The Fresh Loaf

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A Tale Of Two Starters, And A Couple Of Questions

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

A Tale Of Two Starters, And A Couple Of Questions

The one on the left is all rye @ 100% hydration and is less than 36 hours old. I'm pleased with it's progress so far. The right one, 1/2 & 1/2 APW and WW @ 100% hydration, I started 5 days ago, but thought I had killed it day before yesterday when I had a brain fart and fed it with tap water. It had absolutely no activity for 24 hours after the tap water, but I fed it again and it's obviously come back to health. (Past 2 weeks we've had water line breaks in our municipality with boil orders in place. I'd guess chlorine levels are probably up so I've normally been using bottled water.

On the left one, you can see a faint black mark, indicating the level when I fed it. On the right one, the rubber band shows the same. Last feeding was ~ 9 hours ago.

My questions are probably answered in one of the hundreds, maybe thousands of guides out there (many that are contradictory) so I'm asking the fine knowledgeable folks here for advice.

  1. In the rye one, 100% hydration makes a paste of a consistency similar to drywall mud, maybe thicker. Will it harm anything if I go higher with water, like 125% or higher to get it thinner?
  2. Once both starters are mature, can I use the same feeding and / or maintenance schedule for both (albeit with proper flours), if only for simplicity? 

As a note, Wifey thinks I've lost it altogether believing I'm going to use this paste to leaven bread. He he he

Good night all, 1:19 AM here and time for bed, or good morning if you're in that part of the world.

Jamie

drogon's picture
drogon

FWIW: I've only ever used tap water - however my tap water is quite nice - lightly chlorinated (not chloramine). It's also slightly acidic which you'ld never be able to tell unless you boiled 1000s of litres of it in big kettles - which the local steam railway folks do... However if you've been instructed to boil your water, then I'd go with that first until they tell you otherwise - just make sure it's cooled down before using it...

My Rye is kept at 150% hydration. It's pourable out of the jar...

I'm using mine 5 days a week, so I have no maintenance - they come out of the fridge, a quantity removed from the jar, flour & water added to make the production levian (1:2:2 for the wheat one) the jars are then topped up and left with the bowls of levian then back in the fridge a few hours later. When I go away they just stay in the fridge with no special actions.

Sometimes I use it directly from the fridge though.

Almost time to make some bread :-)

-Gordon

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

May I ask why you use 1:2:2 for your wheat starter, and also what is the makeup of that one?

drogon's picture
drogon

... because that's the way I've always done it. It works for me and the arithmetic is easy. I take the quantity of levian I need, divide by 5, one fifth is starter from the jar, 2/5 is flour and 2/5 water - mix, wait, use.

My wheat starter has white wheat flour in it. (Right now it's organic white from FWP Matthwews) It's at 100% hydration - again easy arithmetic - I take 250g out, I put back 125g flour + 125g water, and so on.

I did a lot of experimentation when I started making sourdough and 3 years ago when I started doing it daily, I did some more experimentation - it actually took me a month or 2 to work out a schedule that really worked well - made good bread that people wanted to buy and didn't require me to be up at silly AM to make it either, nor tend to it every 30 minutes... The end result is easy sums and my "low impact" method.

-Gordon

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)
"The right one, 1/2 & 1/2 APW and WW @ 100% hydration, I started 5 days ago, but thought I had killed it day before yesterday..."

 

This is quite normal. After the initial bubbling up all goes quiet. The first signs of activity is from bacteria which you don't want. This is called the leuconostoc stage. Then when fed again it is usual for all to go quiet and this is where everyone thinks they've killed it. Not so! While it looks as if everything has gone south this is the stage where your starter is sorting itself out. The PH level is dropping and yeasts are taking hold. This is a critical stage and with careful maintenance and patience it'll begin to bubble up again and your starter is born. Many people, in this quiet stage, lose patience and think they've killed it or try to revive it by going into a feeding frenzy. Trick is to wait till the starter comes back to life, after quieting down with the last feed, and then start the feeding schedule again. Once it bubbles up with consistency, is strong and smells good then it is ready.

You can keep starters at whatever hydration you prefer. Yes a rye starter will feel different to a wheat starter at the same hydration. They will behave differently too. Different flavours and will mature at different times all else being equal. What you prefer to do is your own choice. Dryer starters which encourage acetic acid will have more tang and will ferment slower. Good for weak gluten flours as they add strength. Wetter starters will encourage a different sour, lactic acid, more like yoghurt and will ferment quicker. Rye gives great depth of flavour as do other wholegrains. I keep one starter (70% bread flour, 20% whole-wheat, 10% whole rye @ 80% hydration) and build pre-ferments all from that one mother starter. Some people keep many starters going but I prefer to have just the one and to build different levains from that.

