January 18, 2016 - 7:09pm
Increasing starter amounts,
Finally got a good sour dough going, and I'd like to increase my overall yield.
Right now I'm using about 300g of starter per loaf. I'd like to make probably about 8x what I'm making now.
I assume I need 8x the starter to make 8x the bread.
Right now, starter doubles about every 7 days in the fridge. Is there a rule of thumb I can use to double it faster not in the fridge?
Share
A lot will depend on the type of bread you make and starter maintenance.
There are many ways to do it too. I've never used the "doubling" way. I just wait until its bubbly which takes 4-6 hours after I feed it. This is my way:
So if I wanted 8 x 300g = 2400g of starter I would do the following:
Take starter jar from fridge.
Weigh out 100g of starter and add to this 200g of flour and 200g of water. Top-up starter jar with 50g flour and 50g of water and put back in fridge.
Leave the new mix for 5-6 hours until its bubbly, then to that 500g of levian add 1000g of flour and 1000g of water and leave that for 5-6 hours until bubbly then use in the dough. That gives you a little bit more (2500g) but that's no bad thing.
There are many other ways though, but that's what I do when I need big starters. If you had 480g of starter in your jar you can do it in one step though - I usually keep just over 500g in my starter jar, so in one step I'd take 480g starter, add to that 960g flour and 960g water and leave that 5-6 hours giving the desired 2400g levian then use to make the dough.
This assumes a desired 100% hydration and a method where you're happy to add double the water and flour when bulking up the starter - ie. take the final desired weight (2400g in this case) divide by 5 (96g, which I rounded up to 100g in the first scenario) then to that add double flour and water (200g flour + 200g water, giving 500g for the first build)
Those are big loaves. I typically would use 150g of starter in 500g flour for a standard (UK size) large loaf.
Typically I'd make up the levians at about 3pm, then use that to make the dough at about 8-9pm. Leave it overnight for the bulk ferment, then in the morning it's scale/shape/prove then bake.
-Gordon
The 'recipe' I'm using (I use the term loosely because I've gone pretty far off book from the recipe as written), calls for 'half' of the starter from a different recipe. The starter weighs in at about 600g. The remainder of the recipe calls for 3 cups of flour and 3/4 Cups water.
From what I can figure, this means total weight of ingredients should be just below a kg. (Prior to baking) that being said, I don't typically use all the flour called for in the recipe.
The basic procedure given by the recipe is take half the starter, feed it a bit (although not the same as a 'usual' feeding) wait 12-24h out of the fridge, add more flour, wait 2 hours, shape, wait 2 hours, bake.
From what you've said, it sounds like I should be able to add equal mass flour and water to my starter while its out of the fridge, and just wait until it gets nice and bubbly, then proceed (in proportion) from there.