April 13, 2016 - 2:04am
Rye Starter: multiuse?
For the last couple of years I've stayed with a Strong White flour starter I got going. It never really struck me as firing on all six and though the bread it/I produced seemed okay... I let it lapse, had frozen samples in the freezer.
I had some very old rye flour knocking about and thought I would try and get a starter going with that. Boy, talk about rocket fuel. After less than a week I had a bubbly mass pushing the lid..
So baked a 1/3 Rye and 2/3 Strong white and it went really well.
My Question is: with a rye starter are there any limitations on what I can use it with, in the sense of starter/rye/white/other flour ratios?
Many thanks
Hj
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the flour is a sponge is simply a nutrient medium for the resident microorganisms, i.e., yeast and lactobacilli, so as a practical matter, anything that supplies sugars and/or starches plus the enzymes to bread them down, will do nicely. The fact that your sponge took off on rye attests to rye's significantly greater carbohydrate content than wheat and the presence of native amylase enzymes that can break the starches down.
Stan Ginsberg
theryebaker.com
I was maintaining two starters, rye and white, but I found that I mixed them every time for better builds / flavor in the bread. Anyway, I finally had a moment when I realized I didn't have to maintain both. I mixed them and now maintain one starter that is half rye, half white and 100% hydration (it is the best way for me to adapt to recipes and do the math at my stage of the game). I just keep a one quart container of mixed rye/white flour to use as feeder material.