March 31, 2017 - 6:24am
Recipe conversions for starter
Good morning,
I have recently purchased the Roger Saul SPELT book and got my own sourdough starter going. Smells amazing!! I will be baking my first loaf with it today. Throughout the book, the recipes call for a certain quantity of either fresh yeast that we need to crumble, or the commercial dried version. What I would like to do is use my starter in those recipes. However I wouldn't know where to start to understand the quantity I should use. Is there a general rule? Maybe I am just not suppose to use that kind of yeast on most recipes? Any insight you could provide would be awesome.
Thank you!
Marie
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Here's a video on how to convert any yeast bread recipe to sourdough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUjj4wNSEb0
Spelt is a funny old flour. From what I've read (an experienced) there is an imbalance in the 2 main proteins that make up gluten - so it has lots of stretch but not as much spring back. So sometimes you'll see it pancake... Making it in a tin is sometimes easier... Yeasts (commercial or natural) also seem to thrive well with it too, so you might need a shorter ferment with a natural yeast (sourdough) than if you were using it in a wheat loaf.
How much sourdough starter to use... I use about 15% of the flour weight for a long, slow overnight ferment. I don't do stretch & folds, just a mix/knead and leave, then scale and shape in the morning, proof (in a banneton) and bake. My usual flour mix has 30% wholegrain spelt and 70% white. (I notice they sell a mix of 60% wholegrain and 40% white for bread making)
But that's my method - I worked it out to suit me and I make (and sell) a dozen or 2 sourdough spelt (& honey) loaves a week. It's a starting point, if nothing else - I also use much less water that you might in e.g. a Tartine style sourdough made with wheat. My mix works out at 62% overall hydration.
Cheers,
-Gordon
of the flour weight in the levain. !)% makes things - go slower and 20% makes things go faster. I tend to be on the lower side - this week 14% lest week 13%. Most recipes can be converted ti sourdough by taking 15% of the flour and the same weight of water t make the levain. Just remember to reduce the dough flour and water by that much to keep the total weights the same. It will take about 6-12 hours for the levain to double using a s small amount of starter. If you are using a built starter at 100% hydration the flour is half the weight so it is easy to calculate.
http://breadtopia.com/spelt-bread-recipe/
It's actually very easy to convert. But once you do convert a recipe it'll be a different bread. Now it'll be a sourdough. There are many ways to convert and each way will bring different results. Just take out the yeast, from the flour and water Pre-Ferment however much starter you wish to have and add that back in. It doesn't matter how much as in a Sourdough you can have any percentage you wish for as long as you watch the dough and not the clock. There's no one perfect conversion to get the same result as the yeasted otherwise why convert it? If you Pre-Ferment 10% then it'll take longer, and have a different profile, to prefermenting 20%.