April 22, 2019 - 2:34am
Maintaining two separate starters
Hello everyone,
I have two different cultures that I got from different places. I've had them both for a while. I sometimes feed them one right after the other. I was wondering if there's any concern with cross contamination between the two. I sometimes use the same spoon and a small bowl, and I wonder if I should clean them before switching starters or if it matters at all. They have a markedly different profile but the resulting breads have very subtle differences that most people would not notice. I also wonder why I am doing this to myself. I don't even know which I prefer if I decided to let one of them go. FetLife https://downloader.vip/itunes/
Thank you! https://discord.software/Share
From what I have read, regardless of where the mother culture originated it will take on the characteristics of the local wild yeast that is available in its new location. With that in mind, I would guess that both of your cultures are identical. Kind regards,
Will.
A common misconception is the yeast is entering from the outside. The amount from the surrounding local air is negligible. The yeast strains are mostly contained in the flour. Whole grains have an even higher population of yeast. So if somebody from California is using King Arthur, they will actually have mostly Vermont dominant strains of yeast and bacteria. It can be a skewed statistic though, because often times the flour somebody uses has a correlation of price based on locality due to shipping costs etc... Below is actually a map showing dominant strains of the bacteria that was mapped out. If you look at it, in the grand scheme of things it is not that much different. After the main strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the percentage difference in variations is less than half a percent. Your salt, which is usually about 2% will have a higher change. Just my 2 cents :)
http://robdunnlab.com/projects/sourdough/map/
most likely happened already. Using the same bowl and spoon will do it every time. :)
no biggie
Are they different flours?
But is cross contamination really an issue if you're using different flours? Or different hydrations?
I'm definitely cross contaminating my cultures by stirring with the same spoon, but one is white all purpose and one is a mix of white/whole wheat/barley flours (honestly idk why I'm even doing the barley besides I got the vague idea that you should have the grains in your culture that you're planning to bake with... might switch it with rye because I'll be using it more anyway).
My thought was I'd manage the white one to be more mild for leavening more delicate less sour bread (I don't want to buy yeast anymore) and the mixed grain one for nice sour hefty whole grain breads. But maybe I'd be better off with yeast water or a desem style starter instead of the white one... it's not so happy anyway.