Hi everybody,
I´m new to sourdough starters and I would like to get to know more about them.
I´m kind of a theoretical person. I need to understand the theory first, before I actually go to test anything in the kitchen :)
I want to create an starter to make pizza (and maybe, occasionally some bread too). But the conditions are these:
On one hand, I won´t bake as much and as often. And on the other, I really want to waste the minimum amount of ingredients.
I think the best way to achieve this is by creating a very small amount of starter, and keep it mostly in the fridge.
So I´m planning on building a very little starter (something between 10 g and 20 g)
I have come up with my own plan, but I´m not sure it will work
My overall plan is this:
1. Create a 10 gram starter and keep it on the fridge most of the time. I will feed it once every week (or maybe once every 2 weeks)
2. When I want to bake pizza (or bread). I will take out the starter out of the fridge around 2 to 4 days before the baking session
3. I will take out 8 grams of starter to build my preferment, or starter, for my final dough.
4. This will leave 2 grams of starter on the jar. I will feed this remaining starter with 4 grams of flour and 4 grams of water (following the rule 1:2:2) to rebuild the starter to 10 grams again. I will leave the jar out at room temperature for 2 or 3 hours (until the starter gets bubbly) and then, I will put it back on the fridge again.
5. At the same time, I will take my discarded 8 g of starter and I will triple its size by adding 8 g flour and 8 g water (following the 1:1:1 rule). I will mix it and leave it at room temperature for 24 hours.
6. The next day I will have a starter of 24 g (At this point, I can actually use this to make 1 pizza, assuming that one pizza needs about 20-30 g starter). Then I will add 24 g flour and 24 g water, mix it and leave it another day at room temperature for 24 hours.
7. The next day I will have a 72 g starter (this will suffice to bake 2 or 3 pizzas). If I need more, I can even triple its size again by adding 72 g flour and 72 g water, mix it and leave it at room temperature for 24 hours.
8. So the next day the starter will be at 216 g (enough to make like 5 to 7 pizzas!!)
9. And I can continue like this until i have the quantity I need for the recipe.
This philosophy is about as having as little starter as possible and discarding nothing (or at least, a minimum amount of stuff).
I want to ask all of you, seasoned bakers:
What do you think about my plan? Will it work?
Does it have a fatal flaw I can´t foresee? Did I miss anything important?
Do you have a better suggestion, or a better plan, that suits my philosophy of minimum starter/minimum waste?
I will welcome all opinions/suggestions about my ideas and my plan.
Thanks a lot!
Cheers!!
Replies
Hello Anonymous,
Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with your plan and, in fact, it is the sort of thing that most home bakers do.
The only caveat would be trying to work with such small amounts.
Here's what I do. I keep a stock (at 100% hydration) of a few hundred grams in the fridge. When I am going to bake, typically once a week, I take half the amount that I need for the recipe from the stock. I double that with equal amounts of flour and water and leave on the bench to get working (can be up to 8 to 12 hours but quicker if the temperature is higher). I add the same amount of flour and water to the stock to replace the quantity taken out (so the mass of starter in the stock doesn't change) and put it straight back in the fridge till next time. The stock has been left in the fridge for a month while on holidays with little, if any, deleterious effect.
So, absolutely no waste and no three day campaigns to build up to a recipe amount. Whilst on that topic, a spoonful of starter can inoculate quite a large quantity for a bake so no real need to go through the multi-stage build though some do advocate this approach as giving improved taste profiles. In some bakeries, the next day's starter is generated from the scrapings left in the container from today's just by adding more flour and water.
Good luck with your projects.
Farinam
Hi Farinam,
Thanks for your input, much appreciate it!
Your approach seem very easy!
Though, let me ask you some things that I´m not a 100 % sure about:
1. What´s the minimum amount of starter that I can create? Can i create a starter of just 30 g, by mixing 15 g flour and 15 g water? Or is there a minimun amount I should work with?
2. I´ve heard about the rule 1:1:1 or 1:2:2. What i´m not sure is whether it refers to the amount of starter or the amount of flour whitin the starter.
For instance, let´s say I have 50 g starter with 100% hydration.
If I want to apply the 1:1:1 rule, will it be like this:
A.) 50 g starter + 50 g flour + 50 g water
Or like this:
B.) 50 g starter + 25 g flour + 25 g water (because the 50 g starter has 25 g flour in it)
What is the correct option? A or B?
Is: whole starter : flour : water ? Or: flour in the starter : flour : water ?
3. You say you take half the amount of starter from the stock to bake the recipe, and then replenish it.
But, let´s say you have a 100 g starter, and the recipe calls for just 20 g.
So you take out 10 g, double it and bake the recipe.
