Am I Doing it Right????
I need to know if I am feeding my starter the right way. My directions say to feed it at room temp its weight in flour and water at a 1 to 1 ratio for three feedings 8 to 12 hours apart. Then I can bake with it. So here is what I m doing...
I start with 4 oz starter. 1st feeding I add 2 oz flour/2 oz water
Second feeding I add 4 oz flour/4 oz water
Third feeding I add 8 oz flour/8 oz water.
This should yield 4 cups starter. My question is do I keep feeding the day one amount for all three feedings? Or do I increase the feeding amount each time like I have it written? The directions say to feed it at room temp its weight in flour and water so that to me means weigh it EVERY time before you feed it, therefore the amount being fed will increase. Anybody have any input for me, I could use some help. Thanks!
As long as your ratios stay the same, your leaven will be fine texture wise. If youre only just building your starter, then room temp is better, once youre up and going in the fridge is fine and you can feed it straight from there. The weighing is usually for the flour and water that you add, unless the just want you to keep an eye on the overall volume.
The feeding should be relative to the weight of what you start with for that feeding cycle.
especially when first developing the starter you should discard some before the feeding, so you don't waste as much flower. Who is to say that after feeding it 3 times it is ready? Now you have 4 cups of the stuff and need 16 oz of flour to feed it again.
So what you can do instead is start with 4 oz and feed it with 4 oz water and 4 oz flour.
Then next time you feed it, discard 8 oz and feed it again using 4 oz water and 4 oz flour.
Thank you ordep for reading my question and answering it. The starter bubbles up and looks active when feeding it like I listed. I am using Reinart's Crust and Crumb Barm recipe. I made it last week and made bread from it which turned out with the hardness of a bowling ball. His directions are very specific for making the barm but vague on feeding it. My starter for that first bake must not have been quite strong enough to rise the bread, but I could have done other things also to mess it up. I will bake another batch and let you know how it does. Thanks.
It is possible to get bubbles without yet having a good starter going on. The bubbles could be from bacteria activity and there might not yet be a yeast culture established in the starter.
You might need a few more feedings, keeping the 1:1:1 ratio before the starter is ready.