Will all sourdough starters I make eventually taste the same?
Hi!
This is probably a stupid question, but I've just barely gotten up and running with sourdough, so bear with me. :)
I have a nice River Cottage rye sourdough starter bubbling away in my fridge (started with 1 cup dark rye flour and 1 cup bottled water), and I have a two day old culture of Reinhart's whole wheat flour/pineapple juice sitting my by counter looking slightly bewildered as a newborn baby. :) I eventually would like to turn the whole wheat starter into a white starter, but that's days away.
Having correctly or incorrectly read that sourdough starters take on the flavours of the environment that they are raised in (like kids), would there be a reason to make more than one type of white, or rye, or whole wheat starter? Wouldn't all my white or rye, or whole wheat starters eventually taste the same, theoretically, if they were raised in the same kitchen?
On one site I read a recipe for a starter that calls for milk, sugar, honey and beer - in my snobby newbie way I thought "*That's* not a real starter!", but is it? Would that be considered a "true" sourdough starter? I can see how that would add different flavours to a bread, but I thought a "real" starter was just flour and liquid.
I don't know who I'd be trying to impress with the "trueness" of a starter (I'm assuming there are no bread police, although on France, maybe.. :) ), but having read the well known bread books it seems that flour/liquid is thought of as the "real" way to produce a starter.
Any thoughts?