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Help me figure out the basics rye sourdough starter

Ogi the Yogi's picture
Ogi the Yogi

Help me figure out the basics rye sourdough starter

Dear Fresh Loaf community, would you be so kind as to answer a couple of questions that I have about my rye sourdough starter! 

I made a rye sourdough starter a month and a half ago, I really should have wrote down the date. I baked using my starter last time last week, after using it I put a cup of flour and cup of water back into the jar (with the starter) and put it in the fridge, in the next couple of days I had a huge mess in my fridge.

My first question is about quantity, how much sourdough starter should I always keep in the fridge? 

My second question is to please thoroughly walk me through the process of taking the starter out of the fridge and preparing it (activating it) for the bread recipe I want to make. If I want to bake bread than I take out the starter two days in advance so I can activate it by feeding it twice and then add it to the starter of the recipe and then make the dough the following day. I am still learning how this how in advance process works.

My third question is about making more starter with the starter I have in the fridge, some people say to throw out half of the starter each time you feed it until it double in size...(even someone once again could walk me through this process step by step or direct me to this information I would be soooo grateful). While on the third day or the third feeding you stop throwing the half out and building how ever much starter you need for the recipe (I am nervous about making enough starter for the recipe and then to have left over to put in the fridge, which I am suppose to feed before putting it back in the fridge right?

My fourth question is how often do you feed it? If you put a fed starter in the fridge Monday and you want to bake Thursday or Wednesday do I need to feed it again twice before baking or can I just take it out of the fridge? 

Also if I want to make sourdough bread not rye sourdough bread can I see my sourdough starter? How do I convert my sourdough rye starter into a starter that works for regular sourdough. How make starter should I have? 

 

Please forgive me for all the question, please feel free to direct me to places where those questions are answered I just can't seem to find that place. I have tried reddit but the community there is a little quite. 

 

Bob_Macc's picture
Bob_Macc

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter

This is, in my opinion, the way forward. I've been baking this way exclusively for at least a year now and it's fantastic. I've made all sorts of bread with it, and it takes no maintenance at all bar rebuilding every few months. I just rebuilt it this week, and I'm baking quite a bit so I doubled the feed quantities to get double the starter. Easy as anything. It's almost to the point where I think 'why the hell would you do it any other way?'. I laugh when I think of tossing out starters, the mess, the expense, the hassle... It's a stone cold winner.

I've been meaning to write a post to thank dabrownman for a long time now, so I'll put it here in the hope he sees it. Many thanks for your knowledge and expertise.

Ogi the Yogi's picture
Ogi the Yogi

Thank you both, I was wondering if you could comment on the thickness of my starter. I had it sitting in the fridge and it is now nice runny but also kind of thick. After I took 50g of it out and mixed it with 50 g flour + 50 g water it is now this really thick paste with absolutely no bubbles, did I not add enough water? Will the paste turn more liquid with time? How often should I feed it before baking with it? 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

cups of flour and water.  You hydration is about 180 % nearly 3 times more liquid than it should be.  I would tell you what I have done for more than 2 years but there are many who use it on TFL like Bob above for good reasons and  have set you on to the post.  No worries .  We all went through your learning process and recovered to bake well another day.

Happy rye baking 

Ogi the Yogi's picture
Ogi the Yogi

Could you please clarify what you mean by "and equal it is too liquid using cups of flour and water"

This starter has been in the fridge for over a week. 

I took 50 g. of starter and fed it 50g water and 50 g. flour. 

I took another 200 g. of starter and fed it 200 g. water and 200 g. flour 

Both of these doubled in size in the last 7 hours, should I throughout half of the starter and then feed it equal parts again, I am hoping to bake tomorrow morning. 

PugBread's picture
PugBread

I believe what is meant is: "In addition to having too much starter, your final mix is too liquid which is due to the use of cups as your means of measuring."

Using volume to measure, as opposed to weight, is a very imprecise and highly variable way to measure flour; water is consistent but flour is highly variable (e.g. my cup of flour does not weigh the same as yours).  Regardless, if you were to weigh those volumes you would likely find that the water weighs somewhere close to 3x the weight of the flour in "cup" form (a ratio of ~3:1).  Generally speaking, that ratio is no more than 1:1 for the water component.  A "liquid" starter is considered 100% hydration which is equal parts water and flour (i.e. 1:1); yours would be considered a swimming pool :D at 3:1.  If you are set on using cups to measure then you should be looking at using 1 cup of flour to 1/3 cup of water for your feedings - that will put you closer to a 1:1 ratio.

dabrownman also mentioned you're using too much starter.  Generally speaking, for a standard maintenance feeding schedule, the starter is a fraction of the weight of the flour you will be feeding with (half, quarter, tenth, etc). It's a very personal decision but many folks go with half or quarter the weight of the flour.  If your cup of flour weighs 120 grams then you would be looking to use about 60 or 40 grams of starter, the rest would be removed.  In the end your feed could look something like 60 grams of starter (quarter cup maybe), 120 grams of water (third cup maybe), 120 grams of flour (cup maybe) which would make for a 1:2:2 ratio.  If you dropped the starter down to 40 grams then you would be looking at closer to 1:3:3 ratio, and down to 30 grams and you are at about 1:4:4 ratio.  Any of these feed schedules are easy to manage and work with.  The lower the ratio of flour and water components, the faster the starter will need a new feeding (generally speaking).

Your 50g:50g:50g is a 1:1:1 feeding, and so is your 200g:200g:200g.  They will progress at nearly the same identical rate based on the amount of food each population was fed; and my starters would get through that in about 4-6 hours before needing another feeding. If you simply reduce the initial starter weight by half then you are giving a more substantial feeding that should allow you more time between feeds.

The "throw out half" idea is poor form.  It's more about retaining a specific amount of starter for the amount of food/flour you'll be feeding.  Again, the ratios mentioned above work well for most folks (1:2:2, 1:3:3, 1:4:4).

At least, this is my understanding and take on the whole "starter ratio/feeding schedule" scenario. Hope this helps.