Starters with Bread Flour ...(vs AP)
Hello all,
Glad to say the starter is well.
I decided to start my starter/maintain with Unbleached Bread Flour. Thanks all to answering my questions.
I decided on bread flour before I knew/read that it has an extra protein-and from what I understand from reading and reading other posts on this site...
bread flour gives you sort of harder crust/chewey loaves while AP may give you the regular bread feel ...
Will I have any issues with my starter is maintained with bread flour--one website said to just maintain with the same 100% (so same amount flour as to water) PLUS 1 tablespoon water.......so far im just doing 50/50 water and flour and havent done the extra tablespoon with each feeding but i think its too early to tell
I have not seen this anywhere else and wondering if this extra 1 tablespoon addition is TRUE? and what would happen if I add it/or dont? Any thoughts?
I have a bread flour starter - it is super active and strong and works great. I feed it same water as flour.
I don't think it will make much difference when using bread flour for your starter. Matters more what flour you add to it to make your dough.
As for the water. All a tablespoon more will do is make your starter more watery. Personally, I keep my starter at 100% hydration which is the same amount of flour and water by weight.
If you read about starters on the Internet I think you will notice that everyone who is an authority has their own particular preferences for what work best, but actually you can conclude that starters can live quite happily within a fare range of combinations.
So little of your starter ends up in the final loaf that the difference between bread flour an all-purpose is unlikely to make any appreciable difference.
There is absolutely nothing magical about the suggested extra tablespoon of water that you have seen suggested. As KathyF says, it will just make your starter slightly more runny.
Depending on how much flour and water you are using to get a 50/50 mix, adding an extra tablespoon of water to the starter will give you, say, 115% to 130% hydration (assuming that 1 tbsp water = 15g), for example:
[NB: I've omitted the starter that would also be added to the flour and water, just to demonstrate the principles]
I think there is something to be said, particularly when starting out, to keep the ratios simple. Stick to 100% hydration, because it's simpler to remember the ratios… and of course to do things by weight, not by volume measures (1 cup of water is heavier than 1 cup of flour). Maintaining starters by volume will still work ok too, of course, but the measurements of dry ingredients are less predictable.
Very runny starters have the disadvantage of being relatively heavy, and therefore not producing as much of a visible increase in volume as they ripen as you'd get at 100%. If you want a nice example, try producing a build at a low hydration, say 60%, and notice how much of a rise you get with very visible bubbles (the down-side being that it's much harder to mix a low hydration starter).
I'm going to post this and see if at least 5 other people swear that a different percentage hydration would be much better… this will just help show that starters have a fairly wide range of tolerance to work successfully.
Happy baking! Colin.