Sourdough experiment....
So...I baked off the Poilane miche from "Bread Baker's Apprentice". I used my mother starter (which is unbleached white flour). I also used 50/50 water/milk liquid in final dough. A squirt of honey, and a bit of olive oil were my enhancements. The final bread is a about 50/50 whole wheat/unbleached white...a little heavier on the whole wheat. When making the final dough, I mixed firm starter with 4 hour autolyse flour and water/milk. Before adding honey, olive oil, or salt I set aside an amount of dough for firm starter for the next day from the miche dough. Then I added the honey, olive oil, and salt and continued with the kneading, fermentation, shaping, and baking....and simultaneously left the firm starter (dough from recipe) out for about four hours until it almost doubled, then I put it in the refrigerator to use the next day......I've read a couple of times that Poilane mentions that the bakers use dough from the previous day to leaven the bread. The first day I baked the free form miche style (@3 pounds), but I had to use a glass bowl for the shaping that isn't round. The next day, I used the dough (firm starter?) from the previous day, and baked bread loaves. Well, I'm pleasantly surprised with the results.....I would even venture that the dough (firm starter) that I used for the loaves was a bit more energetic...just by feeling. It seems that if one were to bake every day, or every other day that keeping a starter would be redundant???? maybe???? If one always increased their sourdough recipes to have a good portion of firm starter from the dough for the following days, they wouldn't have to keep up with starters/barms??? Any knowledge in this area? I've only been doing sourdough for about 3 weeks, and I'm usually impressed with my starter, but the dough (firm starter?) seemed to be even a smidgeon (scientific term) more energetic. Here are som photos....the free form is starter, and the loaves are dough (firm starter?) from the recipe the day before.