice practice!
Good luck!!
Hi! Thank you for this amazing post! I started and followed very carefully all the LM steps you give, I’m now day 3 from 10 of the build up of my starter, my problem is that when I make the refreshing and put in water folded it rises in less than 2 hours … It gets up, water in the middle and then next day not even 24 hours pass it’s already like half at the bottom half water half LM but yesterday I scale I had left 150 gm of LM not 200 gm as you say in the recipe, is it because I put it in a container which to cover with water I put more quantity than is necessary? Is the apples I used? Which are very active maybe … Is temperature ambiance? In this days got colder but then again warmer about 28.5 c degrees I checked it was the LM.
Highly appreciate your reply !
Thank you so much
Hi Daria, if the temperature in your house is too high what happens is that the fermentation speeds up and so does the flour degradation. If the LM floats a bit fast is ok, that means that you have lots of active microorganisms there! The flour you see at the bottom is flour that has been degrading. Technically you should’ve fed the LM a bit earlier. Since the temperature is a bit high you can use room temperature water to make the dough and fridge cold water for the bath, that way you’ll slow down the fermentation. If that’s not enough, you might need to feed it every 12-18h instead of 24. And if that’s still not enough, you might need to increase the flour a little (and then calculate the water according to that amount of flour). It’s a bit of a guessing game, let the lievito madre talk to you hehe. Right now what you need is to keep somehow consistent to allow the bacteria to adjust to the new environment. Good luck!