Common Starter Queries - My Unsolved Starter Mysteries
Hi fellow bread lovers,
After 8 months of dedicated research and trial & error, I feel it is finally time to jump on the fresh loaf forum and try and put a few remaining 'unsolved starter mysteries' to rest. I have essentially been going through the 'rites of passage' before jumping on this site to ask questions, absorbing like a sponge (mostly).
I was hoping collectively you could help me fill in these blanks with some of your experiences / views. I am sure this thread will also become useful for other amateurs at a similar level to me (8 - 12 months into the journey).
1. 'Different' types of starter.
Having scraped the net, I was initially under the impression that the type of flour you use to feed your starter ultimately doesn't matter too much, as I've read people say you can use a rye starter to begin a leaven for a white baguette for example. But then I heard that Dan DeGustibus has 3 or 4 different types of starters, including a pure white, a pure rye, a 50/50 wholemeal/rye blend, and so on. Are different types of starters useful if baking a variety of breads? Or shall we just leave this level of detail for the professionals and stick with a safe 50/50 blend?
2. Direct into mix or build leaven.
From the resources I have to my disposal, I have seen most recipes either call for a large amount of starter which is added directly to the mix, or, a couple of tablespoons of starter which is used to create a leaven the night before beginning. I appreciate this will potentially yield different flavours, but was wondering what would be the primary reasons for choosing which option to go down? Is there a general consensus that one option is better than the other? Or ultimately does it not matter?
3. Replacing 'instant yeast' for my starter in recipes.
There are a lot of blogs/articles on this subject, that go very deep into mathematical formulas used to calculate the starter equivalent for instant yeast. The only problem being that many of these formulas are so detailed and calculated, the recipe I am trying to convert doesn't quite match the strict criteria these math-buffs are dealing with...So, is there a simple way to calculate the starter equivalent of instant yeast? I understand you would need to minus the starter's flour / water weight from the flour / water weight in the recipe, but how do you know how much starter to add in the first place, if say, a standard 1000g flour recipe calls for 10g instant yeast? I am assuming time would be a factor in this calculation, so appreciate there may not be a simple answer. I'm pretty certain Jacob Burton has touched on this in one of his Stella Culinary podcasts, but I cannot for the life of me find it!
3. Adding starter to brioche - Can brioche follow the fundamental rules of baking lean bread?
Brioche is about as experimental as I get. Is it possible to add starter to your brioche recipe to replace the instant yeast, and if so, would the conversion calculation be the same as for normal bread (above)?
I thank you all in advance for any comments - I've held back for many many months before coming on here, which is a good job, because I used to have hundreds of queries, not three!
Cheers,
Jali86
One can keep different starters for different recipes. Starters may also be fed different flours. One can also create pre-ferments or just add Starter which has been fed and is active. Many different ways! I think you should just find one that suits you. Or even flip between them. Personally I have one Starter and keep it 100% whole rye. Either I just put a bit of rye starter into a recipe or build a pre-ferment using flour from the recipe. Keeping any more than one Starter is too time consuming this way you satisfy every aspect.
Starter is adding culture to the dough. Add more - pre ferments - less time. Add less then more time. Pre ferments and feeding your starter is basically the diffence between 6 and two 3's. One is taking a bit of your starter off and feeding it. The other is feeding your starter. At the end of the day it's what goes into your dough that counts and how much.
Preferments allow you to keep the original starter at whatever hydration you wish and whichever flour you want to feed it. Then by taking some off to build the preferment, which will effectively be the starter you put in - the levain, you can alter the hydration according to the recipe and feed with different flour. Keeping your original starter "pure".
But don't forget to feed the original starter atleast once a week if you don't bake everyday and keep in the fridge.
a rye, a Desem and a white starter with a separate YW. Bit I found out that by keeping a stiff rye starter in the fridge i can get rid of the rest of them except for the yeast water. I don't ahve to maintain or feed the rye starter for up to 4 months and can bake with a little of it every week.
I always do a 3 stage levain build from it for 2 reasons. First iIwant to make sure that the levain is at its very peak of perfection before it hits the dough to do its work and secondly it lets me build what ever kind of levain I want: rye, wheat , white, multigrain or like this week's version - Kamut since Lucy came up with a 100% whole Kamut bread. One of the fun levain builds is to put 1 g of starter in with 50 g each of flour and water and let it sit out for 24 hours stirring every 4 hours for the first 12.. I can't tell the difference of keeping one starter or 4 using a 3 stage build for the levain. I'm sure can but I'm not one of them.
I convert any commercial yeast recipe to SD this way. In the winter I take 15 % of the flour and water in the mix and do a 3 stage levain build with it using 5-8 g of starter depending on how large the 15% of the flour and water is - the larger the amount the larger the starter seed. In the summer time i use 10% since it is so hot in Arizona.
