April 23, 2016 - 11:45am
Baking bread with starters
I was wondering if there is a 'standard' quantity of starter used in bread baking. I have some tried & true yeast recipes that I love and would like to make them using the starter rather than the yeast.
Is there a substitution ratio of starter to yeast or do I have to seek out specific recipes using starter?
Thanks in advance!
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before trying to convert yeasted ones. This will let you get a sense for what range of sourness your starter(s) produce(s) depending on how much you use and various other factors as well as how SD dough behaves compared to yeasted. Keep in mind that converted recipes aren't exactly the same anyway; e.g. using SD changes the timing, not just the taste.
Thanks for the comments and advice!
is that at least 30% of the flour should be prefermented in order to eliminate the need for commercial yeast. In other words, if you're going the sourdough route, your overnight sponge should contain at least 30% of the recipe's total flour by weight.
Stan Ginsberg
theryebaker.com
Thirty percent prefermented flour is a good number for most cases, though you may find that you want to move away from there for specific reasons once you are sure you have it under control. Smaller numbers mean longer bulk fermentation times and generally a more sour bread (I have gone as low as 5%) and larger numbers (up to 50%) will still produce acceptable bread but the final fermenation will necessarily be shorter. If you are just beginning with sourdough, I would suggest that you actually add a little yeast to give yourself a crutch until you are certain that you don't need it. At 30% prefermented flour, you can let a 1:10:10 levain run for 16+ hrs and still get bread out of the oven about 5 hrs after you mix (assuming a warm room temperature of 75-78°F).