Hey all!
I took quite a hiatus from the forum, even if I was just trolling. Part of this unfortunate vacation also led me to neglect my starter, and not care for it as carefully as I would have liked.
I always made a habit to store my starter in the fridge, and fed it weekly. For the feed I would let it come to room temperature, feed, let rise, and stash in the fridge for a week. There were a few occasions where I let it sit without feeding for up to a month or a bit longer. This really condensed the starter into a cake almost, and hardened the film on top. Removing the film left a nice white cake underneath that was easy to restore.
This starter is about 5 years old now, and I have been feeding it weekly/monthly for the past 2 years. I rarely bake or use it, but I still love my starter and don't want to lose it.
It is HIGHLY sour now, with the usual sourdough aroma. I would have to contribute this to the age of the starter, and I am hoping that it's ok. Can anyone confirm with me that this starter is still ok to use, even after my years of neglect and abuse?
Second question, is more or less around substituting starter for dry or cake yeast in recipes. I took Julias recipe for basic french bread and tried to convert it to use starter instead of package yeast. First rise in the book was scheduled for 3-5hrs @ 70F... after 6.5 hours @ 75F it barely rose to halfway.
I came back here and read that the usual rule of thumb is the time it takes the starter to feed (usually 8-12 hours), is usually how long it takes to prep the dough for baking.. so I undestand that. But after reading Sourdom's Pane Francese (1) recipe, along with others, it seems the starter should be around 35% in the recipe, where in Julia's recipe, I only used about 10%. So I think my problem is I used less than preferred starter causing a slow rise.
So in recipes, should the starter always be around 35% of the flour total, or is there some sort of conversion chart to follow to substitute your starter for dry or live cake yeast?
Thanks guys! Hopefully I'll be more regular on here.
Replies
Hello Gundarak,
Welcome back. I think once you get the bug, it never really goes away.
If your starter is active after you feed it - gets all bubbly and mousse-like - and doesn't grow any nasty molds or makes nasty smells, then I think you should be fine.
In terms of the amount of starter to use, there is a bit of a rule of thumb called 1:2:3 which is one part starter (at 100% hydration), 2 parts liquid (usually water but can include milk, oil and other liquid containing ingredients) and 3 parts flour. Now, depending on which percentage you are talking about that is either 17% (relative to dough weight) or 33% (relative to flour weight - bakers percentage). I asume you were quoting the latter.
In the recipes that I have converted, for the 'standard' amounts of yeast (7g dry/30g fresh) , 180g of 100% levain has worked out pretty well with suitable adjustments of the other ingredients to allow for the flour and water content of the starter. Obviously, you have to adjust any timings given with the recipe to allow for the lower activity of the sourdough.
Hope this helps and good luck with your projects.
Farinam
Thank you Farinam,
I am actually still in production of this "Julia" batch. The dough rose pretty quickly in comparison to the first rise, and is now in proof. Seems the yeast had to catch up as suspected because I didn't add as much as I should have in the beginning. To try to salvage this batch, I turned them into short batards, and will bake them off that way. I was careless with trying to form a proper seam, but the shape is there lol.
I'll bust them open tomorrow to see how they look/feel/taste.
It will give me a pretty nice guideline where my starter is in terms of it's health, and where I need to adjust my recipes. You are correct, I was citing baker's percentage :)
I'll make sure to feed my starter as I normally do, and will start on a second batch first thing tomorrow morning with the appropriate amount of starter, and will document how long it takes to rise in comparison of today's batch.
Thanks for the help! I'm confident everything is right, I'm just a little rusty!!!