Building Water for your Starter?
Ok, among other "issues" that I'm working through with my starters, NOW I find that my WATER might be an issue...?!
Maybe I'm looking too far into this thing. Wait, no; I definitely AM looking too far into this thing! I'm actually considering building my own water for my sourdough starters and bread. Why not? It works for brewing beer - I never just use water from the source - bottled or otherwise - for making beer, I build it from scratch. I have to where I live now as the water is way off course.
My tap water has 532 ppm Total Dissolved Solids - palpable. 8.3 pH, Sodium coming in at 140 ppm...! I wouldn't even THINK of using it for brewing, so why exactly am I using it in my starters?
I was thinking of switching to bottled drinking water, brand doesn't matter too much as long as it's on sale and tastes good. I have the salts necessary to build whatever water profile I want from RO, like controlling the Calcium to promote yeast health - does anyone actually get that deep with their water for bread making?