which starter should I keep?
Hello
I've been happily using a starter that I built with whey and white flour for about 6 months now.
Last week, I had a little chat with the owner of a whole-wheat pita bread bakery in my neighborhood, and he told me that they use the old dough method, keeping a piece of dough from today's patch to ferment tomorrow's patch, and so on. He gave me the dough of one pita bread, that was about to go into the oven, to use as a starter back home.
And so I prepared 2 patches of dough to make 4 pizzas, 2 using my own starter, and 2 using the pita bakery's old dough. They were both kept in the fridge for 4-day retarding. Then today I moved them out of the fridge to bake the pizzas. The bakery's old dough didn't rise as much in room temp. compared to my own starter, and it came out flat from the oven, while mine rose beautifully. However, the bakery's old dough gave the pizza a deeper, more complex sour flavor than my starter's. My family liked it more than mine.
Now I need to decide which one should I keep, as I don't want to maintain 2 starters. The dough in the bakery produces bread that rises dramatically in the oven. Here is a picture :
2014_8_24_10_37_43_544.jpg
But it didn't rise in my kitchen gas oven.
Should I keep the bakery's old dough and develop it over time to give it some power?
Or dump it and use mine as usual ?
The taste of the bakery's is better than mine.. that's why I'm hesitant and can't decide which to keep and maintain.
Or perhaps I mix them both ?
What do you suggest I do please?