Been Googling the heck outta Stiff Starters when i first stumbled across the term. All my life, thought there was ONLY a LIQUID starter........silly me!

I have read everything google sent me to here, plus wild yeast. and STILL have questions. AND abit of confusion.

I read in one place that a liquid starter will give you the most sour. and i read STIFF is more sour. I have vacationed several times in San Fran, and have found i really like a REAL sour bread. YUM. I also read in places that all starters go THRU the san fran stage in their development. ?

also, i have read on SEVERAL ways of maintaining these different starters. From several diff. web sites. 

can you spell CORNFUSED !

i have yet to read a thread on maintainging diff. starters all in ONE thread !

i just started a stiff starter, and its proofing(?) atm.  Rising nice, and should raise to twice its size in 8 hours i have read, that it should. And when it domes, and starts to collaspe is when you want to use it.

am i on the right track so far?

but i don't bake 2-3 times a week. Lucky to do that a month. Tho want to change that up. So i let my stiff starter dome, i guess.  I have read that i should keep it on the counter top, and feed several times so the starter gets its legs under it. So when i feed, just pinch a piece off, throw the rest away, and feed? Never have really read on how to maintain a stiff starter, when first starting it, let alone how often to feed it. and WHEN do i know its okay to put in the fridge. I know the extensive manner to get it ready to use, once pulled outta the fridge. Its these first steps i am cornfused about.

let alone, WHICH starter will give you the MOST sour of a loaf?

Thankx for your time

wd

Reading comments today from experienced TFLers on the quantity to feed refrigerator stored starters I am left wondering if the sections on storing starter in the fridge in the Handbook need to be refreshed themselves.

Using the information collated in the Handbook I was easily able to establish a 100% hydration starter and have been storing it in the fridge and feeding it, according to the following copied from the section on making a sourdough starter in the Handbook:

After that time, it should be kept in the refrigerator between uses/feedings. Every week or so, take it out of the fridge, feed it by retaining only ¼ cup of starter and then feed it ¼ cup flour and 2 Tbs water.

I do this by weight retaining 60g of the starter I have built up for use and return the starter to the fridge as 60g:30g:30g. To date I have been making sourdoughs about 6 times a month, ie more than once a week, so the starter is getting a series of substantial feeds each time I build-up to bake and then being put on hold in the fridge at 2:1:1. So far this has worked for me. But from the comments today I am concerned about what will happen longer term.

Likewise the Handbook section on storing starter in the refrigerator says:

If you only bake once every week or two, you’ll be happier storing your starter in the fridge in a covered container.

Once a week, take it out, and feed it.

For a wet starter, retain only ¼ cup of starter and then feed it ¼ cup flour and 2 Tbs water.

For a stiff starter, retain a marble-sized piece and add 15 grams (1 Tbs) of water. Mush it up until it's soft and the water has turned somewhat milky in color. Then add 25 grams (2 heaping Tbs or 1 Tbs + 1 tsp) of flour.

Keep it out for an hour or four, and then pop it back into the fridge.

If you’re going to bake with it, make sure to take it out a day before and feed it twice, with at least 8 hours in between each feeding.

I also follow the above guidelines to feed it twice the day before starting a formula. I did struggle at the beginning knowing quite how to do a build up and gleaned information by reading through the archives. Perhaps if the starter storage information was going to be updated it would be a good time to include some buildup examples for a couple of simple loaves such as the build up of a 100% hydration starter for  Wildyeast Susan's Norwich and the preparation of the Firm starter for San Diego Susan's Simple Sourdough.

Experienced TFLers are you able to pool your wisdom on this please? I realize many of you store you starter at room temperature and feed it daily but I am sure there are others who only do a few bakes a month who are experienced with refrigeration storage.

Regards to all, Robyn

How to tell if a sourdough starter is still alive? If a sourdough starter is dead, is there anyway to rescue it? What happen if use dead sourdough starter in bread?

I am in charge of a 150th anniversary celebration of a church cookbook that includes several "light biscuit" and "roll" recipes using a yeast starter. The recipe for starter given in the cookbook involves hops (difficult for me to find). I'm wondering if I could use the mother starter (barm)  from Peter Reinhart's BBA that I keep on hand in place of the "yeast" called for in the two recipes below:

"Light Biscuit"

1 quart warm milk

3/4 c lard and butter mixed

3/4 c yeast

2 T sugar

1 t salt

flour to make a soft dough

The dough sits overnight and is then rolled, cut, and risen again before baking.

"Rolls"

Pint scalded and cooled milk

1/2 c yeast or 1/3 cake compressed yeast (Anyone have an idea how many ounces a 19th century yeast cake had?)

