Starter

[aaronatthedoublef]

I just finished making 2.5 dozen strawberry pancakes. Only one son has come down to eat and neither I nor my daughter have eaten any. I have 20 pancakes left. Of course on top of being 16 he runs 65 miles a week...

I will need a LOT of starter. And even if he doesn't like them he will still eat that many. He will just use more syrup.

Thanks for the bread recipe.

[skeptic7]

Can one teenager eat 10 pancakes for breakfast? I can see that happening for lunch but at breakfast? I hope you get to taste your own pancakes.

[BakerAunt]

Epicurious had a detailed discussion of sourdough featuring two professional bakers who also have been home bakers:

https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/troubleshooting-sourdough-article?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=epi&utm_mailing=EPI_CTN_050520&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5c93032824c17c329bff212e&cndid=44882808&esrc=bounceX&utm_term=EPI_CTN

[Joan Simpson]

BakerAunt that's good information and some good looking recipes.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Really cool. They sort of answer one of my questions. Most recipes I've read say to use an "unfed starter" but don't tell me how long after a feeding my starter is "unfed". But they talk about it based on activity. I never have a ton of activity but my house is cold - right now it's 65 in the kitchen. They say 78 is the optimal temp.

I need a heating pad that goes to about 75 degrees that I can rest it on. Or maybe I could use a normal heating pad and insulate it.

Here is an interesting guide to flour. I was looking for the difference between tipo OO and "semolina regrind" which they do not explain. But based on what they say it seems that the main difference is in the grind, at least with Caputo. They are both 12.5% protein. I haven't tried the semolina regrind yet but the tipo OO is elastic but easier to stretch than bread or high gluten protein. I wonder if that is due to the grind. It feels the same as cake flour in my hand.

They also do not discuss the different types of gluten but that may be too geeky for their audience.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BTW, Serious Eats has a starter at 100% hydration and it is wet and heavy. It's a little easier to see it's risen because the jar has some measurement markings on the side. But until I learned how to read it I couldn't tell the starter had risen until I stirred it.

[Mike Nolan]

Before I try making baguettes with my small supply of French flour, I'm going to make them using other flour, probably KAF bread flour, partly for the practice and partly to give me something to compare to.

I think I"m going to take a riff from Chad Robertson's less-acid starter playbook and make some levain using a small amount of my rye starter as the inoculant, probably something like 100-125 grams of water, 100 grams of flour and 5 grams of rye starter. The recipe that came with the flour calls for a 'liquid sourdough starter' but doesn't say what hydration level. I'll probably try 100% first.

I haven't had any problems telling if my rye starter is growing, it pretty much doubles in size overnight. I keep it in 2 cup glass bowls.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Found this link on pineapple juice starters from Debra Wink. Pretty cool.

[Joan Simpson]

When my starter was first starting it was slow and I added a little wheat flour and it perked it up quickly,but then I didn't need to add anymore,just white and water.

[Mike Nolan]

Deb is a microbiologist by training and put her training into practical use in her own kitchen. I think Reinhart's BBA book goes into some length about how the pineapple juice method was developed via posts on the original KAF Baking Circle.

I've had some interesting email discussions with her, and was sorely disappointed when her sourdough class was cancelled in March. She posts periodically on the BBGA forum. I've suggested she should do a book, but I can tell you from direct observation that writing a book is a LOT of work.

[aaronatthedoublef]

My starter is water and whole wheat flour. I have a little bit of sugar in the water and 100% hydration. It's from Serious Eats. I read somewhere that whole grains work better because the bran gives the yeast some food.

[Mike Nolan]

Starters really run the gamut of possibilities, the one Aaron was talking about on yesterday's test Zoom call with milk, sugar and flour has been around since the 50's, and while it works, sometimes I really wonder how. There are starters that use grapes, raisins, potatoes and a few other fruits and vegetables as source material for yeast and possibly other microbes.

There was an interesting question on one of my cell phone news posts recently about who has the oldest starter. I know some of the San Francisco bakeries claim to have kept their starters going since the Gold Rush days (1849), but that may not be the oldest starter still going.

[aaronatthedoublef]

At one point KAF claimed to have unearthed and revived one of their original starters dating back to colonial times. I'll have to see if I can find any mention on their website.

[aaronatthedoublef]

My starter is now resting in the refrigerator out of sight of my wife who was growing less patient with it. I have some questions though.

1) When I take the starter out do I need to let it come to room temp and feed it or feed it before it comes to room temp? Not much will happened when it's cold anyway.

2) The recipes I've been using have me make a sponge with the starter and some flour then let it sit. Can I take the cold, unfed starter, make the sponge, and have it sit a few extra hours to allow it to come to room temp?

3) The recipes have me make a sponge with unfed starter. Do I need to feed the starter and allow it to grow again before I put it back? Or can I put the unfed starter back?

4) I've been using water and whole wheat flour. Can I change the liquid and flour or should I use a new starter?

Thanks

[Mike Nolan]

I know a number of sourdough experts who recommend giving your starter some rye flour every now and then. I'm just going to keep a rye starter, when I want to make a wheat bread I've been making a levain using 5 grams of rye starter with 50 grams of wheat flour and 50 grams of water. By the time I add in another 500 grams or so of wheat flour, the rye is down to do less than 1% of the flour weight.

Unfed starter is in a state of reduced activity, personally when I'm making a levain for a batch of bread I do it the day before I want to bake, after I've fed the starter and let it sit for an hour or two.

My guess is you'll need to let your starter warm up for a few hours before you do much with it. Production bakeries don't throw out starter, I believe most of them feed it, wait a while, then take about half of the fed starter for the next day's bread batch. But they're baking every day, so they have more ability to adjust their starter's schedule to their baking needs than home bakers who only bake every few days, at most.

According to Chad Robertson, if you keep your starter in the refrigerator, it will tend to develop more acetic acid producing bacteria and less lactic-acid producing bacteria, because the latter don't like the cold as much. I think that makes for a more assertively sour starter and resulting bread. My baguettes have a levain base, and I can tell it is there, but it has a very mild sour taste, though it gets a bit more noticeable on day 2.

[Author]

Posts