Starter for Almost No Knead Bread?
Hi. New here, new to bread making. I've just baked my fourth No Knead loaf. The first two were Jim Lahey's basic recipe. The crust and crumb were good, but I thought their flavor was a little one-dimensional. The next two were from the Cook's Illustrated Almost No Knead recipe (Jan 2008). Big improvement in flavor, texture still good, higher crown.
The purist in me really likes the idea of using only flour, water, salt and yeast. The Cook's Illustrated recipe uses vinegar and beer to improve the flavor. I'm wondering if, instead of vinegar and beer, I get a nice complex flavor by using a starter/biga. Has anyone tried encorporating a starter into the No Knead or Almost no Knead recipes? If so, how to do this? How much starter to use? How would you adjust the ingredient quantities?
Thanks for your help,
Michael