I am new to Sourdough bread making but am off to a start with my starters at day 4 and doing well bubbling away. I am testing out 2 starters- I've made one with white flour and the other with wholemeal flour.
I'm at day four- and so far have only been feeding them once a day but today I also removed 3/4's of the starter (planning on making pizza dough out of this) before feeding.
I have done lots of reading both online and have Dan Lepards book The handmade Loaf but it still isn't clear to me about what I should do with my starter for the following purposes-
1. How long before I can use it to make a loaf - (Somewhere I read it takes 6 weeks for it to be ideal- even if it is doubling in size)
2. Once ripe- If i use starter twice a week should i just leave it out on the bench or refridgerate. If the recommendation is to keep it in fridge for this type of use how do I care for it/ get it ready to use for bread. On the bench- do I discard and feed everyday?
3. If I want to put it on hold if i'm going away can I just put it in a sealed container in the fridge? If so how long can it be left in the fridge like this without being fed?
4. As I am making starter from scratch- is it safe to use the early discards for things like pizza dough as I understand that some of the bacterias produced early on aren't good ones.
Sorry about all the questions but I have had info overload and noone has the same answer.
I am so looking forward to my first bake.
Replies
Hello karent,
Welcome, it sounds as if you are well on the way.
First, I would suggest that you read SourDom's beginners blogs on this site. He gives some easy to understand and relevant pointers.
While your good activity is a good sign, a young culture can be a bit variable as the various beasties rise and wane as the conditions in the culture change to suit them or to disfavour them. I would be very surprised, though, for it to take six weeks for it to stabilise. One to two weeks should give you a pretty good result following a normal sort of development regime such as given by SourDom. You could try making a loaf, or pizza, or crumpets almost any time but the risk that you run is that you strike one of its 'sulky' moods and you end up with a less than well leavened loaf though it would still be edible.
If you are using it twice a week then it is a toss up whether to leave on the bench or put it in the fridge. It's unlikely to die from want of food, it just goes into a state of dormancy and waits for the next lot of food to arrive. And that doesn't have to be daily though regular feeding will keep the activity at some sort of peak. Also, things don't stop in the fridge, they just slow down and the activity lasts longer for a given aliquot of food.
What I do, is take out some for my loaf starter (usually 90g) and replace that amount with flour and water and after mixing it goes straight back in the fridge. The amount taken out is built up to what is required for the loaf (usually 180g) with flour and water and left covered with GladWrap on the bench (overnight often) and then make the dough for the loaf. My fall back recipe for everyday bread is the Pane francesa that SourDom gives in his blog.
I have reasonably regularly left my starter in the fridge (not tightly covered - partly screwed on lid) while on holiday for four weeks at a time and made bread immediately without a hitch. Even after six weeks, results were OK and after a couple of baking cycles things were perfectly normal.
Good luck with your projects and let us know how you go.
Farinam
Thanks for the input Farinam. That clarifies things. Would it be possible to give the link to the recipe you suggested. I haven't been able to find the recipe using the search engine on this site.
Cheers
Karen
Hello Karen,
http://sourdough.com/blog/sourdom/recipes
Basically the 'pure' sourdough version is recipe (1) although in it he specifies only a teaspoon of starter but I use the half and half method that I outlined.
Go for it.
Farinam