March 31, 2011 - 2:15pm
Started Feed Flour
Hello all,
Was just wondering what type of white flour is best used for feeding a starter? AP? Bread? Does it really matter? There are some formulas out there for creating and maintaining a starter but don't specify which flour to use, besides "White flour." Was just curious to see if any of you experienced bakers have any thoughts on this.
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I feed my starter with 25% rye flour and 75% AP flour. For the first few months of it's life I used only organic flour, but now I use non-organic without a problem. As far as choosing AP or Bread flour, I don't think it matters.
I have used Bread flour when that is all I had handy.
Lately, I've been feeding my starter with a blend of AP and about 5-10% rye flour, similar to Polo's procedure, at 80% hydration. I keep the starter down to about 150g at refreshment and use a small portion of that to build an individual starter for each loaf.
Most of my recent loaves have used a 100% hydration starter that usually reflect the flours used in the loaf. If the dough calls for 75% AP, 20% WW, and 5% rye, that's what I try to use in the build. I can't say with any authority that it's necessary to do it that way but I can say that it hasn't done any harm to do so. I was distracted while building the starter for my latest loaf and used 100% WW to feed it. No harm was done and I'm enjoying the loaf.
If you're baking for yourself, not as a commercial enterprise, then just let it rip and try what you want. Most of the time you'll be fine and will enjoy the results. IIRC, I've about a dozen different flours to refresh my starter in the past 19 months and it still thrives despite the fact that it's kind of a mongrel concoction. Do write down your procedures and photograph your loaves as a record of your experiments. We oftentimes learn more from our less than stellar results than from our grand successes.