The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Whole wheat vs White vs Rye Does your mature starter really care?

sournewb71's picture
sournewb71

Whole wheat vs White vs Rye Does your mature starter really care?

Do you keep multiple starters fed on different flours?  For example one starter that is fed only whole wheat, another that is fed only rye?  Have you noticed a difference using one starter or another for a particular recipe?

 

My whole wheat starter is healthy and real active but I've been using it in recipes that could be 50/50 ww:ap white or 100% ap white.  Does my starter really care if I'm using the same flour that I feed it with to make bread?

 

Curious to your experiences!

Postal Grunt's picture
Postal Grunt

It's easier to keep one active starter and build off of that stock. By the time you get to the third stage of a build, you'll effectively have a rye, WW, or white starter. If you have a production level need for a specific type of starter, by all means do build a seperate starter. However, someone baking for home consumption will find it easier, less expensive, and less time consuming to simply keep a healthy starter and go from there. Check the archived threads for more in depth posts on this subject.

tn gabe's picture
tn gabe

Have you tried the search fuction? Or browsing the sourdough forum? Try both and you should come up with lots of information and opinions on this subject.

My .02$: Yes and no. Can you use your white starter to levean rye bread and vise versa? Yes. Final product different? Of course. Look at some of the threads on WW starters for more on how changing flours can have unexpected results.

sournewb71's picture
sournewb71

Gabe:

Yes I used the search function and yes I did look through the archives.  Thanks.