September 28, 2018 - 11:06am
Using a stiff starter
i tried the NFNM starter and a liquid one. I landed liking something, in the middle- a stiff starter. I feel it is just enough attention and size so that it feels like a pet! I am curious though, how do you use a stiff starter in a liquid recipe?
according to the knights at KAF it doesn’t matter. Just refresh the ball and through it in. I must say I was elated. But my instinct is to trust but verify. So I thought I would ask here. Is it necessary to turn it back to a liquid, or add more water to the recipe?
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Is it used as a seed only? Or do you use your starter straight into the final dough?
I keep a stiff whole rye starter at 70% hydration but from that I keep it mainly as a seed only and build off-shoot starters (levains) to whatever hydration and flour I need.
E.g. 150g mature bread flour starter @ 100% hydration (70g water + 70g bread flour) I'll do a build like so...
Allow that to mature and I have a "bespoke" starter for the recipe I'm doing.
I am a stickler for accurate hydration. If you don’t calculate the hydration of the starter and your starter is not of the prescribed hydration in the formula, your water will be off. And you’d be surprised to know how much 3 tablespoons of water will affect the hydration.
My math is based on common sense and is convoluted, so I’ll let the math guys explain the calculations.
Dan
I have no idea what the hydration of my starter is.
I'm only on my second attempt at a sourdough bread since completing my starter a couple of weeks ago. Generally speaking, I'm a stickler for accurate measurements (i.e. weighing my ingredients) for bread recipes.
That being said, I've watched countless YouTube videos of people seemingly throwing together their ingredients and producing beautiful loaves of "sourdough" bread. Of course, I have no idea what their final product taste like, but it appears there is definitely room for flexibility.
To answer your question, I'm using an offshoot from my starter per instructions from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (Basic Sour Dough Bread).
Since it seems I have a 50% seed I think I’ll build it at 50% and add water.
Valdus, are you weighing your starter ingredients? If so, please reply telling us what they are.
Dan
I did 10 gram starter, 10 water and 20 flour. And it started rising about 2 hours after.
Was your original starter mixed at the same 50% hydration? If not, what were the weights of that starter?
Sorry, 15-15-30
Your starter id 50% hydrated as you said. If I understand your question you want to build it as a 100% (liquid) levain. How much levain do you need?
No, I was wondering if I could put the stiff Levain in with a liquid recipe. I wanted to know if I can just do that pitch?
Just add the missing water to the main dough.
weigh the amount of 50% hydration starter.... divide by 3...add that as water to the starter for total 100% hydration starter
example:
The math seems to pop out, a more direct method would be to take the amount of 100% hydration starter and multiply by 0.25 to get the extra water amount and 0.75 to get the stiff starter amount.
i think I will just make a liquid starter for liquid recipes, no problems. I just made a real sour loaf, that I lov, but wife hates. So think from now on it will Ben better for me to stay with conservative bread alchemy.
what are the mathematics for getting 12 oz of stiff starter over two feedings?
I divided 12 oz by 16 and that gave me the base to start with .75 oz.
Valdus, if you still need help, please reply with specifics and Ill get the correct weights for you.
What is the present hydration of your starter?
What hydration starter would you like to mix?
What is the exact weights of your present feeds? (starter + water+ flour)
Danny
Update - I read back through the post. If your present starter is 15 starter + 15 water + 30 flour, you have an extremely dry starter. A starter this dry will need to be kneaded in order to incorporate the ingredients. Is this the case?
at all. Just add some water or take out a spoonful and add to it equal weights of water and flour. After two feeds it is for all practical purposes 100% hydration.
I would keep the stiff starter. It has more yeast and fed less often and easy to thin down to a liquid starter. To make a liquid starter into a stiff one it takes longer, often several days. :)
I have a 50% starter fed it once to 12 oz but did nor rise as much. So I want a second stiff build to 12 oz.
I have a 50% starter fed it once to 12 oz but did nor rise as much. So I want a second stiff build to 12 oz.
i gave up and just made a liquid starter; much much easier! But I do very much like keeping a stiff starter. It’s like play dough for adults!
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i like to use a liquid starter to make a stiff for my soft buns and loaves .
the idea was orginated from my panattone making
i use 50g seed / 25g water / 50g flour
double and i chill for 1 hr and use