culture
Goldrush sourdough starter - has anyone used it?
I just purchased a packet of Goldrush brand "old fashioned San Francisco Style Sourdough Starter," and I'm wondering if anybody's used this particular brand, or a similar product with any success. It's basically a dry mix of sourdough culture and white flour.
I'm planning to create my own starter from scratch as well, so that I can compare the two.
Starter Terminology
I know this seems a little late but I think we could all benefit if we define these terms in order to remove any confusion surrounding them.
What is a:
- new starter
- young starter
- active starter
- fresh starter
- old starter
- mature starter
- ripe starter
Thanks for participating.
Oct 31, 2009 Changed title of thread so it is more easily located using the site search machine. I may turn this into a FAQ or anyone wanting to make a FAQ should feel free to use the information.
Mature Culture, From Bread by Hamelman
I am beginning to bake from Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread, have had two wonderful successes, but am terribly confused on how to come up with 2 tablespoons of mature culture required for the Whole-Wheat Levain as described on p 168.
Method for keeping my 2 cultures active and not wasting any
I used to have two problems. The first was that I didn't bake frequently enough, so my culture would become essentially dead. The second was that I was getting rid of excess sourdough culture.
Currently I maintain 2 cultures. 1 spelt and 1 whole wheat. They taste really different.
Here's what I do to keep them vigorously active.
About twice a week I make sourdough pancakes, one time with each culture. When I take the culture out, I replenish it with fresh flour and water.
Sourdough pancake (more like crepes) Recipe:
Firm Sourdough Starter - Glezer recipe
I’m finally getting around to posting Maggie Glezer’s firm sourdough starter recipe. For those of you having problems with your starters you might wish to give this a try. Most people here are using batter-style starters so it might be interesting to see if there is any discussion on firm starters. Plus I need help in learning to convert properly for use in recipes which don’t use a firm starter and there are always questions that come up.