The Fresh Loaf

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How much starter is too little?

ghazi's picture
ghazi

How much starter is too little?

Hello everyone

It has been a while since I posted on here. Work catches up on you sometimes. Have been baking when I can ALL wholegrains as usual

How much starter can you use when making 100% wholegrain loves. i.e : spelt, rye, WW

Is putting in 2- 5% of flour weight just too little?

Also when feeding my starter I kept leaving less behind, to about a 1g leftover I added 70g of flour and water to about 65 - 80% hydration. are these flour/food ratios too high and will give me undesirable results? I say this because just recently my doughs have been breaking apart very quickly after kneading for only 5 minutes

Thanks

Ghazi

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

But I've found my starter getting imbalanced and changing when going higher than a 1 to 20 (starter to flour) feed.  I think using less than 5% starter to flour weight is dangerous for the stability of the starter.  One or two such feeds to rescue a starter, say like when using only the scrapping of a starter jar shouldn't do too much damage as long as the starter is allowed to complete the feed to maturity, build up it's bacterial defensive army before the next feeding when more not so desired bacteria are introduced with the incoming food.

When over feeding goes on for any length of time (dilution if not allowed to mature)  and when the inoculation is under 5g (a tiny amount for the eyes to observe) the watching of the starter becomes difficult under standard home kitchen conditions.     Overfeeding and small inoculations are both time consuming and extremely difficult to maintain protective pH levels in the starter to ensure proper yeast to bacterial growth.     Just as there can be too little food for growth there can also be too much.  

I suspect the culture will change to one that can reproduce under the conditions you have set up for it.  Weather or not that is good for bread baking is another question.  If your dough is breaking apart, it doesn't sound good. 

I also suspect that if the culture has been taken over by other types of bacteria & yeast reversing the process may be difficult if not not impossible.  You may have to develop the dough gluten without the culture, adding it later with a short rise time or ...

You could very easily have very high Thiol levels in the starter.  

You might have to start another culture from scratch.  (The quickest and most economical solution, I think) 

Mini

 

ghazi's picture
ghazi

Mini O . Its always nice to hear your thoughts. I will keep feeding it again in the range of 1:5:4 starter:flour:water and hope it gets back up to its old self. Its so easy to get carried away. But I guess one has to learn someway or the other

I get very jealous seeing your delicious rye creations, im still getting used to that grain. Is it OK to use say 30g of starter for every 400g flour when 100% rye?

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

then I would hope the starter is strong enough to get the loaf up quickly.    Might want to build the starter in several steps.

I like to push and test the limits too.  :)  Wouldn't be fun if I didn't.   

Do you have some favourite spices you can combine with rye?

ghazi's picture
ghazi

3 starters at room temp, trying not to fridge. They get fed almost every day or 2. Well the spelt in 1 day because its so quick.

I ususally get lift with the leavain. Going to try with minimum starter and see how flavor turns out. Somehow im not disappointed if it doenst spring to the max just as long as the falvor is there.

Spices,, yes your combination for the rye with waluts is the one I like (those chia seeds are so expensive). I have this herb called zaatar, its basicallty dried thyme and some other local herbs. Could be worth mixing in. Or sometimes I just think its better to be plain, though rye does lend itself very well together with herbs +spice

 

davidg618's picture
davidg618

Also I maintain, or more accurately replace, two starters: one a 100% wheat starter fed only KA bread flour, and a 100% Rye Sour fed Hodgkin Mill's whole rye. I manage each differently.

My goal with the wheat starter is a modest sourness, and robust oven spring. Conversely, I rely on my Rye Sour to contribute sourness and flavor. Some doughs I also rely on it's yeast content to supply all the leavening, but more frequently I augment the dough with IDY for dough expansion and oven spring.

Nonetheless, based on a recommendation  from Debra Wink, TFL's resident micro-biologist. I don't refresh either starter, I periodically (every 1 or 2 weeks) replace them entirely. The wheat starter I replace weekily. The Rye Sour I replace every 12 to 14 days.  Heres's my routine for each.

Wheat starter: I regularly bake sourdough loaves weekly. A typical 1500g sourdough formula specifies 250g of 100% natural levain. I build the levain with three eight-hour builds over a twenty-four hour period at room temperature (72°F to 76°F) starting with 40g of refrigerated starter, fed 2:1:1 progressively every eight hours. At the conclusion I have 320g of 100% hydrated ripe natural levain. 250g is committed to the dough, 40g is fed 1:1:1, and  divided into two 60g batches which entirely replaces the previous weeks saved starter in two small jars. (I keep a redundant amount of my wheat starter because its very important to my bread baking.) The few grams of levain remaining from the 320g of ripe levain are discarded, along with any refrigerated starter from the previous week.

Rye Sour: I manage the the Rye Sour similarly, but not exactly the same. Depending on how much rye bread I bake in a two week period--usually no more than two loaves--I build the required amount of fresh levain (this varies widely from as little as 10% to as much as 50% of the formula's flour depending on the formula I'm baking) in two builds fed 2:1:1 for 12 hours at room temperature. After 24 hours I commit the required ripe levain to the dough, and feed the remainder 1:1:1 with whole rye flour refrigerating it immediately replacing whatever starter remained from the previous two-weeks. I routinely refrigerate 150g of new Rye Sour, and draw from it for the next two weeks when I repeat this routine.  If I don't bake rye bread during a two week period I still build 150g of fresh Rye Starter and completely replace my Rye Sour.

I build both wheat and rye levains 2:1:1 to minimize the pH change in the new mix while limiting the growth of new levain to a practical limit of 24 hours.

I've been doing this for approximately three years with consistent results week after week.

David G

 

 

ghazi's picture
ghazi

Thank you for your input. its always nice to hear how other people approach SD. Im going top keep the feeding down to between 1:5:4 and 1:10:8. this way I don't bounce out of the ball park .

I was told to build slowly multiple times, though if I keep at room temp all the time and when its ready I guess there os no need to keep bulindg every 4 hours or so.

pH is something I am still learning abourt and is very crucial. Makes sense to minimize pH change maybe that was exactly what I was doing and why my doughs where falling apart (holey) 5 minutes into kneading

Great info, thanks for sharing:)