I am curious, as to why I have to throw out perfectly good starter in the feeding process. If I start out small enough, (I don't have to start with a cup of flour and one of water), could I not just feed it, adding to the starter and not throwing any out, at all?  I know that I will have massive amounts of starter, but, I am planning on making massive amounts of bread. My sisters and I will be baking all day long. I guess we plan on using up all the starter during our bread baking marathon. We have a large family, and they love our bread. We like being frugal and can't stand the thought of throwing something good out. Can anyone help us understand why we have to throw out the starter as we feed it? If it is thrown out due to the subsequent feedings creating a large volume, that is okay with us to have. We will use it up quickly.  Help!

Hello everybody.  My name is Thane and I just signed up.  I've been baking on and off for most of my adult life, but just began baking regularly about 3 months ago.  I've decided to venture into sourdough, so am building my own starter (I like to start things from scratch).  I've been following Maggie Glezer's advice in "Artisan Baking," but had a question for you more experienced yeast catchers...

I've followed her instructions, and my sourdough seems to be... progressing faster than normal.  I'm on day 4 (tried a different method before and it tanked).  I am using her 50% process, but when I mix it up, it doesn't stay very solid.  It still smells sour, and it does expand some, but mostly it just... goos.  I'm familiar with extended fermentation, so I know that as the water soaks into the flour that it softens.  But it seems that this just sorta gets really gooey without rising much.  Am I just impatient?

It kinda looks like its supposed to look in Maggie's pictures, but the timeframe is off (I fed it this morning at 4:15, and it has already grown some, gooed, and smells sour, but doesn't seem to stay as firm as Maggie seems to think it should).

Thank you in advance for your assistance,

Thane

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.

At the risk of committing heresy, I wonder if instant or dry active yeast could be the basis of a good sourdough starter. Here's my reasoning:

I'm told that dry active yeast has been 'engineered' to be very active and supplies a very high concentration of yeast to make bread rise quickly and consistantly. Intant yeast is very easy to use but works so quickly that it sacrifices the depth of flavor one gets with a long, slow ferment.

Can instant yeast be slowed down enough by using less of it? Is it possible to use a SMALL measure of instant yeast added to a water/flour mixture, and let it slowly ferment, feeding daily and end up with a viable sourdough starter? After all, isn't it the bacteria and acids that give the flavor to a loaf of sourdough? If those bacteria are provided (mostly) from the flour, then it would seem logical that instant yeast could provide a fool-proof beginning to a very strong starter for a beginner. Could that same instant yeast be used to revive a neglected starter, overwhelmed starter?

Am I out in left field here?

Phxdog (Scott)

OK, can you stand more newbie sourdough baking question from me?

I know you can have stiff (50-60% hydration) starters and liquid (100-125% hydration) starters. I read Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman and he makes reference to being able to convert your starter between the different hydration states, and in an appendix gives specific directions about how to convert a liquid starter to a stiff starter. He doesn't explain how to convert from stiff to liquid. Can this be done successfully?

In his sourdough section, he specifies liquid or stiff starter in each recipe. In the rye section, he just specifies "mature culture" and an amount. Does anyone know if this means liquid or stiff starter?

At the moment I have a 60% hydration white flour (KA Bread flour) starter and a 100% hydration rye flour (Hogson Mills whole rye flour) starter.

So if the rye recipe needs a liquid starter, I'm good to go. If it needs a stiff starter, I have to convert my liquid rye starter to stiff or my stiff white starter to rye, both of which should be do-able.

I tried the rye in Glezer's Blessing of Bread and both times building the rye sour from my 60% hydration white starter, using the Hogson Mills whole rye flour, not the light rye she specifies, as I haven't been able to find any, and after 24 hours I just had a ball of cement. So I thought I'd try one of Hamelman's rye recipes unless someone has a suggestion.

Finally, for the 1-2-3 sourdough, can someone just confirm that this is the process:
Mix the discard starter (with water added to the equivalent of 100% hydration), with double that weight of water and triple that weight of flour. Let sit for 15-30 minutes of autolyse. Then knead or stretch and fold in the bowl fo develop the gluten. Form into a ball and let ferment (What is the endpoint for this fermenting period, a certain increase in dough volume or a time period?). Divide the dough and shape it. Let if proof (again, is there an endpoint for this, the finger in the dough imprint test?) Score it. Then bake (425-450 dF for a free form loaf on a baking stone, and a bit lower for a pan loaf) until 190-200 internal temperature.

Finally, what can I do with my discards besides 1-2-3 sourdough? I found a waffle recipe in KA All Purpose Baking Cookbook (which I just borrowed from the libraby) but I don't own a waffle iron.

Thanks for everyone for their patience with my questions.

Been playing at baking for eons; some successes, mostly less than spectacular results. Got into trying sourdough with sourdough starters after picking up a book in San Francisco airport featuring sour dough tales from the goldrush days, along with a packet of "starter." Sounded like such a great idea to try and take a stand for living free of commercial products including "expensive" yeasts. Only down side besides the frequent disasters, was handling the "gloppy" dough, so invested in a "bread machine." Less sticky hands, but little improvement in the end product.

