Ken Forkish's levain vs Peter Reinhart's mother starter
I've just made a mother starter based on Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book. It's a 100% whole wheat starter. His instructions are to leave it in the fridge as soon as it's done and it will be ready to use for up to 3 days. Forkish's book, Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast, on the other hand, says the levain should be fed every day. Reinhart suggests refreshing it when it gets low--between 4 days and 2 weeks old. Then it can be used as a seed culture to form a new mother starter.
My question is: can I use the Reinhart-method starter as a levain for Forkish's recipes? Why is there such a difference in feeding schedules? Forkish's recipes call for 360g of levain that has been refreshed in the morning and left out for 6 to 8 hours. Can I just use 360g of mother starter from the refrigerator?
I have both a whole rye starter and a whole wheat starter mother starter. I then use my mother starter to build the levain for any of the multitude of recipes from anyone.
Your mother starter just from the fridge will most likely not be ready to rise a loaf. My own method is to keep both my starters in the fridge, feeding them once a week or so. When I want to build a loaf, I take some out the day before and begin feeding it with appropriate amounts of flour and water until it doubles and bubbles and floats in a glass of water. I've been entertaining thoughts of just maintain a rye starter because its a lot more forgiving in the feeding of it...see this post by dabrownman on his care and feeding of his starter: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter.
Hope this helps.
Reinhart's sourdough recipes call for more commercial yeast in the final dough than Forkish's so I guess that explains why Forkish has you refresh the levain in the morning. I like the "No Muss No Fuss" idea, but I want to bake more than once a week and I don't mind a small fuss. Ideally I want a recipe that requires only one evening/morning. Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads has some great tasting recipes. But my Rye Sandwich Meteil didn't get much of an oven spring and was a little too crumbly. I'd like to make something with more of an open crumb like Forkish's recipes but with as close to 100% whole grains as possible.
Hey Reedlaw. I'm the same with a "one evening/morning" feeding. Most times I only feed my starter the morning before I bake. It's usually ready around the 12 hour mark, depending on room temp.
I usually only bake once a week. And then sometimes experiment bake another day through the week.
I have a pretty healthy 100% BF starter, set at 100% hydration. I've tried so many types of starters and so far I like this one right now. I use so little starter in my recipes that I have really never found that much of a taste difference from one to the next. Either building a levain or just using straight up starter. So now I just use straight up starter, and it's only 20% per loaf.
Also I always weigh out my feeding amounts so when I'm done I always have 200g of starter left over. I never throw any starter out. Such a waste!!
Cheers!
Dave
I try to keep things as simple as possible. I don't want to be troubled with constantly attending to starters or end up with starters that take over my kitchen because of exponential explosion of growth from constant feeding at room temperature. I've been keeping a 100% hydrated plain AP starter in my refrigerator which I refresh every 7-10 days. My main SD recipe is Hamelman's Vermont SD which calls for a liquid levain that is prepared the evening before the main mix. My starter has always worked just fine. Just yesterday I prepared a 66% hydration starter to see what the difference might be with the bread. If it does give a bit more tang than the 100% hydration that will be a plus for me.
There are 100's of ways to maintain starters.
I often use my starters directly from the fridge. (up to about 400g of starter out of the ~500g I keep in their jars) They work well. I do bake bread daily though. Recently I've been having to bulk them up as I'm making more bread than 400g of starter will rise.
My wheat & spelt starters are at 100% hydration, my Rye one is a somewhat sloppy one at 150%
Starter is just yeast (and lactos). You need to work out how much you need to rise your given amount of flour in the time you want to use it in...
So to answer your question: Yes, you can use 360g directly from the fridge - provided you're happy that it's been fed the day before and it's generally working well. Just make sure you leave enough in the jar to make more starter!
-Gordon
followed by King Arthur's directions for feeding and maintaining said starter and subsequently use it to build the levain for Forkish breads. I made his Pain de Campagne this morning and it is my best loaf yet. I am a beginner; and had started following recipes for starters and breads by the letter (as well as by the author) but it wasn't working out for me. So I said heck! and winged it. Hope this will help encourage you that there is no real one way to do it :-)
Thanks for your post and the pics of your amazing bread. I've been making Danish-style rye sourdoughs for a few years now but have just had a couple of successful experiments with these sorts of boules in the last month or so. I've just got the Forkish book and am preparing a levain at the moment. I shall be interested to see how it turns out when I make some bread. Your comments re Tartine starter give me another starting point if necessary. I see you posted this in April last year - hope you've been finding your rhythm and style for your baking in the intervening months! If it's not too late, may I wish you a happy 2016.
Hi Nemorino,
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the post. How did the levain turn out? I have to say, much as transpired since I wrote the post. And I've put Bob through many different experiences too, I have to say. I've done high hydration, low hydration, with rye, with spelt, back to 100% all-purpose, partial starvation...and he is still around. I also apprenticed with a bread maker and his culture has malt and salt in it as well. I've finally settled on what I like, at least for right now...and that's all purpose flour, with 50-55% hydration, depending on how the dough feels. It takes more time to feed and if you're hand-mixing, more time to incorporate into the dough. If you'd like to add another book to your repertoire, I would recommend Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread. Good luck!
My default starter for most whole grain breads is Reinhart's WW starter, I usually almost use it up before it needs refreshing. I also have a small amount of rye starter (100%), Forkish and Tartine levains in my fridge.
Basically, you can morph any of those into the other by feeding them a few times. Depending on the recipes, I use them from the fridge or refresh them a few times the days before.
The amount of commercial yeast in the final dough of Reinhart's breads is more to fool-proof them. I reduced the yeast quite a bit.
Karin
Just build up a preferment to specified flour that is actually going into the recipe. Ignore building 100s of grams of starter only to use 150g, for example. See how much is actually being used. Take a little from your mother starter and feed with the correct flour and to the correct hydration. For example...
Forkish tends to build swimming pools of the stuff and uses little. So I ignore the actual build and just concentrate on what is going in.