"Starter" vs. "Leaven"
Greetings!
I had been making my own bread for a while but was making several fundamental mistakes until I took a bread making class which instantly improved my bread. They gave us a a sourdough starter which I fed over a few days/weeks until I had enough volume to bake with. The recipe they gave us for sourdough called for 1 cup of the starter, IN ADDITION to 1 teaspoon of dry yeast.
I finally got around to reading my "Tartine" bread book, and I noted that they do not use a "mature" starter like the recipe from my class called for, rather they used a "leaven" which was made of a single tablespoon of the mature starter mixed with 200 grams of 50% bread flour/50% whole wheat flour and 200 grams of water left overnight. The remainder of the "leaven" not used in the bread was considerered a new starter. Additionally the recipe only called for 200 grams of this leaven, and no dry yeast.
Basically the book says not to use a refrigerated starter as it might be too sour, and to make the leaven the night before actually baking.
Any comments on this? Is this just preference and style or is there something to it?
Thanks!
Since it's 'levain' in French, it's translated (badly) into 'leaven' in English. Your starter is your levain or leaven.
how they want to manage their starter with their own baking habits and taste buds.
Welcome to the wonderful wacky world of sourdough!
This line mentioning your sourdough starter makes me curious:
why? Because when I take about a tablespoon of mature starter and give it enough water and flour to make a cup of starter (levain) then I have ready starter in half a day or overnight. I mix it up, cover and leave in a warmish place or on the counter and it's ready in the morning or after 8-12 hrs teeming with happy well fed bacteria and yeast. I suspect your starter is very mature and hungry (starving) and there are many threads here on how to reduce the amount of starter because, frankly, it is soooo easy to have toooo much. So a slow build up of starter over weeks doesn't make sense to me. Maybe you could tell us how you keep and feed it. And we can help you get your starter to be self rising, boosting to a healthy number of yeast beasties. It is possible, with the help of the refrigerator to get a lopsided culture with too much bacteria and too little yeast. An imbalance that can be avoided. Some (not all) varieties of bacteria are temperature sensitive and die off in very cold refrigerators. So, yes, there is something to the "avoid the fridge" restrictions.
Normally there is enough wild yeast in a starter or levain so that it can raise bread, the inclusion of instant yeast is like insurance. Especially if you are new to it and not accustomed to the longer rise times. It is always like a first big step when you make bread the first time with just the sourdough starter and the instant yeast stays on the shelf. :)
I see I still have a lot to learn about managing starters.
Thanks a lot! Currently I don't have a regular or scientific feeding schedule.
The baking class I took gave us recipes that call for an entire cup of starter, which is why I needed more volume. They only gave us about a cup each to take home. The teacher was a professional baker and knew his stuff but clearly there are many different schools of thought. I guess if I prep the leaven every night prior to baking I only need a tablespooon of it to make the 200 grams and I can maintain a lot less starter.
...I attempted to use the right names/politically correct names/common usage names/guesses at names to label the various stages of sourdough starter/seed starter/mother/levain/leaven/wild yeast/ripe starter/young starter/young levain/old or young leaven/stored starter/that-stuff-that-goes-zip in my postings.
Then I had an epiphany. I was reading a bit about wild yeast leavened bread being baked as early as 10,000 B. C. E. I realized one of these early bakers was the guy (or gal) that tipped God to the Tower of Babble gig.
David G
as to how to maintain it?
There are many ways to feed a starter. Some runnier than others. There are also two well known ways of maintaining a starter. 1.) remove a portion and replace used amount with water & flour 2.) maintain a small stored starter, remove portions to build as a starter for a recipe, the storage starter stays refrigerated and is gradually used up over a period of several weeks. When low, a newly refreshed peaked starter provides a tablespoon starter to grow a new storage starter.
Important is that some fermentation has taking place before being refrigerated. The starter will continue to ferment in the fridge albeit slower. The more liquid the starter, the faster it ferments.
Is there any downside to a starter getting beyond a certain size?
HOw often should a referigerated starter be fed, and does it matter how much of it's volume? I know no more than 50%, but what's the minimum?
I joined the folks who keep a small amount of starter in the fridge and haven't regretted it at all. My starter usually begins around 60-70g at a low hydration (60% or so) that is packed with enough flour that it continues to ferment for at least a week. This gives me the option of using a 15g seed in a single stage build of a 125% hydration starter ( a 12-16 hour process) as in many of J Hamelman's recipes or using the same amount in a two stage build of a 75-80% hydration starter ( also 12-16 hours) for my own recipes. The starter is still viable as a seed after a couple of weeks worth of baking and there's enough left for building up a new batch. Adding a bit of rye flour when building up your starter will help keep the starter lively. I find the maintenance of my starter to be easy and usually forgiving of being a few days late in feeding.
Hydration and temperature determine the speed of the fermentation, the lower the slower with both criteria. Some of the bakers who post here have left their starters unattended in the fridge for as much as six weeks and managed to rebuild their starter within a couple of days. With a little bit of planning, your starter can do as well as anybody elses starter with very little work.
So I just finished 2 loaves using a leaven made from my starter + 200 grams water + 200 grams 50/50 flour.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-V3QtZLOzv8M/UEQ6Q_WshvI/AAAAAAAAAzo/j6Dh2hYiW34/s640/P1000722.JPG
Came out really well