The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Feeding Sour Dough Starter

Rayray's picture
Rayray

Feeding Sour Dough Starter

Hi All the bakers and professors

I have a query about how to feed my sour dough starter.

I think I might make a mistake about my feeding method.

My method.

4 pm ( after making all the bread form tomorrow)

Leftover Starter: 200g to 300 g

Feeding: Flour about 700g and water 1000g ( estimate only)

mixed together like mud.

Then I will use again tomorrow around 3 to 4pm again ( it about 24 hours).

Please tell me 

 

Thanks

RayRay

 

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Very runny liquid starter,  Is that your target hydration?   And do you need only 1900 to 2000g starter for tomorrow?

What is the temperature of your starter while it ferments?  

What is the flour type and roughly where is your location?

drogon's picture
drogon

... which is one of the good things about sourdough - it's also one of it's confusing things too.

My way:

(a) I take some starter from the fridge and use it directly in the dough.

(b) when I don't have enough in the fridge, I bulk up the starter by adding in double the starter in flour and water. e.g. if I need 500g of starter then I take 100g of mother from the fridge, add to that 200g of flour, 200g of water, mix and leave stand for 5-6 hours then make the dough. (And top-up the mother in the fridge with 50g flour + 50g water)

That works for my wheat bases starters (wheat & spelt). For Rye, my starters are at 150% hydration, so when I need 500g of starter, I take 250g of mother from the fridge, add to that 100g of flour plus 150g of water, mix and let stand for 5-6 hours. (Top up the mother jar with the same 100g flour, 150g water and back into the fridge it goes).

I'm sure others will post their ways too - then you just pick a regime that works for you and stick with it for a while.

Happy baking!

-Gordon

Rayray's picture
Rayray

Hi Gordon

Sorry for late reply. Thanks for telling me your way.

my way

I do not care how much I got left at the end of the day, I will top up random with flour and water until they firm and look like a mud then I left outside, ( in New Zealand is about 8 to 10 degree this month)

The at the end of next day I will use again then top up again. I never keep in the fridge.

am I right?

 

Thanks

Raymond 

Les Nightingill's picture
Les Nightingill

Are you happy with the way your loaves are coming out?

If not, then there's a lot of helpful folks around here to help, and perhaps your starter feeding regimen would be the focus of some advice. We would need more details on how you mix/prove/shape/bake etc the loaves and especially the temperatures.

Or maybe your loaves are "pretty good" but not quite meeting your expectations?

If your loaves are good and selling "like hot cakes", then don't change anything.

There's an infinite variety of methods and formulae.

Rayray's picture
Rayray

The loaves some time come out good, but some time was not good.

I use 30% of started and 63% of hydration combine with 2% of salt and 2 % olive oil, mixed until we could make a window of the dough. 

The temperature when I mixing the dough around 32 to 34 degree.

Thanks

Raymond

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

32 to 34°C     

You might want to slow down the speed the starter culture and dough take to ferment.  Try cooling the water or flour and use ice water when feeding the starter.     

Reynard's picture
Reynard

I don't think there's a right or a wrong. From what I'm finding out on here, it's about figuring out what works best for you.

I keep my starters in the fridge, take whichever one out that I want, let it come up to room temperature and feed it equal proportions of flour to water. I might feed for a second time a few hours before starting my dough, depending on how much I need for my bake. Then I'll take out what I want and pop the jar straight back into the fridge.

Am still a newbie to bread, but am finding that with sourdough especially, the cooler, the better. Too hot and the dough becomes a sticky and almost unmanageable goop...

I've had to unlearn a lot of things rather quickly and then learn a whole lot of new stuff, but touch wood, I've always gotten pretty consistent results - namely a decently risen and eminently edible loaf of bread. There're some really good step-by-step recipes on here which have helped me loads :-)