Am now on a new track. Suddenly realized "starter" does not necessarily mean sour dough. Forget waiting for wild yeasts to take over. Create a "starter" with commercial yeast, and then nurture it carefully, saving a little "dough made from starter" from each batch of "dough cycle" bread machine product.

Haven't been at it long enough to know if I'm really onto anything; but have found that starter leavened product from the bread machine dough cycle, saved and properly fed, seems to hold great promise. There does seem to be an art to what the consistancy of the nurtured starter should be. A "soupy" batch gets the familiar foul looking liquid similar to my old sour dough efforts; so have had some success maintaining it at the consistancy of a workable bread machine dough.

Therin lies another concern. My most successful bread machine dough is from a recipe I found with precise amounts of water to dry ingrdients; which if deviated from even the minutist, produces a loaf with a collapsed top; or one so dense it can only serve as a paper weight. Figuring out how to combine the ideal starter, to the additional ingrediants to make a perfect loaf has proven very tricky.

I'm a telecommuter who works from home, and I bake bread for my family two to three times a week. Occasionally, I'll make a loaf with commercial yeast, but typically, I make sourdoughs. Also, on the weekend, I like to make sourdough English muffins and sourdough waffles.

Keeping my starter in the fridge meant I was constantly trying to remember when I needed to take the stuff out to rev it up for bread, and I'd often realize too late that I didn't have enough starter for the muffins or waffles.

After some tinkering, I finally decided to keep the starter on the counter and feed it once or twice a day, which means I've always got at least enough active starter for my overnight whole grain sourdough, and, if I'll need more for a daytime sourdough, I've got enough to seed a bigger amount that can ripen while I sleep. The regimen that I now follow also has the advantage of not wasting anything, because I use all the extra starter stored in the fridge to make all the waffles and English muffins I want. Since both of these recipes derive most of their rise from the interaction of acids and baking soda, using week-old starter from the fridge has enough oomph for leavening and flavor, given that it's gotten pretty acidic already.

Anyway, I'm not saying this is the way to maintain a starter - it's just what works for me at this time in my life, at least for my primary whole wheat starter. (I also keep a rye starter and some white Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail starter in the fridge that I only take out when I want to bake special breads.)

I usually feed it twice a day, once in the morning and once again before bed. Sometimes I forget, though, and only feed it once a day, but it doesn't seem to mind much. I keep it at 60% hydration, which is pretty stiff, but I find it's less messy and stands up a bit better that the wet stuff would to a missed feeding here and there, due to my forgetful nature. Here's how I feed it (it's a 1-3-5 ratio for starter-water-flour).

In the morning, it looks like this.



It hasn't risen much, but it feels puffy, and when I break it open, it's clearly aerated inside.

It weighs about 45 grams, so I take 5 grams of it (about the size of a small marble) ...



... and put the rest in my fridge bowl. These leftovers will find their way into waffles or English muffins later in the week.



Then I add 15 grams of water and mush it up until it's soft and the water has turned somewhat milky in color.



Then I add 25 grams of whole wheat flour.



Finally, I mix it all up with a spoon, take it out and knead it a bit in my hands, which consists of folding it over on itself four or five times. I then roll it into a ball, snap on the lid and let it work.



That's it. I've found it's not that much of a hassle to feed it twice a day and is much less annoying than realizing I can't make a sourdough because I forgot to take my starter out of the fridge and feed it. Since the overnight sourdough I make requires just 40 grams of stiff starter, I'm pretty much always set.

Anyway, it works for me.

One note: for what it's worth, I haven't detected any difference in flavor or performance for the starter on the counter vs starter rev'd up from the fridge.

Second note: Since I'm working with stiff starter, I increase the liquid in both the sourdough muffins and waffles by about 1/4 cup or so.

Last year, before graduating and moving away from Berkeley, I collected two sourdough starters from bakeries that I loved and had special significance for me during my years there. I abided by the instructions for feeding and kept them alive for a few months, but after moving again, I had all but abandoned them in the back of the fridge (I believe they were last fed in late May 07). As expected, both seem to have the greyish appearance and a pool of liquid. I have read in a few places that it is possible to revive a starter after long periods of inactivity, but before I do that, I have two questions:

1. What would be the best procedure to bring them back to a healthy vibrant state? Should I just follow the instructions from each bakery for normal feeding until it appears back to normal, or is there a special treatment for neglected starters?

2. Once I have revived them, would they return back to their original states, or somehow be morphed into something different? Has anyone else had similar experience with reviving starters and remembers the qualities it had before and after?

Arthur the whole wheat starter smells like rotting vegetables. I don't know if it's the flour, the container, or ... something else, but the bread seems to be doing OK. We'll see if it tastes funky.

Anyone else had their starter suddenly smell ... yucky?

I think I've got a plan that will work, but wanted to run it by the gurus here before I act on it. I've come to love my 3 home-brewed starters very much (a whole wheat, a whole rye and a whole spelt), and would be really put out if I lost them in a cross-country move.

Here's the situation: I'm moving from Watertown, MA to Corvallis, OR on July 28. My wife will be flying out with our 3-year-old, but she'll be staying in a hotel until my father and I arrive sometime on Aug. 1 (probably very late) with the beds and the rest of our earthly belongings.

The plan: