April 7, 2015 - 4:14pm
Converting white starter to rye
Hello,
For some reason I though this is covered in Hamelman's Bread, but can't find it... What steps should I take when converting portion of my white 100% starter to rye? Is it a simple matter of just feeding it for a couple of days with whole rye flour or should I start feeding it with a mix of white and rye and increase proportion of rye to white with every feed?
also, is it safe to assume that 2-3 days 2x per day feelings would be enough to call it a rye starter and use it to make rye bread or should I do it for a longer period of time?
Thank You!
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and feed it 10 g of whole rye and 10 g of water. 4 hours later feed it 20 g of whole rye and 20 g of water.. 4 hours later feed it 40 g of rye and 40 g of water. This will give you 150 g of rye starter that will have just finished doubling at 100% hydration. Now you can take 10 g of that and do the same thing again and store the rye starter in the fridge for next week bake and use the rest, 140 g, to make a loaf of rye bread.
Happy Rye SD baking
thanks a lot! A bit confused here though. hydration - looking at the feed schedule you provided, it looks like I will end up with 150g of 100% hydration rye starter, not 200%? Also, not sure I understand your last sentence - how do I get to 210g (another 30/30 feed?) and then store 70g for next week and use/discard remaining 140g?
Thank You!
3 typos It is 150 g at 100% hydration. You take 10 g of it and make a loaf of bread with the 140 G and use the 10 g to build and or store the next levain. Sorry for the confusion
he slipped up somewhere with the math increases.
Going from wheat starter to rye is normally easier than going from rye to wheat. Just start feeding it rye. and wait for it to peak activity, level out (poke it) and smell yeasty before adding more rye flour. If you start out with a small amount of wheat culture, it will soon be total rye.
If you are interested in removing the gluten from the wheat starter, thinning it with water and running it thru a coffee filter is also a fast way. Then Mix 10g of the filtered sourdough culture water with 30g rye flour and 20g more water. Let mature. Your temperatures will influence the rate of fermentation and feeding. You can take 10g of that and feed 50g water and 50g rye flour for a run at a 12 hr feeding but if you find the starter peaking around 6 hrs. (poke the starter and see if it deflates) either feed more flour with the next feed or switch to feeding every 8 hrs. Or chill after the next feeding when the starter is 1/3 risen to peak. Rye starters will double and almost triple at 100% hydration. Rye starters do not peak as high as most wheat starters. Retarded rye starters barely rise.
Many will convert without bothering to convert a wheat starter to a rye starter first. They just feed the wheat starter rye flour. Try it, wait and see how the starter responds. If it seems to be slowed down, feed it some wheat/water and wait for the starter is ready before using.
When converting from rye to wheat, it is better to go slowly, like you suggested, changing little amounts of rye to wheat and waiting for the starter to respond before feeding more wheat.
don't convert. I just take 8-10 g of my rye sour stored in the fridge and do a progressively larger 3 stage, 4 hurs each, levain build for what ever bread I am making . If I am making a multigrain I feed it mutigrain flour.,if spelt i feed it spelt, of WW I feed it whole wheat.
I haven't noticed that it takes longer for it to go from rye to something else though - but i haven't been looking for it either.. It seems to like what ever I feed it:-) The levain build does slow down a bit when the rye starter has been in the fridge for 8 weeks or more without any maintenance feeding though - but still manages to double after the 3rd feeding in 4 four hours..
that I'm doing something right....this is exactly what I've been doing and I've barely used my wheat starter since starting Rodney Rye...he's very frisky....but I keep feeding the wheat anyway....perhaps I should combine them?
I have combined into this one since 1973 but I have combined at least 10 into it in the last 3 years alone:-) i don't even remember how i started it for sure, I think i used WW flour because i couldn't find any rye and followed one of the methods in Clayton'e Complete Book of Bread. For years i kept it as a liquid white starter in the fridge and threw away way more starter than I ever used. Then I kept 3 for the longest time white, wheat and rye what a waste of time and money. Now I keep a small amount of whole rye in the fridge for up to 3 months at a time with no maintenance - the No Muss No Fuss Starter way.and build a small amount to what ever levain I need or want for that week's bread.
Happy Baking
PS ....Don't forget to dry a spoonful of your starter by spreading it thinly out on a piece of parchment and letting it completely air dry. Just put it in a small glass container, in the cool dry place in cupboard so if your starter goes kaput you can just re-hydrate it and be on your SD way again
I currently have equal amounts of white and rye sourdough...would you recommend combining the two and then using it up till I get to a reasonable amount for storage. I have about 200 grams of each right now. The white was just fed, the rye about a week ago. I wouldn't mind no muss no fuss maintaining just one.
Keep a couple of starters for a little while, if only to have different tastes for the next few breads. I do that from time to time and just use up one when I get a bit lazy. As mentioned, so easy to start a new starter with a bit from the mother.
Useful backups if the new starter does not fare too well.
Thanks a lot everyone for your replies! I followed dabrownman's instructions and looked like I now have rye starter, hoping to test it out this weekend.