September 10, 2017 - 7:22pm
Feeding the starter after removing some
Quick question, my sourdough bread recipe calls for 2 1/3 cups of sourdough starter. Once I remove this quantity from my sourdough starter, when feeding the starter, do I need to add back the same quantity I have removed? Can it be less/more?
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Many posters here are professionals, at one level or another, and need to have larger quantities ready to go. Many are home bakers and bake frequently so they have a decent amount ready also. If you're not making sourdough bread that frequently, you can keep a much smaller quantity.
Dabrownman, who was a prolific baker and contributor to this site until recently came up with a technique for storing and using a small amount of starter which eliminated a lot of the waste associated with feeding starters. He called it the No Muss No Fuss Starter plan. You should check it out.
how much you want to keep on hand can vary with how you prefer to bake. If you want to mix the starter straight into the dough, you basically need to keep enough starter to do so. So for example, to have 2 cups ready to use, you need to keep a bit more than that.
Personally, I usually use 100-120 gm per bake, so I keep 150, which is nowhere near 2 cups.
If I wanted to keep less starter than my usual amount, I could do that. One trade-off would be either that for each bake, I'd have to make a levain first, before mixing it into the final dough, or switch to a recipe / method that only uses a tiny amount e.g. do nothing bread.