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Last week I fed my sourdough starter with pineapple juice instead of water and got a better rise than any flour feeding in 3 years
I read about using pineapple juice to lower pH in a sourdough textbook from 1995, tried it on my neglected starter in Brooklyn last Tuesday, and now I'm wondering if the whole "just use filtered water" crowd has been making things harder than they need to be.
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ivan_harris5mo ago
Heard a baker in Portland swear by adding orange juice to fix slow starters.
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charles7205mo ago
Pineapple juice is just a shortcut that skips over the real challenge of building a strong starter over time. You're trading long term stability for a temporary chemical reaction. The 1995 textbook you mentioned probably assumed people would use it as a one time boost, not a regular method. Relying on fruit acids means your starter isn't learning to handle the natural pH changes from flour and water alone. When you go back to regular water after that sugar spike, you might find the starter crashes harder than before. The filtered water crowd has been getting consistent results for decades without needing to add random juice.
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brooket435mo ago
Has anyone actually tested the pH of their tap water before blaming the filtered water people? My city's water is around 8.5 pH straight from the faucet, which is way too alkaline for a young starter to work right. I used store bought spring water for three weeks until my starter got strong enough to handle the local stuff, and it made a huge difference. The real trick might not be filtered vs. tap, but matching your water's pH to where your starter is at in its development.
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