CrunchBerries’Probiotic SIP Thread

Sure, buddy! Let’s let it grow a bit and we’ll go from there!

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I feed my starter once a week. I let it rise up until doubled, then put in fridge. Works great. 25g old starter, 50g AP white, 50g stone ground rye, 100g water. Check out Joshua Weissman’s sourdough starter video on YT if you haven’t already. I followed his method and it worked very well. I also had a starter (SF sourdough) from Sourdoughs International, but it did not make as good a bread and took forever to rise, so I threw it out. Once you have a good culture going, it is not necessary to feed daily.

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Thank you for all the information! Yeah I’ve been watching his YT tutorials and printed up a hard copy of the tutorial to follow. So far so good. Starting day 5 tonight with the same 75g mix, 50g rye, 50g AP, 115g water twice a day. Not much activity these past couple days, but I’ll just keep feeding it and feeding it and feeding it.

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One day it will just take off. Mine bubbles and doubles (very little toil and trouble) in 6 hours after mixing, then I put in fridge.

I make levain as needed from the culture when making bread, which is like taking a small amount of your culture from the fridge, and feeding it. The levain usually fully rises almost tripled in 6 hours, then I mix the dough. After 2 hours of stretch and folds every half hour, and 2 more hours of bulk rise, I shape loaves and put them in bags in the fridge overnight, for 12-14 hours, then i take straight from fridge and bake. Very good results - but - I had to learn a lot and fucked up some bread before I started figuring it out - just like when I grow herb. LOL

I have a DIY proofing box made from a seedling heat mat + PID controller, over a piece of styrofoam/foil board, with an inverted throwaway cooler over that. I set it to 80F and put the culture/dough in there on a rack. Perfect in winter 'cause I keep the house 68F.

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forgot the pic!

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Just saw this 2023, new year sourdough start! Who’s with me! and thought y’all might want to check it out! :call_me_hand:

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Y’all are getting me fired up to try this again! I’ve fallen off my bread baking lately and need to get back

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I second this :arrow_double_up:

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Thank you @Maddawg for looking out!!

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Ok, y’all have twisted my arm. Going to have to give this a try

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Do it man! Been a fun project so far! It is definitely another rabbit hole though!

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I can vouch for that. Shits a rabbit hole even if you’re not successful with the starter :joy::joy: I was on a tear at the beginning of the pandemic just baking off yeasted loaves like every other week. Nothing much better in the world than a warm slice of fresh baked bread with a slab of butter :drooling_face::drooling_face:

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We’ve got fermentation!! Getting ready to feed for the second 1/2 of day 6. I honestly was starting to get a bit worried as I hadn’t seen anything since like day 2 or 3. This is the starter recipe I’m following if anyone is curious https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredible-sourdough-starter-scratch/

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Harry Potter reference?

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Lol, no. Macbeth.

phrases.org UK

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Oh right! That guy!

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I need help guys. Sorry for the long post…

I’ve done three SIP grows and while they all turned out successfully, I have had issues with all three runs getting the plants healthy at the beginning. My current issue is with my Sour Diesel and Royal Kush plants. This run I tried to have good sized plants ready for when my flower tent was ready and ended up with plants that were a bit root bound and I think too big to transplant into an earthbox. Going to shoot for much smaller transplants going forward.

Here is what I started with.

Because of the issues I had with my first two runs I decided to try a bagged potting mix and chose this local stuff.

Problem I realized after planting into the eartboxes is the mix was way too heavy (soil, not potting mix) and the plants just went south immediately. I ripped them out and re-amended the mix with a good deal of perlite.
I took this as overwatered at first but I was mistaken…

Here’s the Sour Diesel showing what I viewed as ph issues effecting uptake. Magnesium deficiency, right?

The Royal that looked overwatered kept getting worse and worse until I finally wised up and realized it was not overwatered at all. The entire rootball zone was bone dry when I probed with a moisture meter. It was extremely hydrophobic and even difficult to get the meter into. What a dope, lol!!

After a slow watering and a feed of some Roots Organic Buddha Grow she perked up and I thought I was good.

Next I slowly started seeing mag deficiencies on the Royal and calcium deficiencies followed. .

I started foliar spraying Epsom salts and 5% calcium. I scratched some dolomite lime into both earthboxes to bring the ph up and help mag and calcium uptake. The Royal does appear to be doing better a week later, but the Sour is now tacoing like a mo fo and it is not heat or light intensity I don’t believe.


Light is 20” away and PPFD is about 550. Temps are colder and I have to run a space heater to keep it between 75-80. Run 24 hours on to help with temps. I am using RO water due to my high sodium bicarbonate content and add 5ml/g cal mag.

Is this later stage magnesium deficiency?

Appreciate you taking the time to read this longer post and share any thoughts on what’s going on here.

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Looked up the soil and it sounds pretty good.
My main concern is you saying your soil is dry, this makes me think your not wicking properly.

If it were me I would do a few things before LITFA…
Make sure that its wicking properly.
Top dress with IMO4 (easier said than done, I know) and make sure there are worms.
Put LABs in the res

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It is wicking appropriately now. Good even moisture throughout the boxes. It was the just transplant that I bricked.

What do you make of the tacoing leaves?

I have EM1 in the rez and plan to move to LABS when I finish this bottle. I will need to research IMO4, but the ground is rock solid here in CT so that’ll most likely need to wait until spring.

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usually id say heat and or light stress but it doesnt sound like either of those are a problem. whats the RH?

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