August 26, 2015 - 10:23am
Levain build - choices
My question is about choosing the flour(s) one is going to build a levain with. What determines what you would use. Do you match the formula? Do you just use what you have? Are there do's and don't's? What sign tells you it's time for the next step of the build?
i would appreciate input.
Thx in advance.
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I usually do a 3 stage build using the sifted out hard bits of the whole grain flours used in the dough. i just want to get the gluten cutting bran wet for as long as possible (I refrigerate it for 24-48 hours after building it) and I want the SD acid to bread them down as much as possible.
But like Lucy says 'Anything goes"
I use all rye flour for my levain, because it's really vigorous. But my loaves have only a small amount of rye in them, mostly white AP. I mostly feed once/day regardless of whether the levain has peaked or not.
A levain should be able to leaven whatever flour mix you choose for your loaf. No need to tune the levain flour to match the loaf.
So I build with the flour I'm using to make the breads I'm making - however I keep 3 jars of starter; Wheat, Spelt and Rye. I do use the spelt one for wheat builds sometimes though - mostly because I'm too lazy to do a 2-step build to get enough levian at the end of the day, although I really ought to do the 2-stage build, or keep more wheat in the fridge as spelt is expensive.
I am toying with the idea of just keeping Rye and nothing else - then using that as the base and to it add rye, wheat or spelt, depending on the breads I'm making. I'd need to keep about 1.5 Kg of it in the fridge though to use to bulk up enough for the breads I make. Not sure the spelt heads would like that though, but a little bit of rye might be more preferable to them than a little bit of wheat...
-Gordon
Your comments are very much appreciated. I am leaning towards rye only And that seems to be the answer. It can only add flavour to anything. All in the interest of frugalness. I have been baking steady now for two years + but without a well defined starter practice. Time to make a stand!
mmmm.... Or is that take a stand?
..at 67% hydration in the fridge and I remove just 10g each time I bake to make up the starter. I build the starter with whatever flour I'm using gor the bake. At that level, there is just 6g of original rye in the starter. I start a new culture when that 100g gets down to about 30g - I take 10g of original culture and build it up in 3 stages to 100g and then back in the fridge it goes. It works a treat.
Cheers
It's week 17 this week and i refreshed yesterday so that it will be 4 weeks retarded in the fridge before we use any of it at week 21. Over the last 17 weeks we have made whole grain breads, multi-grain breads, sprouted grain breads, fruit and nut breads, seeded breads. plain breads, complex breads, white breads, dark breads, breads with whey and beer even SD and YW combo breads (will post that one tomorrow) - all using 5-10 grains of the 66% hydration rye sour starter that doesn't seem to mind being stored for months with no maintenance or what kind of bread we ask it to make. Even Lucy is amazed:-) Glad it works so well for you too, Sometimes I feel it should be illegal to keep the No Muss No Fuss Starter in the fridge!
Happy Aroma Baking
when it comes to sourdough. When I first started off I followed, what I thought was, exact rules. Today it's a combo of what recipe i'm following and/or my mood.
I used to do the highly recommended few stages of building. But today if I have enough in the fridge and i'm a bit lazy i'll use it straight from the fridge.
My starters are 100% hydration whole rye and 100% hydration bread flour.
Many breads will benefit from a little rye in any case. So if a recipe calls for a bread flour starter but the amount of starter isn't too much then i'd use the bread flour or rye starter providing I have enough. If I need to build up some starter then i'd build to requirements.
Just remember that starter which isn't recently matured might take longer.
The last two comments offer the best of both for advice. I recently had to make a whack of crumpets. Believe me that was not a hardship. Crumpets have been a favourite since childhood. At this stage in life however they are a treat to be enjoyed thoughtfully.
I like the freedom in flavour manipulation one gets with building. But i like being able to bake spontaneously too. I would eat one of my worst bakes now before I'd eat a piece of store bought. And it's only recently I have been stretching my boundaries on age of starter from the fridge. Extremely liberating. My starter is 2-3 yrs old now and very forgiving along with very vigorous. Time to start caring for it.
I do appreciate everyone's response. I just became much more efficient.
As you have seen, everyone has differing approaches and they all work. I maintain a 100% AP flour starter. I bake sourdough twice a week and use 1/3 a cup of starter for pancakes on Tuesday. Since I only keep 140 g of starter on hand, it's not a big deal to do the replenishment on Sunday after eating pancakes!