For those of you who always (or often) make leaven for your sourdoughs....When I first started baking sourdough using Tartine method, I would make the leaven, doing it overnight. I was always left with a lot of extra and while Chad suggests using that to start a new starter, I didn't feel that was necessary.
Recently I started using discard at the 4-6 hour point after feeding my starter. If I'm only making one loaf, I just pour out 100 g from my starter (fed at 1:2:2) and use it. If I am making two loaves, I do more like a 1:3:3 feed to generate more discard. The discard I use is really active, nice and bubbly/thick. Is there any reason NOT to do this and make a leaven instead? It's basically the same thing, right?
Just curious what others think and if anyone else using what I call "young discard" instead of making a "young leaven"?
That is what I often do as I mostly bake just one 400 - 500g (flour weight) loaf at a time, one every 3-4 days. If I keep ~20g starter in the fridge, it will provide enough leavening when fed at around 1:2:2 and left in a warm place for 5-6 hours. I keep my starter all wholemeal rye flour at 100% hydration and I like the results so this is my basic approach.
If I wanted to make a pure white loaf, I would have to split off a separate lot and feed that up. And of course, some recipes call for a higher percentage of pre-fermented flour, fermented in a particular way (hydration level, temperature and time of fermentation) so for that you would need to have at least one stage in between "the pot from the fridge" and the final dough, or more for a fancy multi-stage, multi day recipe.
TIM
I think that a lot of it does come down to simply being a matter of terminology. If one person calls it “discard” and another calls it “young leaven”, it doesn’t change the fact that they are talking about the same thing. Ultimately, every term we use in regards to starter describes a specific point in the starter’s life cycle. “Discard” is simply starter that needs to be fed.
As for the effectiveness of just using starter (or discard) instead of making a levain, I think a lot of that is going to depend on the needs of the particular recipe you’re preparing. Many people keep a very basic starter, consisting only of all purpose flour, with maybe a small amount of rye or whole wheat mixed in. If the recipe you’re making calls for a different mix of flours than what your starter consists of, a levain is a good way to bridge that gap, as it allows you to mix in a smaller proportion of starter with some of the flour from the recipe (which keeps the recipe’s mix of flours closer to their intended proportions.). Preparing a levain in the manner the recipe calls for also ensures that the prefermented portion of flour has reached a specific point in the fermentation cycle prior to being incorporated into the remainder of the mix.
In the long run, as long as your recipe turns out the way you want it to, you’re not doing it wrong!
Thank you for the replies...yes, if I wanted to make two loaves I might need to build the levain. I also realized that the Tartine leaven is 50% less starter than my "discard" as it's 200 g water & flour for the 1 tbs (which I think is 50g? haven't weighed it in a while as I don't make that method anymore). My starter is fed with 20% rye flour, 80% bread flour. I have read differing views about whether the flour in your starter matters or not...