1 T sugar

a little salt

butter the size of an egg

1 quart flour

The dough "stands until light" and then is kneaded with additional flour (for half an hour!). It rises again, is rolled, cut into rounds that are folded into halves (sounds a bit like Parker House rolls).

Many thanks for any advice!

Hello! 

I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to reconstitute a dried starter. I dried my white starter and rye starter a while ago and I would like to use it soon. Do you have to soak it before you feed it? 

Thanks!

Leah  

Ok, I’m a newbie here, so a little back ground is in order. I’ve tried to get a sourdough starter going three or four times in the past. With less then good results, I used dehydrated starters and they appeared to be going good but when I tried to make bread things fell apart. Ok that’s in the past and truly I couldn’t tell you what steps I took back then. 

So I’m trying again, I started last friday using the flour (whole wheat organic) and pineapple juice method to start my own starter. On day five nothing had been happening so instead of dumping all but 1/4 cup of the starter I just added another 1/4 of water and flour thinking it might help to keep all the yeast I might have already captured. It seems to have worked because the next morning it had really started to bubble and grew at least an inch or two (I marked the level on the out side of the jar). So that morning I dumped all but 1/4 cup of starter and added flour and water again, good results, no foam on top, but lots of bubbles and film on the inside, looks like maybe it rose and fell some. 

The smell is good, no off smell, no accumulation of hooch, but the foam on top I’ve read about is missing, will that foam appear over night then be gone before I check it in the morning? What is the next step, does it sound like my starter is active or should I keep feeding it every day for a little longer before I try making bread. I noticed the bubbles are coming on faster now, this morning, the seventh day, it started bubbling within a couple hours of feeding, and rose a 1/2 inch in the same time frame. 

Usually when I get it in my head to cobble together a formula based on two or three things I've seen mentioned on this forum, two more in my head, and a bit of whimsy, the results are not pretty.  Especially when it comes to baguettes.  The last two or three times I've tried to make baguettes, they've come out flat, with closed crumb and, with the sourdough versions, crust that provides a thorough jaw workout.

But not this time, oh no!  This time I tasted victory.  Victory, and some very yummy bread.

Here's what I was trying for:

• 100% Sourdough baguettes
• All white flour
• Two preferments (saw this mentioned a couple places and it sounded good).
• Roughly 65% final hydration (also based on some other posts at thefreshloaf)

To this I arbitrarily decided that 50% flour weight would be prefermented, of which about half and half from a 50% hydration pate fermente and a 100% hydration wet starter.  Because, y'know, why not?  I decided on 700g total flour and worked out the math to get:

• 340g wet starter (170g flour, 170g water)
• 273g pate (180g flour, 90g water, 3g salt)
• 350g final flour
• 200g final water

Got to set up a bakers math calculator for myself.  Anyway, the formula ended up being thus:

Liquid Levain

• 32g active starter (I'd converted part of my firm starter to 100% hydration the day before, but I doubt it matters much)
• 150g Stone-Buhr bread flour
• 150g water, room temperature

Sourdough Pate Fermente

• 45g active starter (50% firm starter, in this case)
• 150g Stone-buhr bread flour
• 75g water 
• 3g salt

Mixed starters at about 9:30pm the day before baking and let them sit overnight.  My firm starter had been in the fridge since that morning, so I used warm water for the pate. Began the next stage at 7:30 the next morning.

Final Dough

• 350g Stone-buhr bread flour
• 200g water, room temperature 
• 11g salt
• Liquid Levain (all)
• Sourdough Pate (all)

Mixed Flour, water, and liquid levain until a shaggy mess, then covered and left to autolyze for 45 minutes.  Held off on adding the pate partly because it seemed like The Proper Thing To Do(TM), leaving out the salt and all that...but mostly because the pate looked pretty sluggish and needed at least another 45 minutes to ripen.

Added pate and salt and kneeded for a couple minutes.  The stiff pate really didn't want to incorporate, so I gave it a 5 minute rest then kneaded a little more until the lumps were more or less dispersed.  Then it was into a bowl to rise.

I gave the dough 30 folds in the bowl with a rubber spatula after 30 minutes of fermentation, then again after 2 hours.  Total time for the first rise was 5 hours (I meant for it to be 4, but got confused, and anyway it wasn't rising hugely).

Preshaped the dough into 4 ~10oz pieces (yeah, yeah, switched measuring systems midway), and let rest for 10 minutes.  Then final shaping, and rising on my well-floured couche-tablecloth for 2 hours.

Baked at about 475 (my oven's temperature sensor is wacky) with steam for 22 minutes, opening the oven a crack after 10.  Then left the oven cracked and turned off for another 5 minutes before removing the baguettes from the oven.

