Creating levain just for one recipe? (Flour Water Salt Yeast)
Hello, I'm new to the whole world of starters. In fact, I don't even have one yet, nor have I ever cultivated one. I think I'm now ready to enter this exciting world.
I want to try out Ken Forkish's "Overnight Country Brown" from his Flour Water Salt Yeast book. Everyone's report of their respective results turned me on to the recipe.
The problem is, I don't want to keep a starter around. I'm happy to spend the few days required to create the levain, but once it's used, I don't want to have to maintain it. I don't keep a regular bread-baking schedule and tend to only make bread spontaneously perhaps once every month or so.
Is it possible to create the Forkish levain just for one-time use? If so, what would be the quantities? From other threads (this one, in particular), it seems as though Forkish's amounts are quite high—wasteful, even—so I want to create a levain without any waste nor leftovers.
Any advice—or exact numbers for me to follow!—appreciated.
If you find a local sourdough baker and borrow a teaspoonful of their starter, you can grow just as much as you need, with no waste at all. I'm sure there's another Loafer in LA!
per Forkish's quantities? It says:
Levain
Ingredient
Mature, active levain: 100 g
White flour: 400 g
Whole wheat flour: 100 g
Water: 400 g
[Total: 1000 g of levain)
Final dough
Ingredient
White flour: 604 g
Whole wheat flour: 276 g
Water: 684 g
Fine sea salt: 22 g
Levain: 216 g
Why is he asking to make 1000 g if you're only going to use 216 g for the final dough?
I don't like to make extra starter (although some have said that the bread comes out better when you do), so for that Country Brown, this weekend I divided everything by 4.
25 grams of starter
100 grams water
100 grams AP flour
25 grams whole wheat (I used white whole wheat)
that made 250 grams levain leaving over 34 grams. More than enough to store in the fridge for the next bake but not so much that it takes any room.
oh, and the starter i used hasn't been fed for over a week instead of within 24 hours.
personally, I would try maintaining the starter. Some here use a very stiff one and don't feed it for a month at a time.ich easier than cultivating a new one when the baking mood hits. I feed mine once a week or two.
You could build your starter and use what you need for the bread and then spread your leftover starter out on parchment paper or whatever you have and dry it out. I do that and maintain the dried starter in the freezer. Whenever I need some starter, I just take a little and reconstitute it.
It looks like he's using an 80% hydration starter. If you take a spoonful of borrowed starter, and feed it with 96g of water and 120g of flour, and let it ripen for 12-16 hours, you'll have 216g (plus a spoonful) of ripe starter for your recipe.
I thought you meant that *creating* the starter was wasteful... well it is, a little. But building nearly 5x what the formula calls for, yeah, that's a little excessive.
The way you figure it out, is:
80% hydration, plus 100% flour, is 180% formula total (flour is always 100%)
216g/180 = 1.2g (every percent in the starter formula is 1.2g)
100 x 1.2g = 120g flour
80 x 1.2g = 96g water
120g + 96g = 216g (always good to double check)
Hope this helps!
Yes, I meant building the starter seems a little wasteful. There's no way to avoid the part where you throw out 75% of the starter for five days, eh?
Apologies for these really simplistic questions! I guess I just have to try building the starter to learn the hard way!
I "built" the starter but did not build as much as he uses. Instead i cut all by 75%.
^ This is the thing I have yet to create...or borrow...
Once you have a little starter you can keep it in a tiny jar and use when needed. Feed it every couple weeks. Some people feed every 4-6 weeks.
But there is no reason to discard anything. And no need for apologies. Just wanted to let you know i thought i has answered the question up there.
out of the 120 g of flour how much is whole wheat?
If you don't want to bake more often using a levain, I would, like Greyoldchief suggested, keep a supply of dried starter at hand, so that you don't have to go through creating one from the scratch again.
I keep my Forkish starter in the fridge, feed it, if I don't use it, every 2 weeks, and activate it a day ahead of making a new bread, as described here: http://hanseata.blogspot.com/2014/01/einkorn-hazelnut-levain-pinched-not.html
I use much smaller amounts, so I don't have much to throw out and waste. My usual feeding:
12 g levain + 48 g bread flour + 12 g WW + 48 g water
Happy Baking,
Karin
Bottom line here is as vtsteve has siad, you need to obtain a small quantity of active starter from an artisan bakery. With that small quantity you can build up to the amount needed for your recipe with no wastage at all.
Creating your own starter from scratch, just to make one loaf, would be wasteful because you have to waste a fair amount of flour during the creation process. It's a one-time wastage which for people intending to bake sourdoughs regularly is not too much of an overhead, but for one single loaf it's a waste of time and flour. On top of that, you only get good loaf results once your starter is well established and active and that can take 1-2 weeks or more. Many people go through a few failed loaves before they get a good one because they don't have the patience to wait until the starter is properly established so of course every failed loaf is a waste of flour.
Therefore, get to a local bakery, ask them for a tiny amount of starter (preferably rye starter) and then you can build up to what you need at home with no wastage at all.
ATB
EP
Yes, just need to get the starter culture!
I think I confused myself in this thread because I'm conflating "starter" with "levain!" But all is now clear.
Now, anyone in L.A. willing to lend me a couple of tablespoons of their starter? :)
If you really want to just have enough to make one loaf, then there is no use wasting your time, and your flour to start your own starter. Get some from someone else. If there is nobody around that is willing to share with you, you could always get a bit of dried starter from Friends of Carl Griffith for the cost of postage. You simply reconstitute it with a little water and new flour, and it is alive and active. Use it up, and you can get some again the next time you need some.
Don't keep bugging the friends of Carl every time you want to bake a loaf of bread. :)
You can do as he suggests: "keep some of it in the freezer for several months between feedings" or dry it out and start over when you like. But if you wait until you have a hankering for bread to order more free starter it will take 3 weeks or whatever to get to you. No surer way to discourage one from making bread than by building in weeks long lag time.
Freezing works very well.
Hi
Thanks for letting me know about Carl.
Owen