Understanding the feeding process
As I delve into sourdough more, I'm still finding myself a bit confused on my starter. I've kept and used my starter for 8 years now, it's healthy and lovely and a joy to bake with, but I really hadn't experimented much.
Most of the time, I simply keep a very small portion of starter in the fridge, of which I discard all but 25 grams each morning, and feed it with 1/2 white and 1/2 einkorn wheat.
When I want to bake with it, I take 25 grams of it and add enough flour water the night before to bring it to the required amount (usually about 200 grams or so, and bake with. From that, I reserve 25 grams, feed it, and put it back in the fridge.
Some recipes call for a lot more starter. I've read people will feed their culture 2 or 3 times over the course of a couple days to increase it that much.
My question is, what is the difference in doing that, versus just adding my 25 grams of culture to a larger volume of water/flour, overnight?
If you feed your starter then take some off to use or take some off to build with then use? I would think the difference between a six and 2 threes.
Why would you do one or a the other? I think it all depends on how you prefer to keep, use and manage your starter.
There are pros and cons to both.
I prefer to keep a little mother starter and take some off to build preferments with. When the mother starter runs low i'll top it up. This allows me to keep my mother to my requirements and build preferments (which become a starter when used in a recipe) to a different hydration and/or flours. I also find it easier to manage and have no discard.
How you keep and use your starter will affect the make up of your starter and alter the profile.
If the starter has been in the refrigerator, then it can take a couple feedings to "wake up". In that case, doing a 2 or 3 phase build makes more sense. It kind of depends on how long it has been in the refrigerator as well.
I see... I think. I guess I'll just continue the way I've been doing it for so long, as it works well.
For my usual Fridays bake, I need to make more starter than I have "mother" for in one jar, so typically I'll need 900g of starter plus 1800g flour and 1800g water (1:2:2 is my usual way). Since my fridge jars only keep about 550g, I mix 450g of wheat and 450g of spelt to get that 900g starter then add the (wheat) flour, leave it 5 hours and use it. Seems to work.
However I've wondered - what if I took 180g starter and added in 2160 flour and 2160 water and left that for 10 hours... Not sure I want to risk 50+ loaves to test it though...
-Gordon
Exactly Gordon! :)
of starter to flour and well within a "can do" amount of increasing the starter. It will be a little more sour than when using two steps.