April 18, 2020 - 3:41pm
Unbleached flour sold out! Use bleached for feeding sourdough?
Hi All,
New to this site, hope everyone is well and safe!
I'm having a hard time finding unbleached flour (or whole wheat) in the grocery stores where I live, because everyone is baking in quarantine! I can only find bleached Gold Medal AP flour. Can I use that to feed my sourdough starter? I do have some unbleached King Arthur bread flour at home. Should I use that instead, or maybe a combination?
FYI- my starter is about 4 months old. I started it myself, using only KA unbleached AP flour, or whole wheat. It's fairly robust.
Thanks!
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Do you have a Smart & Final; or a Cash & Carry; or a Smart Foodservice near you? You might be able to find some bread flour at one of those stores, if you can get there early in the day.
It's the perfect time for a little home science project! How about instead of discarding the next time you feed, split your starter in half and feed one with the KA bread and one with the bleached AP. Then report your results back to us!
Just be aware that if you change the type of flour, you should give the starter a few days to stabilise before trying to bake with it, as the new conditions will favour a different spectrum of microbes that will take a little while to come t the fore
Short answer: it's fine. It'll be different, but just as viable an option.
Maaaaybe if you were just starting out, I'd recommend against the bleached flour, but it really doesn't matter. (Using the KA flour will also work if you're that concerned about the bleaching)