June 12, 2017 - 10:12am
Scaling starter recipes
I see lot of recipes for when making a starter use a very large amount of flour, for example 5 pounds in the Tartine book. Is it possible to make a starter using a lot less? Say 30g whole wheat, 30g white flour and 60g water? And then feeding it with a 1:2:2 ratio afterwards, so you would always have a total of 150g of starter at a time. Is there a reason to use such large amounts of flour for a starter? The recipe I use typically calls for only 50g of starter for a single loaf..
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I think the most discussed subject on this forum pertains to starters. You will find a lot of information if you use the search engine. As to scaling the answer is yes, scale as needed.
I am currently following a method from Trevor Wilson at www.breadwerx.com and it is a 1:2:4 formula. I use 1 part mother, 2 parts water and approximately 4 parts AP flour. I leave it to rest in a 72 - 78 F environment and usually within 8 - 12 hours it has tripled in size. I put the result in the refrigerator and pull from it over a week's time. As the supply gets low I do the process all over again.
This has worked very well for me.
Jim
Thanks! I just didn't quite understand why it's recommended to use 5 pounds of flour to start a starter, and was wondering if there's a certain benefit to working in larger volumes?
Well, if you are Chad Robertson and building a levain for a day's bake run, I expect 5 lbs. of flour would be about right. Let's do the math.
First I need to convert to grams so 5 lbs. of flour equals 2,270 grams. Match that with water for a 100% hydration and you now have 4,540 grams. Add in a 10% quantity of the mother and you now have approximately 5,000 grams of levain.
If your levain represents 20% of your final mix the total amount of dough will be 25,000 grams. Divide that by 1,000 grams per loaf and you now have 250 loaves of bread at about 1.75 lbs. per loaf after baking.
My guess is that would be a conservative baking day for the Tartine Bakery!
I think the only reason you would have such a large starter is to make many loaves at once. Or if you're regularly using recipes (non-bread foods like waffles, pancakes) that call for 1-2 cups of starter. Generally those recipes are using the starter for flavor. But even still, I find that way too much.
I am like you... I maintain a starter of 150g. This is perfect for me as I only bake one or two loaves at a time. I feed once or twice a week, and use my discard to make something if I can't manage to get bread done. And if the recipe calls for more than I have, I will simply up my flour/water accordingly.
Forkish does the same thing. I do mine similar to what you describe. You can then build it up to what you need for the formula.
I've never used more than a couple teaspoons flour and enough water to make a loose paste consistency when creating a starter. No scale needed. I'd imagine someone making a ton of bread would need a lot of starter, so someone may need that much. Many here bake for their own consumption and have no need for lots of starter.
I only keep a couple hundred mls in the fridge, take what I need for a sponge, toss in a little water and flour to feed, then back into the fridge a little while later. Search for nmnf starter - basically the above with more details.
Scale all you like just keep the same ratios for all ingredients.
You are correct in your thinking that many recipes build and waste far too much.
Just wanted to chime in that I normally keep only 25 to 30 grams of starter in the fridge. It builds very quickly, so you don't need to keep a lot on hand.