The results:

Sourdough Baguettes, Exterior:

Another Angle

Crumb Shot

 I was incredibly pleased with the results here.  The scoring is easily the best I've ever done, though there's clearly room for improvement.  The mere fact that the things didn't turn out flat was a huge improvement of my last attempt at a sourdough baguette.  The crumb turned out well.  The flavor was wonderfully complex, moderately sour, with a thin, crisp crust that was just slightly chewy (hey it's sourdough, after all).

I have a starter born this past May that, all summer long, reliably tripled at its peak. Around mid-August - BEFORE the weather got appreciably cooler - it started to peak at lower and lower levels, until now I'm lucky if I can get it to double before collapsing. It seems to be raising my bread just about as well as it did in the summer, but I'm worried about the downward trend. My living quarters are supposedly temperature-controlled at about 72 degrees F, though I'm sure it's not as stable as my thermostat claims it is.

Any ideas why this could be happening and if, or when, I should worry about it?

It has been an interesting project.  Greetings, all.  I'm a brand new poster here, although I have been reading for a couple of months now.  What a wonderful treasure trove of knowledge and gracious help.  Thank you to you all.

I have baked mediocre yeast breads for many years, but only recently have I become interested in sourdough.  Blame Daniel Wing and Alan Scott.  A chance encounter led me to meet someone that told me they were building an outdoor bread oven, and I realized it might actually be possible.  So I started reading.  That led me to try to develop my own starter, and that could be a long story.  A quote from my private notebook tells much of it:  "It turned out there was a good deal more to learn about it than just that brief bit in that book! ".

After a couple of nasty failures at baking bread with that starter I started researching and reading:  Here at TFL, the Sourdough Doctor and others that I thank profusely for sharing their wisdom and knowledge.  About 10 days ago I decided to try to revive my starter.  Finally, yesterday, my starter doubled in volume in the first 12 hours!  Wohooo!  I fed it last night, and it doubled again overnite, so this morning I fed it, and began hourly observations and pictures (Fear not!  I'm not going to post 12 sets of hourly pictures of my starter, but I will post a couple).

My point is this:  I'm so new at this sourdough thing that I don't have any instincts to go by, so I am hoping some of you that have some will share, and help me develop mine.  I want to assess the condition of my starter now that it seems to have developed some vitality.  I really want to bake some bread with it, but I'm determined to not produce any more wheat-rocks, if I can help it.  So please, tell me what you think, and why you think it.  If you want more details on the abuse this starter has already endured I'll tell it, but I guarantee, it is not a pretty story.

At 9:30AM this morning I refreshed my starter as usual (1:1:1) with 100g of starter from the mother, 100g water from the tap at 85F by thermometer, and 100g of flour (30g Red Mill Organic Dark Rye + 30g KA Bread Flour).  It has been on the kitchen island counter all day, where the temperature ranged from a low of about 71F this morning to a high of 77F this afternoon before things started to cool back down.  Here are three photos of the starter, from right after the morning refresh, after 8 hours, and after 11 hours:

At 0930 this morning: 

At 1730  this evening:

and at 2130 tonight:

It seems like the starter has good vitality, but it has only been this active for 36 hours now, after several days of only 10-20% growth at best.  Can I start to bake with it yet with high expectations, all other things being equal?  Or, should I just get used to being more patient with sourdough, starting right now, and just feed it and strengthen it for a few more days?

Your comments are not just welcome, but anxiously awaited!

Thanks in advance to all, and...  What a great place this site!

OK, all you experienced people --

Why is there such a big difference between sourdough starters in old school, home cook cookbooks and starters in books and on sites for "prosumer" bakers (i.e. dang serious hobbyists)? In particular, why do the old school instructions for maintaining a starter most often recommend using (or discarding) at least one cup a week, and feeding once a week (or after use). (The starter's left out 24 hours after feeding, but then refrigerated.) The prosumer version is, as I understand it, to discard about a cup and do feedings every day? About one sourdough loaf a week would be just perfect for my needs, so I'm interested in methods that fit that schedule, and minimize waste.

Also, what's the advantage of a 100% hydration (i.e. measured by weight) versus a 166% hydration (i.e. measured by volume). Don't they both work?

Thanks for your help.

P. S. I'm in the midst of trying culturing wild yeast, but I'm going to see if it will work "old school" -- feeding and using/discarding (at least) one cup a week. (The old fashioned cook books always include directions to start with commercial yeast. I'm trying to see if the methods will maintain wild yeast, too.) The only discard I've done is getting rid of half on the third day during the initial growing process. So far, it seems to be going well -- a nice assortment of bubbles, a brief stinky period, but now mildly sour. (This may have something to do with this being August in California's Gold Country. Sourdough is "in the air" around here.)