September 21, 2017 - 9:35am
SD starter being gummy?
Here's a question for you guys. I typically feed my starter with rye flour. At the request of a friend, she asked that I feed it with whole wheat flour instead. I've noticed a weird texture difference between the two. Is it normal for the whole wheat starter to be super gummy? I have the hydration at 100% for that. My experience with white and whole wheat flour is that it usually tends to be more soupy, rather than gummy as opposed to the rye, which is light and fluffy.
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If it is a commercial 'whole wheat' flour it is likely to be pretty much processed white flour with a bunch of bran added back in. Not sure what you mean by 'gummy' (words are so difficult when describing starter texture!), but a 100% wheat starter can have quite a lot of gluten strands in it.
If I make a starter with whole milled whole wheat flour (wheat goes in the hopper and whatever comes out the other end is in the flour) the texture is more like whole rye starter with a bit of gluten stretchiness in it. Hope this makes sense!
That actually does make sense! I am using commercially processed flour, which would explain a lot. I don't have much left of the commercial stuff, so once I run out, I'll go buy some of the good stuff from the local farmers. Thank you!