The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

OK now what?

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

OK now what?

On Saturday the 10 ( 2 ago days) I fed my starter as usually (50g of starter, 100g flour, 100g water) It's looking like I thinking it should. It's bubbly on top and a few pin hole sized pockets looking at the side of the jar. I think it alive and well for being in the refrigerator

I want to have 2 cups  of starter/leaven ready to bake with in the next 4-5 days.  How do I build it up to 2 cups. How and when do I measure it? Yes, this is my first time.

I have read some articles and as I understand it I should take it out of the refrigerator, let it warm up to room temp. and then keep feeding it without discarding any of the starter unit I have enough  volume for my 2 cups and enough left to keep my starter going,

Thanks for you help. RichieRich

 
hreik's picture
hreik

why not take out  a bit now and feed it?  Seems like the weight might vary with activity.  But if you take out 20 gm now and feed it 20-40-40 you get 100 gm.  Then next day 100-200-200 you'll have 500 grams.  Measure it then and see how much you have. Go from there.

hester

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Hey Richie, I think your understanding is correct. If you knew the weight of 2 cups of starter you could plan the builds out better. Your schedule of 4 or so days should be easy to meet if your starter was active. When you bring your starter to room temperature is it active? How do you feed it at room temp and at which ratio?

If you’ve spent time watching your starter and know the timing of it’s feeding cycle you should be able to accurately calculate the quantity.  For example. If you know that your starter will cycle in 12 hours from feed to recede using 5g starter + 15g water + 15g flour, you could figure that in 24 hr. You’d have the initial starter (now a Levain) of 35g. Since the ratio of your starter (hypothetically) is 1:3:3, the next feed would be 35g starter + 105g(3 x 35) water + 105g flour. Now you have 245g Levain.  As you can see the Levain will get huge in a hurry at this rate. From this example you can plan accordingly.

HTH

BTW - I tried to find the weight of a cup of starter. This is an elusive thing. A cup of very active starter will weigh less than one that is sluggish. Looks like you could guesstimate 250g.  But once you build your Levain you could measure that out for future reference.

Let us know if you need more help.

Dan

Opps, Sorry Hester. I think we where both posting at the same time. I saw your post after I wrote mine, but we both agree.

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

I'm having a hard time understanding this.  The starter I have in my refrigerator weighs 240g.  When I take it out of the refrigerator  to build to, lets say 600g for sake of discussion.  Why do I discard any of it? Why not just feed the existing 240g with the appropriate about of foul and water?  The only thing I can think is starting form a smaller amount over to or 3 days or so may give me a more active/fresh starter to work with.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

So your refrigerated starter weighs 240 and you need 600. If you build the original 240 using 1:1:1 you would end up with 720g. It is much better to activate your starter using at least 2 or 3 feeding cycles.

Richie, 600g sounds like a lot of starter. Can you publish the recipe or formula so we can take a look?

Dan

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

OK, think I got it. Thank you much. I 'll post my results ti a few days

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

The 600g figure was just pulled out of thin air for discussion purposes only. The first recipe I'm actually going to try call for 2 cups of starter. Only gives it volume measurement not my weight,

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

As discussed above I am going to get my starter alive and well over 2 to 3 days. Once it is alive and well exactly when do you mix it into my recipe meaning, right after the last feeding, after its risen, after it has fallen from the last rise? 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Mix it in once your starter has fully risen and then starts to recede. Either right at the peak or better yet once it starts to recede.

If you keep notes on your starter, such as feed ratio, temperature, time from feed to recede, flours used, etc. you will have the experience needed to know how long the Levain will take before it is ready to mix.

For example. I know that my starter @ 76F using a ratio of 1:3:5 (AP flour) will cycle from feed to recede in 12 hours. So if I need 90g of levain for a dough that I want to mix at 7AM, I mix 10 starter + 30 water + 50 AP flour at 7PM. And I'm ready to go at 7AM.

Dan

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Let us know how things turn out.

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

When I got up the morning my my starter build had risen and had fallen about 1/4 inch (it peaked and began to fall a couple hour earlier that I expected). This was the third feeding so I went for it. Mix and keaded it. It's in the bread pan now for the proofing stage.  It appears it doing what it is supposed too. After 3 hours dough has risen to the top of the bread pan. It sitting on my boiler on top a a cardboard box. the area is about 80 degrees.

 

Link to recipe

http://www.agardenforthehouse.com/2015/03/sourdough-sandwich-loaf/

 

RichieRich

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Sounds like things are going well. I wouldn’t be too concerned about the 1/4” fall. That should be good to use.

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

That’s a good looking loaf.

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

Over all I'm pretty satisfied with the out come.  The only real problem is the top of the loaf kind of collapsed. I think I let the dough proof a bit to long.  It was rising nicely (Pic above) at the 4 hour mark it seem like it wasn't rising any longer. I kept thinking I should put in the oven now but let it go another 20 minutes and check it again. It seemed like the top what getting a bit smaller.

The taste and texture seem good to me.

Thanks for everyone's help.

I'm sure I'll be back with more questions in the future.

 

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Yes, I think it overproofed a bit, but it is gorgeous! The crumb looks light and great for sandwiches.

Tip - it’s best to bake the bread a little early rather than a little late. Even though you bake a little early you can expect oven spring. But you’ll never get oven spring if you bake late. You where fortunate. Your bread turned out great and you learned a good lesson.

Let us know how it taste. That butter on the bread is starting to getting me. I’m headed for the kitchen to scrounge something up...

GREAT JOB!

Dan

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

Taste and texture is great.  It could have a little more sour taste but as I understand it as the mother starter ages it will get a bit more of sourdough taste. 

RichieRich's picture
RichieRich

I decided to switch to a 1: 1: 1: build

Starter Build
2-13 9:00PM         25/25/25.................75
2-14  7:30 AM      75/75/75................225
2-14  11:00 PM     225/225/225.......675
2-15  morning make bread

As you see after 3 feeding I ended up with 675g of starter. I didn't stir the starter down is just scooped it out into a 1cup measuring cup twice and put that in my mix. I didn't have a whole lot left over. I forgot to weight it but judging from what was left over my starter must have been close to 300g per cup or a bit more. I'll check weigh on a scale next time.

Hope this is of some use.

RichieRich