Ask Allie!
What is Ask Allie?
Ask Allie is our food-related advice column, where you can ask all your fermenting, cooking, baking, and pantry-related questions to get digestible answers! No question about food is off limits!
Most of you will receive an emailed reply prior to your question hitting the blog, since I frequently think you need a more immediate answer. You should anticipate 1-2 weeks between submitting your question and its appearance on blog. Although emailed replies normally take between 1-3 days, it can take up to a week.
To have your question answered in Ask Allie posts, please use the form on our website. If you prefer to be anonymous, just say so in the form and we’ll leave your name out when we answer it in the blog! Note that some submissions may be edited for clarity.
For troubleshooting active issues with a culture you’re working with, please check the FAQs or write us at support@positivelyprobiotic.com - you’ll get your answer faster that way! Please also take advantage of our Facebook group for troubleshooting, conversation, and getting to know more members of our community!
Hello, Allie. What a great site...... I am interested in making alternative milk yogurts. I am not opposed to using a dairy yogurt starter to get things going. I see you offer a coconut culture but I just wanted to learn if I could use the dairy options with good results as well. Can you tell me my options? I intend on using different milks...or combos (is that possible) Soy, Coconut will probably be the most common. I am open to both thermophillic and mesophillic. Thank you so much for you guidance.
— Cheri
Yes, you can use them, but you should not expect them to be as thick or creamy without a stabilizer (like gelatin or whatever) added. I don’t personally ever make non-coconut yogurt with alternative milks (because I use the milks for kasha instead), but Sabrina does and she always says they’ll be thinner and can have variable textures. She says she often monkeys with proportions, too. This to me means you’ll get the best results with thermophils, but if you don’t mind them being drinking yogurts then mesos are also a great choice!
I’m sorry I can’t be more help, but I hope this does help at least a bit,
Hi! I started my sour cream yesterday. It’s been almost 24 hours and it’s not thick at all. Just wondering if I maybe did something wrong? I used raw milk and raw cream.
— Emilee
Did you pasteurize some of your raw, per the raw milk guide on our site? But even if you didn’t (though start doing that if you didn’t, please), sometimes the first batch or two are runny. I just bake or cook with those, other than what I use to reculture (same amount as with set soured cream). Your cultures are basically having their alone time coffee in the garden right now, and are not quite ready to deal with you. In most cases, the second batch sets properly, but they always do by the third.
There’s a runny activation batch tuna casserole recipe in, as well as a runny activation batch recipe for Dutch babies (baked pancakes). So keep an eye on the blog, too, since I’ll continue put recipes up for those sorts of foods as I have runny batches.
When the direction for feeding your starter say “1:1:1” are you suppsed to always take out 1/4 cup starter to feed it 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup water? How much starter do you need to make a loaf of bread? If I’m using a gf starter what is a good recipe for sour dough bread? Thanks, I’m a total beginner!
— Molly
If you’re doing it volumetrically instead of by weight, these ratios aren’t going to work out identically. What I instead would do is take out whatever your discard will be (make sure that at least one time, you’ve saved that discard in the freezer in case something goes horribly awry), which you can use to make other stuff with (recipes in the FAQ), share with others, or to save as backups, and then you’ll add the flour amount you’ve picked and stir that in. Once it’s in, add enough water to it to make it like a thick pancake batter. There’s a picture of what we mean by “thick” in the activation instructions, which I assume you’ve seen already. Since you’re working with GF starter, you should assume that this will NOT be 1:1:1 due to some of the flours having extraordinary absorption properties!
For gf recipes, we have a few in the blog if you want to poke through that, but there’s also a wealth of GF recipes online. Make sure you join our FB group, too, because we have a NUMBER of GF bakers in there (Sabrina and I are still developing more recipes, but GF baking can be very hard so it’s taking us a while) who also will have recipes to share.
I activated my Jun scoby on Monday (2 days ago) and the scoby started sinking today. Should I be concerned? Is fermentation still occurring? I'm so tempted to mess with the bottle but I'm resisting! I activated my Viennese scoby too, and it looks and smells amazing!
— Travis
No, I wouldn’t personally be worried about anything a SCOBY does. It’s simply a byproduct of fermentation, and they will sometimes sink and stay there, sometimes float, sometimes lay sideways, all kinds of silliness. It’s the starter tea (unpasteurized kombucha or jun) that works the magic here, not the SCOBY (it takes 3-5 months to brew a single batch from SCOBY only). I use SCOBYs for jerky, personally. They’re good soaked in maple syrup before dried.
I’m glad you’re liking the Viennese! Your jun is gonna be great as well!
This is my first time making sourdough bread. I’m using All purpose white flour. I’ve been following the directions as carefully as possible on feeding the starter. This is day 9 and my starter smells sour and gets a few bubbles but has NOT doubled or troubled in volume. Can I go ahead and start using it?
— Lois
I would, yes. Check the ambient temperature, too. Although every now and again a starter just won’t want to do any of those things (and they’re NOT gluten-free; gf frequently does this), most of the time the starter is chilly and is taking longer to eat.
I ordered the Filmjolk Mesophilic yogurt culture. It was delivered and the package was left in the hot sun on my porch (probably for about 4 hrs). Will this heat effect my culture. I have never used this type before.
— Rachele
It’ll be okay. While it’s ideal to have everything climate controlled, these cultures are very hardy. We emphasize freeze/use upon receipt to ensure people don’t tuck packets in their pantries for months at a time, only later to find them unviable because they weren’t put into long-term storage before they were forgotten about for months. I’ve done it before, I’m sure Sabrina has, ditto my sister, bunches of other people. If you’re ready to make it, definitely make it. Otherwise, freezer.
I purchased the rye sourdough starter, on my 4th day did not see much activity... it was doing something, smelled yeasty, and there was activity, on my 5th day the same, the issue is the amt of starter is not growing. What i am doing wrong? I followed the directions...
— Kimberly
No, Kimberly, you’re not doing anything wrong. Go on ahead and double the flour and water for the next feed or two, and do not discard during those feeds, but you should be ready to bake once you’ve built it up to the amount your recipe requires (plus a little extra). Your starter may take longer to eat all that food, so don’t freak out if it does – it’s basically like if you feed your dog dinner and then it gets table scraps while you’re eating dinner, then lazes about forever while it digests the extra. Also: after you feed next, give your starter about an hour, then take out a quarter cup to freeze as a backup (you can dry it first if you want0. This really will give you up to 4 backups, because you can restart with tiny amounts, but we want to make sure everyone is saving some in case something goes wrong. Sometimes weird stuff goes wrong, like the starter is in the oven with the light on and someone else in the house turns the oven on, or forgetting to save some starter to feed when getting ready to bake. What I’ve found is that if you bake long enough, something will go wrong, so best to prepare ahead of time for that. If you wind up not wanting so much backup, you can share it with friends!
