Diluting starter

janisem

Hi

Can someone explain the process of diluting my starter to obtain a whiter loaf please? I currently feed my 100% hydration starter 10% rye and strong white, so not a lot of rye but I am assuming that the less rye the better the rise as well as a whiter loaf?  Not quite sure what proportion of starter to use and how long the process takes.  I have been making my own bread for a few years now but stick to what works and have consistently excellent results but am not very adventurous, I have made a bread from this site, think it was "FredBread" where only a tsp of starter was added to water and left overnight to ferment before using to make the bread so adding a day to the bread making process....is this the same idea?  Looking for ideas and inspiratipon!  Thanks

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farinam's picture
farinam 2015 August 17

Hello janisem,

One method that I have used is to start with a few grams and build up the starter that I need over twenty four hours tripling the mass at each feed.  So, if I need 180g to finish I would start with 7g of stock (180/3/3/3) and build it to 20g, then, after 8 hours or so, build again to 60g and, finally, after another 8 hours or so, do the final build to 180g.  If you are using a 100% hydration starter then the weights of flour and water at each stage are easy.  But, if you want to change hydration during the build, you can do that as well though the calculations are rather more difficult.  If you look in my blogs there is a short article and a link to a spreadsheet that you can use.

Other than that, just about any procedure that you can imagine could be used even to the extent of going straight from the 'teaspoonful' to the final weight in one go as it doesn't take much to inoculate quite a large amount of culture.  In bakeries, often the dregs left in the container from one day's starter is all that gets the next day's going and they are talking gallons of the stuff.

Good luck with your projects.

Farinam

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