September 18, 2017 - 7:49am
How many starters?
How many starters do you keep going? I maintain two, a 100% wheat and a 50/50 wheat/rye. Would I be fine to keep only the wheat starter and then make the leaven with either wheat or rye depending on the bread I want to make? Thanks!
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The pros and cons *for you* are very much a matter of your personal preferences, baking style and range, etc. Accordingly, I've had 1 to 3 starters at various times. IMO, no single number is universally best because I adjust the number to fit how and what I'm baking during any given period.
Every so often I make another more for the fun of it but eventually it gets amalgamated. Mine is 85g @ 50% hydration with 80% bread flour + 20% wholegrain (either whole heat or whole rye). When it gets down to 10g it'll get fed 25g water + 50g flour. With this I build off shoot starters/levains.
I have purchased starters from Ed Wood at Sourdough International. At one point I had 4 different starters each with their own characteristics. I currently have 2, a 50/50 white-rye mix and a 100% rye that I developed myself.
I have a regular sized fridge, but I keep a lot in it, so for me space is an issue.
Hadster
I keep two (one 100% rye, the other wheat). This is because I have one customer who won't eat wheat, and one who can't have any rye, so I keep them separate. The wheat one is generally 100% hydration and bread flour with frequent inoculations of either whole wheat or the bits sifted out of the whole wheat when making high extraction flour.
That said, I've played around with yeast water (have two of them in the fridge at the moment) and gluten free sourdough starter (failed, all of them).
50% hydration white wheat flour, brought back from my Bertinet course, and a 100% hydration rye starter which I've developed from that- first bake currently in the oven!
I have 3 starters. I made a starter from grapes grown in my daughters yard and converted it to AP flour. It still has a slight fruitiness to it after a few years and it performs well. Another starter I received as a gift from someone who had it for about 70 yrs. This starter also performs well but has almost died on me a few times over the last 5 yrs.
My favorite starter is Jack. I found him dried in a cellophane (remember that stuff) packet inside a ball jar and labelled as Sourdough Jack from San Francisco.This was a souvenir from the 60's. All the label and instructions were in the jar. I revived him and HOLY COW-he almost jumped out of the container when I added water and flour. But he smelled of rancid whole white wheat flour-the media that was used to dry him. I guess I'd stink if I went 50yrs without a bath! A few feedings cleaned him up and he is my best starter. He always comes through.
All my starters are kept in a pint jar about 100% hydration (thick batter consistency) and I use unbleached AP flour, being the cheapest. There is always about 1/2 cup in each jar so there is room to rise. If I want to make a rye sour, I take some starter and do a few days of rye feeding in a separate container to convert it over. Discards are often accumulated in a container and used for pancakes, added to any baking for flavor or made into crumpet-like rolls
I don't really need 3 starters but here I am.
It's nice to know what others are doing.
I feed all kinds of stuff that accidentally ferments with flour and water until it turns into a viable starter.
Right now I maintain (my work horse) whole wheat starter, my rye starter, a white kefir starter (bred from supermarket kefir), a super-active trub starter (bred from the sediment of my home-brewed beer).
I, also keep a portion of months-old dough in the fridge, to be used as a starter for Bauernbrötchen - Rustic Rolls with Old Dough
All those I use for different purposes, depending on the breads I bake.
Happy fermenting,
Karin
I will have to try the Bauernbrötchen!
all maintained in the fridge. The rye is at 65% hydration (I keep up to 60g total), the durum is at 65% hydration (I keep up to 60g total), and the oat is at 80% hydration (I keep up to 100g of this one - it stays better at the higher hydration and larger amount). With all of them, I pull off small quantities each week or two and build levains for the specific loaves that I want for that week, and then rebuild them to the "max" quantity once I've used up most of it.
With keeping such a small amount, I use little 120ml (1/2 cup) plastic containers, and it uses minimal fridge space.
Where I have an issue is being indecisive about what I'm going to bake each week, and sometimes end up making multiple levains or ones that end up being too large for what I finally decide on. The excess ends up in the fridge, too, and will leaven a bake later on, but has surprised me on occasion with a forgotten "extra" suddenly appearing from behind the pickles...
Realistically, I just like the security of having a few options going. I often build a levain with only 2g of flour from the starter, which is going to have negligible impact on the final loaf (major note - I'm not dealing with any allergies where it could be an issue).
It's neat to hear what others do!
I have never heard of using oats for a starter. Do you use it for GF?
since I haven't cleared my kitchen enough of gluten for me to feel safe about baking for someone with coeliac or gluten intolerance. I actually started it purely as an experiment, to see if it would work, and I have just kept it going! I thought it had died at one point, so took 10g of it and fed it some soft white wheat and water --- and it doubled faster than a matching levain from my rye starter...
It doesn't rise like other starters (no surprise - no gluten network to support the rise), so I started it at the same time as a durum starter and just matched timing and amounts. I've kept it going for almost 6 months so far, and know it well enough now to judge it by the texture and aroma (it has the sweetest scent of any of my starters when it is happy and fed), and mostly use it in bakes where I want that extra sweetness in the flavour. It does have some "rise" from the gases generated by the yeast, but you really have to watch for it. I use all freshly milled whole oats to maintain it.
It will work as the main leaven for a mostly wheat dough, and I also like to use it in hybrid rolls with a poolish for a faster bake. I deliberately build an excess of it on occasion, as I really enjoy what it adds to scones and muffins.
If you do any GF baking, and you think that a starter might work with it, then I can recommend giving this a go!
A white-flour sourdough culture I've had for over a decade, and a brand new yeast water that I just got going this summer. Haven't had a chance to bake yet with the YW, but I'm hoping to post the results when I do. I have high hopes - my test levains with it seem to be powerful stuff!
--Mike