A hypothesis.

My hypothesis:  LB SF plays an important role in the human digestive process by directly transforming its preferred substrates to metabolites (inulin-type fructans, pyruvate) that survive after baking and that are in turn used by the bifidobacterium in the human colon as substrates for their own metabolism.  This relationship would increase the digestion of undigested and/or undigestable polysaccharides.  This would imply that LB SF evolved to an extraordinary set of different species (humans, other mammals, insects, wheat and rye, the sourdough environment, other bacteria and fungi, and, especially, the bifidobacterium found in our colon, rectum, anus and even feces), and has likely developed the ability to “communicate” with all of the species mentioned.  LB SF, therefore, positively impacts every species it has come into contact with.  What’s more, it’s genomes suggests an evolutionary path widely divergent from most gut-based LAB (via reductive processes), and plays a role more closely resembling an entero-pathogen.  There is no latency.  All you need to do to create a starter is use non-sterile (i.e., non-laboratory) conditions, and establish from the beginning the parameters necessary for its growth.  Other experiments have confirmed this:  a reasonable LB SF population occurs and even dominates after just one refreshment.

Why is the pineapple-juice method ineffective?  Because, like most “starter” schemes, it delays the conditions necessary for a large LB SF population to develop.  This means:  ignore the previous ratios you’ve been taught for establishing a new starter (1:1:1 and then onto 1:2:2 or even 1:4:4).  Beginning with whole-grain rye (100% hydration) above 35 degrees Celsius will ensure, after just 12 – 18 hours, a sufficient drop in pH to establish the dominance of those LAB species (especially pontis, fermentum, and plantarum).  Please understand that heavy acidification is not necessary for LB SF to occur.  Rather, LB SF will dominate in a wheat- or rye-based matrix over every species if the pH is between 5.0 to 5.6.  This is fact.  The reason for using a high-temperature in the beginning (one above at which LB SF grows) is to establish a more desirable sub-dominant sourdough microflora.  Again, let me repeat:  LB SF will dominate every time between the above-mentioned pH range.  We cultivate these other lactobacilli because, well, they make a tastier end-product than other non-acidifying species!  Put another way, all the species Debra Wink's "research" has identified as undesirable are, in fact, not, and are commonly recovered from sourdoughs in northern European countries where the starters are maintained at a lower-temperature range (> 20ºC and < 22º).  Funnily enough, they occur as the sub-dominant species to LB SF, and produce quite good bread.  Why?  LB SF's role, as we'll find out in more detail later, is more as a mediator or conductor during sourdough fermentation, setting the standard by which all other microflora follow.

Because LB SF evolved to work in concert with all other species involved in getting it into the sourdough matrix (this is its catch-22:  it cannot become dominant or even be evolutionarily successful without the sourdough environment, so it has evolved to use just about any path available to it to ensure it ends up in sourdough), LB SF becomes dominant after just one refreshment if and when the following are in place:  the inoculation amount is between 5 - 20%; rye- and/or wheat-based substrates are used; and when the temperature is < 32ºC and greater than 20ºC.  All other methods will delay these conditions being fulfilled, such as using the (empirically-wrong) assumption that high-acid conditions are necessary for LB SF to become dominant.  This is just plain, stupidly wrong (and also the reason LB SF is never recovered from type II sourdough processes).  Try it out yourself.  I’ll be doing a post soon, with photographs and formulas, for a sure-fire way I have developed for getting a fully-active starter by the time the fourth or fifth refreshment occurs.