I Have Started My Starter, Now What?

Hello MatteKat,

I also have a young starter and I've started using it. The first loaf I made was ok I guess but the ratios were a little difficult to get right. So I asked around here and Khalid (MeBake) pointed me to this very useful formula of 1:2:3 (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9346/123-easy-formula-sourdough-bread)

Give it a try with small quantities first if you don't want to throw anything away. Go for 100g starter, 200g water, 300 Flour and 6g salt. What I did when I tried this was to mix everything up (with damp hands) and give it half an hour and then did two stretch and folds then moved it to the refrigerator for a day and a half. That was good enough to develop a slightly sour flavor. Maybe this will be useful for you as well.

Enjoy!

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s20/sh/00afc657-3ce8-4e8d-a935-2cc2a811116e/e0002a86d5a60e88f91cf119edc2a43e

The above link is a great recipe for light fluffy pancakes, made with starter, in the event you are not quite ready to bake bread. But, if your starter is doubling in volume, I say you are ready to use it to make bread. 

I used mine fairly young and was very happy with the results. But these pancakes are fantastic and worth making if you like light large pancakes. 

MatteKat,

The extra starter or "discard" you're asking about can be used in a variety of ways, once a stable culture is achieved. I don't know exactly where you are in the process, but a starter goes through some phases before being considered safe to eat. The first day or two there is no activity, then after another day or two, there is some bubbling, then that goes away for a day or two, then activity returns. The first little round of activity is not a viable culture for baking. It is a different organism in your mix. The lull in activity is from the good guys fighting to take control away from the bad guys. The new activity then suggests that the good guys are winning. After that point, I would recommend you start discarding and feeding on a regular basis. Some say a day, some say a week, some say a month. Then again, some say you can bake with the first round of activity that happens. I would say when you think you've got a good starter, ready to maintain, discard and feed a few times through if for no other reason than to get the feeding times and amounts figured out.

For the maximum bread raising potential, feed it after it has risen in the container as high as it can, however much that is. Keep an eye on it, and wait for it to stop growing. Feed it, then watch it again. Depending on how much food you're giving it, it should reach its peak in 4 to 12 hours. For reference, mine takes a feeding ratio of one part starter to two parts flour and two parts water every 12 hours in a cool room, more food, or more often, in a warmer environment. This is by weight, so for 10g starter, I'd mix in 20g flour and 20g water. You don't need to worry about the amounts yet, because yours will be different from mine, but watch as you feed it, and in a couple of cycles you should start to see the amount being the same, and the time being about the same. That is what I mean by stable. That is when you can manipulate the timing by changing how much you feed. If you feed it more, it will take longer to consume that amount.

When you get a predictable schedule of feeding that fits your life, that is when you can consider putting it in the fridge. Refrigerating your starter will introduce a drastic change in the beasties' lives, and you will have to figure them out all over again. You may want to keep out a portion of your starter, and put a portion in the fridge. That way you can safely test the ability of your culture to survive in the cool temp. Once you have established a refrigerated starter, you may never have to discard again. Just ask dabrownman about his no muss, no fuss, no waste method of starter maintenance.

Now, until all of this has come to pass, you still have a length of time in which you are discarding portions of your starter. Here's the fun part. As I said at the beginning of this post, there are various ways to use the starter you would otherwise discard. You can use it to bake bread. That should be the first obvious thing. Most sourdough recipes will call for the starter to be used at the peak of its activity. That happily coincides with your regular feeding time. So, you take some out to bake with, then you feed the rest as usual. If you're not baking every day, this won't use up the discard, so we need something else. Well, do you like pancakes? waffles? English muffins? All of these can be made with your discard, and none of them require it to be at the time of peak activity. So, you could keep the discard in a bowl in the fridge, not feeding it or anything. Then, you can mix some in with your pancakes in the morning, etc. Another good use I found for the discard is frying chicken. Around my house, when we fry chicken, we usually dip it in milk, then coat it with flour and seasonings, then throw it in the fry oil. Well, instead of just milk, once I used some of my discard and added just a bit of milk to it to thin it out, then proceeded. It turned out to be really, really good that way. I think I'll do it that way from now on. Really, any quick bread can be modified to use some starter, including biscuits, cornbread, even banana nut bread! Just look around and I'm sure you'll find plenty of inspiration on this site, or other baking websites, or just your own kitchen, if you're the experimental type like me.

Have Fun!

I'm in a similar situation MatteKat. My starter is young and I really want to use it on a regular basis to develop it's flavor (and my skills) but my fiancee and I just can't eat that much bread. I have really enjoyed finding unique ways to incorporate sourdough into meals. Some of my favorites come from a charming old book called "Adventures in Sourdough Cooking and Baking" by WIlford. I think it was (is?) sold as part of a "Make Your Own Sourdough Starter" kit. Anyway, the breads are not really anything special but it includes recipes for sourdough cakes, cookies, and other desserts. Mixing a simple sourdough batter to be used for a fruit cobbler is one that we have really enjoyed. Even funner are the savory recipes; sourdough added to your meatloaf, sourdough pork chop casserole, pot pies, noodles, and as a batter for meat (as DavidEF shared) and onion rings. I have basically come to the conclusion that almost any meal can have a little sourdough starter stirred in somewhere. At worst we don't end up tasting it, and at best it puts a whole new tangy spin on a recipe. 

The liquid is called hooch, it's alcohol and such from the yeast and doesn't mean your starter is dead, assuming there is no mold.

http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.php?content=revivingastarter

What exactly does it smell like?   Close your eyes and be more descriptive.  

Also what temperature is it and what kind of flour are you using?  

Don't throw it out.  How many days old is it? 

be darker if you feed it whole grains.  You are making a wee bit of wheat beer in that hooch somewhere.

If you want, you can stiffen it up with whole grains to 66% hydration, say 125 g, and stick it in the fridge when it gets a little more mature than it is now, your hooch will go away as will the daily feeding, maintenance cost and all the muss and fuss.  I bake out of fridge starter every week and don't feed it for 4 weeks.  When it gets  down to 20 g or so make half into a levain for bread and the other half build up to 125 g 66% hydration starter over 3 builds and then back in the fridge after it rises 25% after the 3rd feeding for another 4 weeks of no muss, no fuss SD starter.

Happy baking

I have an old starter (regularly fed and fairly active) at 100% hydration and I want to try a recipe that wants a hydration of 166%.  I'd like to use my current starter and "bump" a portion of it to 166% and I'm wondering if anyone out there can advise how I would do that?

Thanks

I understand that the 166% hydration is achieved by equal volume of flour and water but what I'm asking is how to increase the hydration of current 100% starter to 166% hydration.  So basically, I need 332 grams of starter at 166% hydration and I want to use my active 100% starter to achieve that...can someone help me with the math? 

Well, you need 332 g starter at 166% hydration so for for every 100 g flour you have 166 g water. Take 332/(100%+166%)=125 grams flour in 332 g starter, the rest water. 332-125=207 g water. Check the math 207/125=1.656, so close enough.

You could do one build to get there probably, or multiple, but I'd probably just do like 50 g 100% starter, so 25 g flour, 25 g water, mix in 125-25=100 g flour and 207-25=182 g water, let ferment for 8-12 hours and you should be good.

Thank you ericreed  For some reason I couldn't wrap my head around the math.  Very unusual for me as I'm recently retired and have a degree in economics!