I bet no two people have the same maintenance schedule. It all depends on how you use and keep your starter. Two bakers, 3 opinions! Find out what works for you and your starter.

"Once both starters are mature, can I use the same feeding and / or maintenance schedule for both (albeit with proper flours), if only for simplicity?"

 

Proper flours?

 

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

I said proper flours and I guess the proper word would have been "respective". When talking same maintenance and feeding I still want to keep the rye @ 100% rye and the other 50/50 to find the difference between the end results of the starters. I have read many times that there will be differences, apparently even using the same % of identical flours will give different results in different locations. 

As for the one I thought I killed, while I knew there was a period of significantly less action 2-4 days after starting, I had the understanding that there would be some visible activity from the bacteria. 

My WW/AP blend one smells pleasantly of yeast with a sweetness behind it this morning while the younger rye one has a funky odour to it which I guess will go away in a day or two. 

Now above you indicated when the starter is ready, I have a question about the float test. 

I will assume before doing the float test you woukd stir it to knock some gas out and thicken it up? When mine is expanded 100% +, it's very liquid and runny and would probably just dissapate in water. 

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

Yes, "respective" :)

I was wondering what you meant. By all means keep two starters and enjoy comparing with both. This is one reason why I love sourdough as you can manipulate the flavour a lot by changing your maintenance, flour, hydration, temperature etc. Far more so than a commercial yeasted bread.

Everyone will have a slightly different experience. Some starters just go from strength to strength from day one. Others might have a quieter period on day 2-3. Other starters might not have any observable changes in those days then spring to life on days 4-5. This is why it is difficult to give an exact recipe for creating a starter as one has to go by feel but when you're just starting off it is difficult to do that.

Your Wheat one sounds and looks ready. Your rye starter sounds as if it needs a bit more time.

When it comes to the float test would you believe I've never done one even though it is a very good indication of when it's ready. I've gone by how it looks and when it peaks. Sometimes even by smell when I've made a very high hydration starter and it doesn't really rise that much. But the float test is to see that the yeasts are creating enough gas strong enough to leaven the dough. I wouldn't knock the gas out and definitely not thicken it up (as you'll just be feeding it again and the next feed should be the actual dough) as the gas is the indicator.

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

Thank you once again.

As stated several other places in this forum, there's a reason this site is at the top of so many bread related internet searches.

Tonight I'll be starting my first sourdough loaf, Susan's Simple recipe.

Jamie

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

What does this tell me? I did a search and read a few posts, one that said I should move to 1:2:2 feeding, but didn't say after 2 hours, 4, or let it rise fully, deflate, and then do the feeding!?!?!?!?

 

drogon's picture
drogon

... it's time to make bread.

Try this if you've got nothing better to do ;-)

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/44111/easy-sourdough-part-1

-Gordon

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

BAKE!

bigcrusty's picture
bigcrusty

Hi JamieOF,

I have used 125% hydration on my rye starter and it worked fine with tap water I stored out to let all chlorine evaporate.  Made great bread.  Now I use tap water out for 24 hours then add raisins at 100% hydration.  I refresh it once a week.  Bread comes out great as well.  I keep a rye, white and wheat sour separately all with the same hydration.  I also make a Polish Country Bread which uses both a rye and white sour as my leavain along with a rye soaker.

When my starters were new I did refresh more often to get them a good start.  Once started once per week has proven enough.  I keep 400 -500 grams of rye and white and around 250 grams of wheat.

 

Regards,

 

Big Crusty

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

Just took this out of the oven. I'll post pictures of the crumb after it cools and I cut it.

Again, thanks to all for your advice, be it in this thread or elsewhere in the site.

Jamie

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

Lovely crust and an ear.

This is your first sourdough loaf?

Looking forward to the crumb shot and taste report.

JamieOF's picture
JamieOF

......and this was was made from the 1/2-1/2 WW & AP starter shown above.

The crackle and pop from the crust is calling me, but I'm intent on letting it cool to room temperature first before cutting it.

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

It's worth the wait. And what's good about sourdough is the flavour continues to improve into the next day.

I like this loaf :)