Flour recommendations

or need - for what ever bread you are making and only keep one starter.  I keep a 60-65% hydration rye starter as the only one in the fridge besides a yeast water starter.  If I want to bake a rye bread, I feed a seed from the starter whole rye and might stick in some grated onion in the mix too if we want a rye sour.  If I'm making WW, I build the levain using whole wheat.  If it is a white bread then I use white flour to feed the seed.   I only have 80 g of stock starter in the fridge after feeding so I usually take 10 g of it to make the levain and build to 100% hydration from that.   I don't throw anything away as I build a levain.  If I am making a 1,000g loaf of bread and want 20% to be levain, 200 g, I would build the levain in 1,  2 or 3 stages. 

 A 1 stage build would be 10 g of starter, 95 g each of flour and water - use when it doubles. A 2 stage would be 10 g of seed plus 35 g of water and flour, let that double and then add 60 g of water and flour and let that double before using.  A 3 stage levain build would be 10 g of seed starter with 20 g each of flour and water till double.  Then add  30 g of flour and water until double then add 45 g each of flour and water and let that double.   If the levain builds double in 6-12 hours (summer and winter)  then no worries.

More stages means means longer time developing the levain and usually more the sour imparted into the  bread depending at what temperature your levain is developing in.  Plus there is no waste and throwing levain away at its peak.

I have also had really good sourdough results using 1 g of seed and 100 each of flour and water and letting it develop at room temperature until it doubles - usually 24 hours in the summer. 

Keeping one starter at a lower hydration in the fridge and turning it into what ever you want without throwing anything away really saves time and money in the long run.  It works well for me anyway but probably not for everyone.  Some breads require special starters but you can build them from your seed in the fridge when needed as well.

Happy  Baking

I am with dabrownman!

I keep one starter that I rebuild for eaqch recipe/grain that I need to use. Mine is a 100% white/WW.

Paul