The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

culture

yy's picture

Goldrush sourdough starter - has anyone used it?

November 5, 2010 - 7:24pm -- yy

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.

Mini Oven's picture

Starter Terminology

June 30, 2009 - 6:49pm -- Mini Oven

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.

--pk's picture
--pk

I work weekends. Sat. 0000-1200, Sun. 0000-1200, Mon. 0000-0700. This is an insanely great schedule for most purposes. But, like all schedules, it complicates and contorts things at times. So begins our story for today. Two weeks ago on a Friday at approximately 1300 CST there we sat with 3 hours to kill before needing to go to bed. I decided to break out the flour and make a quick loaf for test purposes. I began with the following.

  • 2c water (115 F)
  • 2 1/4t yeast
  • 2c flour
  • 2t sugar
  • 1T oil

Mixed this until it was the consistancy fo spackle (or Gumbo for those from Alabama). I then covered it with the following and let it set for a half hour:

  • 2c flour
  • 1/ 4c dry milk
  • 2t salt

In the past, this normally turns out a standard loaf of sandwich capable bread, But this time, it was personal. After the initial ferment, I mixed in the dry ingredients that were on top. But the dough was far too wet. I added 3 add'l cups of flour and the dough was still too wet. I could not get the dough to set up or become anything other than a sticky mess no matter what I tried. So bedtime came and I decided to ditch it into the fridge and let it think about what it had done. At this point there was a small ball of dough in the bottom of a large (4qt) rubbermaid container).

Saturday 1200 CST. I returned to examine the offending dough to notice that it had nearly filled the container while in the fridge. I told my partner to keep an eye on it that night, so it would not eat the entire contents of the fridge. We went to bed. About 0200 Sunday, George completely filled the container it was placed in. My partner contiued to drop the container to deflate it and bought another 24h but again it filled the container. As punishment for its crimes, we left the demonic spawn in the fridge until Thursday at 0600.

We removed it from the fridge and divvied it up to make rolls and to preserve part as a culture to test hardiness. Below are images following feeding and at 1 and 2 hours post feeding. The rolls were delicious.

George after feeding George @ 1hour George @ 2 hours

Andy's picture

Method for keeping my 2 cultures active and not wasting any

September 14, 2007 - 1:36pm -- Andy

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:

zolablue's picture

Firm Sourdough Starter - Glezer recipe

March 24, 2007 - 8:43am -- zolablue

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.

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