about six months ago I purchased 50 grams of Brett Noys starter on-line from somewhere in Brisbane (I forget where) and it has been in the fridge since. I am looking to have a go at my first sourdough bread and have printed off shiao-ping's recipe for home bread from this site. It calls for 140g (1.1 cups) of white starter at 100% hydration. How do I go about increasing the 50 grams to 140 grams? Ipswich Wino
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Hi Kevin,
You don't say what form your starter is in but the most important thing is that it is still active.
I would start by taking a small amount (say a teaspoonful) and mix it with 20g flour and 20g water and leave it to sit on the bench for several hours or overnight to see whether it shows signs of activity. That is bubble formation and/or increase in volume. The increase in volume will depend a bit on the size/shape of the container that you use.
After twelve hours, I would feed it again with 50g flour and 50g water. If it is vigourously active after this second feed, this would give you your 140g for your recipe that you could use to make your loaf. If it is only slightly active, I would discard 100g and repeat the 50/50 feed and, if necessary repeat a couple of more times until it comes to active life.
Once you have demonstrated that what you have can be re-invigourated then you could start feeding up the balance of what you have following the instructions that you were given or those contained in SourDom's beginners blog on this site.
If you get no signs of life from these experiments, then your best bet is to start from scratch following SourDom's method which has proved to be very reliable and in a couple of weeks you should have your own home-grown starter and be able to start on your sourdough adventure.
Good luck with your projects.
Farinam