SD can be used in any sweet and enriched dough that uses commercial yeast. There are all kinds of recipes for brioche or panettone using SD too.
SD just tales longer so watcht the dough and not the clock
Happy baking
I wouldn't put too much effort into mathematical conversions. If you are familiar with your starter then you have a good idea of how long it will take to raise your dough. Simply remove the yeast from the recipe and incorporate the starter in your preferred amounts . . . either based on the percentage of flour you like to preferment, or based on the percentage of total dough you'd like as your leaven.
Cheers!
Trevor
Hi guys,
Thank you for the comments and advice, it's really useful to hear your opinions. Sounds like it is ultimately a subjective thing that's down to what works best for your schedule and your starter.
Speaking of schedule, a random late night at work yesterday evening has meant my dough has been retarding in the fridge for 28 hours (rather than my normal 12 hours), I'm very interested to see how this impacts the flavour and the aesthetic when I pop them in the oven in a minute.
Cheers,
JD
1. 'Different' types of starter.
IMO it's a misnomer. When you keep a "Mother" starter all you are really doing is culturing a quantity of yeasts and Labs in some form of suspension. That suspension could be water and white flour, rye flour, spelt four, wheat flour. I am sure if we went to a laboratory they could find some kind of gel that would equally work as a suspension and food source.
So bottom line is that it doesn't matter which suspension you choose just so long as it provides the food that the beasties need. This is Mother Starter only.
When we talk in terms of a quantity of leavening agent for your main dough then it does matter because the quantites of flour involved will affect the taste and levels of gluten. Using levains/preferments is a good way to go using a tiny portion of your mother starter (whatever it is) to seed a larger quantity of flour and water, the latter being that which your recipe needs.
So, on a domestic level for amateurs, one single mother starter is all that is needed from which many different preferements can be built. On a commercial bakery level things are diferent because they need large quantities of different levains every day so they just keep separate tubs of effectively mother starters, usually one white, one rye, one wholewheat, one spelt and sometimes others.
2. Direct into mix or build leaven.
As above. In a domestic situation we aren't baking loaves every day so it doesn't make sense to keep say 180g of starter on hand at all times for that one loaf that needs 180g of it. You'd be wasting an awful lot of flour to keep feeding 180g of starter on a regular basis. In fact it is unnecessary to waste or discard any starter if you plan correctly. By keeping a tiny amount of starter, say 30g you can simply build up to the larger quantity your recipes need. So say you bake once per week on a Saturday and the loaf needs 180g of starter. You can keep 30g mother starter in the fridge. On Friday morning you can take 20g of it and add 20g flour and 20g water to make 60g of levain in total. The remaining 10g of mother you feed 10g flour and 10g water bringing it back to 30g and put it back in the fridge for next week. Friday night you take the 60g of levain and add 60g flour and 60g water making 180g in total and leave that out overnight. You then have the 180g of levain/starter you need on Saturday for your bake and you wasted nothing, no discard anywhere.
The exact quantities involved here are up to you and can be tweaked as the recipes require. I've used quantities that keep the levain at 100% hydration (same amounts of flour and water). Some recipes might need you to build a drier levain.
3. Replacing 'instant yeast' for my starter in recipes.
The thing here is that a recipe with yeast will produce a very different product to a recipe with wild yeast starter. The recipe end-to-end will have been crafted with either yeast or starter in mind. The idea of wanting to take a yeasted recipe and just change the yeast for starter is another misnomer really. Everything changes. Levels of acidity will be different, so might gluten development, dough strength and extensibility, proofing times and crucially also the taste of the loaf. If you want to use starter, choose a recipe designed for that imo. I'm not saying you can't do what you are suggesting, but there are a lot of variables and in the end you are creating a different end product.
GL
ElPanadero - you've really opened my eyes up there with your method. As of this week I am giving it a go, as I have been hating wasting starter when refreshing it.
Out of interest, is there any benefit over dragging builds out over 2 or 3 days, rather than just making your leaven the day before. What for example would be the difference between the following 2 scenarios:-
Option 1 (as per ElPanadero post above):
Friday AM - 20g starter + 20g flour + 20g water
Friday PM - 60g starter + 60g flour + 60g water
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Saturday AM - you have a total of 180g starter
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Option 2 (I guess similar to chad robertson style recipe):
Friday PM - 1 tablespoon (15g) starter + 85g flour + 85g water
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Saturday AM - total 185g starter
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I am assuming it doesn't matter which one you do, its all 6 of one and half a dozen of the other?
Cheerio,
JD
jali86, with your Option 2, you are feeding a higher ratio of food to a lower ratio of starter than in Option 1. Look at these: Option one is mixed in a ratio of 1:1:1 (starter:flour:water) meaning they are all equal weight. Option 2 is mixed at a ratio of 1:5.66:5.66, meaning that you are giving it 5.66 times as much of each flour and water compared to starter. It will take much longer to reach peak. However, if your starter is kept in a warm area, it may need that much food, or even more. Temperature has a lot to do with the rate at which the yeast and LABs eat and reproduce. You should learn how much food your starter needs in order to peak at 10-12 hours, and feed it that much. Then, you can decide for yourself if you want a single-stage build or two, three, or more stages, and just calculate backwards how much starter to begin the first stage with.
