October 5, 2018 - 12:39am
Hydration and levain
Hello.
I have been reading on this forum for a little while now and playing with the 123 method. The loaves are getting better each time.
Making a starter was no problem, I used some kefir in the first mix and it's happy and bubbly, 100% hydration.
Since I don't like white bread I have been using 100g organic wholemeal flour and 200g organic baker's white in the last step. And thinking the dough is a bit dry and difficult to fold.
Realized that higher hydration is needed, but how much? Thought I'd try something like 220g instead of the 200g of water...?
And what is the purpose of making a levain? Can't I just use 100g of my starter, mix up the dough and do the bulk ferment overnight?
Thank you for such an informative forum.
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It all depends on how you use your starter. There is no problem in keeping a 100% hydration starter, giving it a feed and taking some off to use in your dough.
But many here like to keep a starter just as a seed. The way how I like to think of my starter is like a petri dish where a store the yeasts and bacteria. I only keep a small amount and it's not really built specifically for any particular recipe in mind. and I never keep more then 80g - 100g grams at any one time.
When I wish to bake i'll take a little starter and build an off-shoot starter more specific to the recipe I'm doing, aka a levain.
So I keep my starter separate and introduce a step which we call a levain. This enables me to keep a small amount of non specific starter and build a more purposeful starter in larger quantities with hydration, flour and flavour in mind.
It is also good practice because if anything goes wrong then you've got a back up like forgetting to keep some back.
But by all means taking some starter and using it directly in the dough is fine and of course will work. But if your starter is 100% hydration whole-wheat and you want an 80% hydration bread flour starter then you might wish to build a levain.
To be absolutely clear, Abe, I follow a very similar procedure, and I am wondering how often you refresh your starter? I keep a 100% white starter and a 75% brown starter. For the white, I refresh every couple of weeks, basically when there's almost none left in the jar. For the brown, I refresh every build (usually one a week, sometimes every two weeks) because my first step is always a 75% build. So I use the whole thing, about 50g, refresh with 100g flour and 75g water, and then remove 50g before carrying on.
I keep a 70% hydration whole rye starter. When it gets down to a few grams i'll feed it 35g water + 50g whole rye flour. allow it to double then refrigerate. It can last a few weeks this way. Although at just 85g (ish) of starter invariably it gets refreshed every couple of weeks. I find a low hydration whole rye starter to be very hardy and doesn't need as much TLC as a wheat starter which, when I had one in the past, seemed to develop hooch a lot quicker.
My starter sits at the back of the fridge unless I need to take some off for a levain build or it needs to be refreshed. I use to refrigerate it before doubling but it works better, for my starter at least, to give it more bench time when feeding to allow it to build up the yeast population otherwise it gets sluggish. Not feeding very often, giving it a single feed and returning it too soon to the fridge meant it was never given time to have a proper feed (some like to build up their starters in a few stages). I used to be worried that it won't last as long in the fridge this way but it fares very well. It's low hydration plus I don't build enough that it goes too long between feeds. And it has more flavour too.
Thanks for the corroboration. We seem to be doing something right.
Thank you for that explanation, Abe. I'm still very new to SD bread and trying to understand the different techniques. ?
Hi Daisylover, I saved this link because it so beautifully explains why in most cases, there are three steps, starter, levain, and final dough, even if it is perfectly possible to skip the levain build.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com//node/15657/sourdough-stages#comment-101215
Happy baking
treesparrow
Thank you for that link, I'll have a look shortly.
I'm making a loaf at the moment, skipping the levain and upping the hydration and the bulk ferment is looking good. Have folded a couple of times.