April 20, 2020 - 11:01pm
Putting my starter to bed
Ok... newby question. A few days ago I had two jars of (the same) starter in the fridge, one being "discard" from the other, about a week earlier... I combined them, fed the result, left it out overnight, and made some lovely buckwheat cakes with most of it the following morning. Then I fed the remaining starter... and ran into my question. After this feeding, should I let this now small bunch of starter grow for awhile at room temp, or should I immediately refrigerate it?
Put it to bed hungry or full?
Thanks, all......
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of life and then put it into chill. How long you let it ferment will vary with the maturity of the starter, the quantity, the hydration, and how much flour is fed and the temperature of the starter and the fridge temp.
A hungry starter will not last in the fridge as long as a fed one. Use within 24-36 hours.. How often you plan to use the fed starter will also make a difference in how it is fed.
if you plan to use it in a week or two, feed it, let it start to rise, say the increase is about 1/3 of the way to maximum rise, then chill. If you plan to use it sooner than 4 days, let it warm up and finish rising on the counter before using. If it is a rye starter, it may not rise much but the aromas and taste will tell you if it is mature enough to build a levain/sponge/preferment. Rye starters take up less room in the fridge as they expand less and get very stiff when chilled, more so than wheat starters.
You can also remove a small portion of the chilled starter and put it back into the fridge. With the spoonful of starter, feed and elaborate to make levain/sponge/preferment to use in recipe. When the fridge starter gets low, make some more, let it show signs of life and then chill. The advantage to this method is that you prevent yourself from accidentally using all the starter in a recipe (thus starting a new starter) and you keep only enough starter for your needs. Very little waste of flour.
Thanks!