There are some who believe the best results can only come with multiple stage builds, then there are those, like myself, that prefer to keep it simple and just use the mother starter directly in the dough. If you are going to use your mother starter directly as the rising agent for your dough, then different starters for different breads may become important to you. You can't make a 100% whole wheat or rye or whatever bread, if you only have a white AP flour starter. You can't make a 100% white bread with a rye starter. So, if that kind of precision is important in your baking, you must either keep multiple starters or use multiple stage levains in your bread. I just don't try to be that precise. The bread is going to taste good. That's all that matters to me, not having exactly the right amount of the right kind of flour. If I'm following someone else's recipe, that's different. I'll try to stick to it as closely as possible so that I get the results the person intended. If it calls for a rye levain, I'll build a levain just for that recipe.
are the factors here imo.
As DavidEF says, the more flour/water that a small amount of starter has to innoculate, the more time it will take to do so.
Here's the thing though. If you keep your starter in the fridge and only bake infrequently then possibly your starter isn't in tip top condition. Just bringing out of the fridge means the starter needs to come back to temperature and wake up from its forced slumber in the cold. Is it worth risking one single levain build with a larger quantity of flour ? What if your starter wasn't up to scratch? What if the next day it hasn't risen as much as you would have liked? I know in the past I've been remiss sometimes in my starter maintenance. The hustle and bustle of life has meant I missed feedings and as a result the starter suffered. It never died, but it was certainly not at its best and when that happens I have to revive it by leaving it at room temperature for a couple of days and feeding it at least once or twice a day.
The advantage of a 2 or 3 stage levain build is that you get to see how strong and healthy (or not) the starter was after the first build stage. If it struggles then you can concentrate on reviving your mother starter to full strength before continuing the build.
If you're confident your mother starter is tip top then by all means use a one step build. Just take account of the extra time it will take to become ready.
So after the knowledge and advice transfer of DavidEF and ElPanadero, I decided to give the multi-stage build a go, whilst concentrating more on temperature and time. And I am sold!
My routine is now....
Thursday Evening - starter out of the fridge, 1 feed, keep starter at room temp.
Friday Morning - 1 feed
Friday evening - split off to create 2 different levains, put the remainder back in the fridge.
Saturday - do the recipe of my choice, prove overnight
Sunday - bake
What i have found is that by initially feeding the starter twice in 12 hours when first out of the fridge, this really kicks it into shape fast. By Friday evening, its very active but not overly sour. After splitting out to make the levains and putting the remainder back in the fridge, I left the levains at room temp to do their thing. Come the following morning, they are bubbly, and sweet with a tinge of sourness - the kind of flavour I am trying for.
From paying more attention to temperature, I have realised how cold my kitchen is (North of England, UK). So I tend to need to add around 20% on top of whatever time a recipe says, as I assume the cold is slowing the process down.
Its a tricky routine to work around your life, but I think with a couple of months practice, I should be able to integrate it pretty well! Thanks to all above who contributed advice to help me on the journey!
Always nice to see results. Glad it's going ok and making sense. Sourdough is a never ending journey where everyone can learn and contribute. It's what makes sourdough so interesting. By now you'll see as many ideas as there are contributers. Your aim is to learn from everyone and come up with your own ideas.
My technique from feeding my sourdough to baking bread is continually evolving. That is why I share ideas but never tell anyone it's the golden rule. There are too many factors involved and variables. Make sourdough work for you and don't be slave to your sourdough. Many people roll their eyes when I tell them I make sourdough and their usual comments are "but it takes so long" and/or "it's too complicated". Well they've missed the whole point.
Anyways, I'm going to share with you what I did the weekend just gone and take/learn from it whatever you will...
I needed 150g of active starter for my recipe. So decided on a two stage build as my feeding schedule for my starter is less often now. I used to feed it every week come what may. Now I create a small tub full and take a little each time I wish to bake and build into however much I need. I keep my starter in the fridge and when I see it's running low I feed it more. About every two weeks now. Trick is not to allow it to feed fully but keep it out for a few hours and place back in the fridge. Anyways I digress... Back to my weekend bake.
Needed 150g of active starter.
Took 16g of my 100% hydration whole rye starter
Fed it 17g whole rye flour + 17g water
Took overnight to completely feed as it hadn't had a feeding in a while. So now I had 50g starter.
Then the next morning I fed this 50g of active starter with...
50g whole spelt flour + 50g water
And it was so active that it took 4-5hrs to be ready.
So now I had 150g of really healthy active starter and it made great bread.