September 7, 2017 - 10:56am
"Ripe" starter
I've been reading Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, and found an interesting comment about ripe starter. She says your starter is fully 'ripe' when it completely dissolves in water, rather than merely separating into stringy clumps of gluten. I've been watching lately as I stir starter into the dough water, and it seems to be an accurate comment. Something to add to the float test to know when your starter is really ready to make bread!
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since I downloaded it when Mini Oven so graciously shared it!
It sounds like a good tip, except... I can't recall ever doing a bake where I would be mixing the starter / levain in to the dough water! I always use an autolyse with all of the water (lots of whole grains), so the starter / levain doesn't go in until long after the water is mixed with the flour.
I have never tried the float test either --- I've always just went by my experience of how it should look and smell when it's good to go.
I'm afraid I'm not so good at the whole "baking is science" thing, using testable / repeatable parameters...
Thanks for the reminder that I've got some great knowledge at my fingertips (if I get smart enough to read it)!
It does make sense that a fully ripe starter would no longer have any visible gluten bonds.
I tend to mix my starter into the water before adding rye flour. So if it doesn't, a pause is in order to let it ferment more before adding flour. That is if you want it more mature. Was thinking about that yesterday with a 60% rye mixed flour loaf. With my tropical heat, I whisk all the flours together with the salt and spices then add to the thinned sourdough culture. Dry to wet. More thorough mixing for what little I do.
I would have to think that hydration plays a part in the way the starter dissolves in water.
My 100% starter dissolves immediately but my 55% starters will not break down so easily. With my drier starters I generally add water then press the clump flat in on the side of the container, exposing it to the water in the process. I then fold it over itself and do this over and over. Eventually it breaks down into pieces but never really dissolves.
Trust me - the starter is ripe, just very low in hydration.
I went back and found the reference so I could make sure I was getting it correct. It was in the section on desem bread. A desem is a very firm starter made in a certain way (ripened inside a bucket of flour for the first week). Here is specifically what the book says about how to tell if your desem starter is 'ripe':
Now, I don't know if there is an essential difference between desem and other starters. The desem is made with whole wheat flour and is quite stiff, but other than the fermenting method would seem to be pretty much the same. I found it interesting that all the gluten should be digested in a ripe starter though. I suppose this is what makes some sourdoughs much more digestible, even for people with gluten sensitivity.
Anyway, I find that my 100% hydration bread flour starter also mostly dissolves in water, as do most 100% whole wheat starters. If I have a stiffer bread flour starter, I squish it up by hand in the water and it generally also dissolves though I have a low level of tolerance for standing there squishing up my starter to the point where it is all dissolved. :)
I had a ripe starter go rogue on me, and it took about a month to get it back.
My starter was liquid, like pancake batter. I always keep a 100% hydration starter. Anyway, I had some success and was getting a nice tang, amazing crusts, good keeping qualities, creamy interior - you know, great bread.
Then one day, my bread fell apart on me. The gluten was gone. I thought I had over mixed it. Hard to do when kneading by hand, but... I tried again. Same thing. I told myself it was the flour, got a new bag. Same thing.
No matter WHAT I did, that starter destroyed the gluten in the bread.
It took a month of feeding 2 or 3 times a day to bring the starter back, and it never did fully recover. I eventually trashed it.
So, based on my experience, I will try to keep my starters just this side of being fully ripe.
My two cents.
Hi. My starter floats 15 seconds or so and then sinks through the water to the bottom of the cup where it dissolves or disintegrates. Is it ripe enough to bake with, do you think? Looks bubbly.
I should clarify that it is one third starter, one third water and one third whole wheat flour by weight.
A whole wheat starter will probably disintegrate in water more quickly than one made with unbleached flour anyway, and also won't float quite so well. I suspect your starter is quite ready, in fact, you might want to change to a 1/5 starter, 2/5 flour and 2/5 water feeding to make sure it's not getting too hungry!
give it a try.