I have been baking sourdough bread for a couple of months now almost every weekend. I don't understand why we keep more starter than we need. Constantly discarding some or finding other thing to bake with it. Why can't a small amount of starter be kept in the refrigerator than taken out a few days before baking, building to amount you need to bake with plus slightly more. Put the same small amount of fresh starter back in the refrigerator for next week. Don't know if I am missing something does anyone know why this might not be a good idea, will I be losing some flavor by not keeping a mother starter. From everything I've read your starter should be as fresh as possible.
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Your thinking is spot on, bobku. There is no need to be regularly stuck with excess starter. I guess some home bakers are under the mistaken impression that this is the way it's somehow meant to be, but you've got it worked out well. It's all down to keeping small amounts in the fridge and organisation!
There are only two things you need to be aware of in keeping small volumes of starter in the fridge between bakes. One is to make sure you build it up to ripeness before you bake. The other is that it is true that a larger volume of 'mother starter' tends to produce slightly better flavour in the bread. But this is splittling hairs, since good home-baked sourdough is so beautiful anyway.
I do as you do bobku and bake a couple of loaves about once a week. I never have to put my levain in the fridge, throw it away or find other uses for it. During the week, I just sprinkle flour over the levain two or three times a day and stir it in with a little warm water. Before I bake, I take out a good cupful of the levain for ongoing use and whatever remains goes into the dough. Works fine.
I also bake once a week without throwing away starter. I keep my starter as a firm dough ball in the fridge and do not feed it. The evening before baking I mush it up with some water to make a paste, then feed it 250g flour and 250ml water to give an approximately 100% hydrated starter. I leave it out of the fridge overnight, during which time it typically doubles in volume. The next day I bake using 500-600g of the starter. This leaves about 50-100g to make the dough ball to go back into the fridge. I simply knead in a couple of handfuls of flour until it's back to a firm dry-ish consistency, then back into a small container in the fridge for the next week. Alternatively if I am planning to bake again the next day, or want starter for sourdough pancakes, I just do another 1:1 feeding and leave it out of the fridge again, and put it back into dough ball form when I am done. I have been following this regime for about 6 months now without any issues. Once or twice the starter has been a bit sluggish so I have discarded some and fed it again for another day. This is my (perhaps misguided) interpretation of the approach from Graham's "Introduction to Sourdough" class.
It is my understanding that the only time that starter is thrown away is when it is first being created. Once a starter is established you no longer throw it away.
I maintain my starter in the fridge, and when I am going to bake, I pull out half of what I need and feed it, then feed the mother what I took out, to maintain what I had, therefore always having a supply on hand.
I also bake a couple of loaves once a week. Like you, I was on a mission to reduce the starter to a minimum. Now I have worked it out that each time when making bread I only save 1 TBS of the old starter, feed it with 2 TBS flour and 1 TBS water, let it sit on the counter for perhaps an hour, then refrigerate till the next week. It fits into a baby food jar! The day before baking, I take it out of the fridge, wait an hour, then build it up once or twice, depending on how much I am planning to bake. This way I am not waisting anything. I just have to remember to make more when I want to make sourdough pancakes.
Lots of interesting variations on your theme here! All of them seem to work fine, too.
Seems to me that the basics are:
Your starter is likely to be a different mix of bugs, so work out what works for you. The different treatments may result in different flavours, but its hard to be sure. I*beleive* that a higher hydration gives me a more sourness, but I haven't done a proper side by side test
For my part, I bake about weekly and use:
* Renew starter 50gm flour/ 35 water + teaspoon of starter (70% hiydration) in refrigerator until morning before.
* Afternoon before renew starter as above & make preferment (build stage in Hamelman) with rest.
Only reason for keeping starter apart is habit, and maybe a nagging doubt that the preferement may fail (never has).
What do you by more than we need? I know no one with a bucket load of starter in their fridge.
I have 1 cup of starter in the fridge. When I make my dough I split the starter in half and feed both the mother and the baby. The baby will be used for baking later that day, and the mother goes back to the fridge for a nap.
Of course I could keep only 1-2 tea/table spoons of starter, but then the buildup process will be longer. I don't have that time (or will) for messing around with multiple builds. Keeping one cup in the fridge allows me for just one mini-build before I bake..
I recently went on a six week holiday and took my starter with me because I baked whilst I was away. However, as an experiment I put one teaspoon of starter in a small jar in the fridge. When I returned six weeks later, I took it out of the fridge, fed it, left it overnight and the next morning had enough starter to make a loaf! (I also left some kefir grains covered with a little milk in a jar for the same period and they were also fine.) It just goes to show how forgiving sour dough is.