The you replenish the 10 g you took out by adding 5 g flour and 5 g water
But you already have 80 g of starter left,
Shouldn´t you at least give the remaining starter 40 g of flour, minimum?
Wouldn´t most of the population (in the 80 g starter) starve if you only feed them with 5 g flour?
Perhaps you can enlighten me because I´m very confused about all this :(
Hello Anonymous,
I have been away for a bit and I missed your questions.
I don't know what the minimum size of starter that you could develop but I cannot see any problem with having a stock of a few hundred grams. As I said before, working with very small amounts can be just as, if not more, difficult than working with larger amounts and once you have your starter established, there is no waste. A lot of home bakers establish and keep their starter at 100% hydration, I guess, because the maths is easy and it is easier to mix and it stays homogeneous (unless it is left without feeding for a long period). Lower hydration (stiff) starters can have some advantages but, in my opinion, require a bit more work to incorporate but that is a minor problem. Higher hydration starters are more susceptable to phase separation (vide the Fred Bread case) but once again this is not necessarily a problem.
Basically the 1:1:1 'rule' is 1 part starter, 1 part flour and 1 part water which is the basic 100% hydration starter for making a loaf (also called a levain). It is not based on the amount of flour in the starter and it is not a rule for maintaining your stock supply of starter. For making a loaf there is what is known as the 1:2;3 rule which is 1 part starter (100% hydration), 2 parts water and 3 parts flour (say 100g starter (prepared using the 1:1:1 rule), 200g water and 300g flour to make a small loaf). Most recipes have fairly close to these sorts of proportions ( say the Pane francesa resipe in SourDom's Beginners Blogs - 180g starter, 320g water, 500g flour) so I would think that any recipe calling for only 20g of starter would either be a very small loaf or would take a long time to generate enough activity to leaven the dough adequately.
I don't know the mass of my stock starter but I would guess it is somewhere about 300g. This means that at every feed it is getting somewhere between 15 and 20% of the mass in fresh flour. However, you have to remember that the yeasts and bacteria do not die unless it is of old age or by being poisoned. If food is in short supply, they merely go into a state of dormancy and hang around for the next supply of food to turn up, So, in a way, any amount of fresh food will suffice though, obviously, a starter that has been completely starved for a long time might take a couple of feeding cycles to get back to full bottle. This can happen if you go away for a month on holidays and it just sits in the fridge waiting mournfully for your return.
So, I would recommend that you put your ideal of a spoonful of starter on the back-burner, get yourself a wide-mouth one litre glass bottle or jar and follow SourDom's excellent advice in the Beginners Blogs and make yourself some delicious breads.
Good luck with your projects.
Farinam
I'm with Farinam. That is what I do too. I would avoid the very small quantities of starter. Most of our scales are not very accurate at low weights. Trying to weigh out 5 grams of anything on my scale is subject to a lot of errors, so I stick to higher weights where small inaccuracies are of less consequence.
Thanks for your contribution Allen!
The question is, how small is too small?
I keep a small storage starter because I see no reason to have a large one. My storage starter is 50% hydration 6 grams of water and 12 grams of flour. I leave this on the counter and only feed it once a day. I take a pinch, about 2 grams, and repeat everyday. The cats love the discard. I use a 50 percnt starter because the lower hydration slows down the activity of the starter.
From experience I would say it will take four days of feeding to get your starter back to full power after storing it in the fridge.
I have been making bread and pizza dough for many years and it only takes a very small amout of starter to get your preferment going. I have many times used 2 grams of storage starter to get a preferment going as large as 839 grams. I don't see a need to do multiple builds.
Your plan will work. I think there are as many different ways to do sourdough as there are people who bake sourdough. You will find something that works for your lifestye and use it.
Hi LeadDog!
Thanks for your contribution!
That´s a very small amount of starter you have there. I´m glad it works for you!
I will plan to keep mine on the fridge though.
Don´t you think that if I take some portion out of the fridge, it will be able to use 8-12 hours after I have fed it? I wouldn´t want to feed the starter 4 days before being able to use it (after taking it out of the fridge)
Another thing,
How do you create a preferment of 800 g with just 2 g of starter, and without using a multi stage build up?
That would be interesting to know!
Cheers!
You will make bread but from experience the starter will not reach its peak activity until you have fed it for 4 days after you have taken it out of the fridge.
Here is how I use 2 grams to make my preferment. I make the preferment by taking 2 grams of the storage starter and adding it to 479 grams of water and break it up in the water so the water turns to a milky color. Next I add 274 grams of whole wheat flour but bread flour will work too and add that to the water/starter mix. I let this ferment in the winter time about 24 hours. It is summer here now and it ferments faster. The tell tail sign that it is ready is when the flour floats to the top.
You can read all about this if you do a search for "Fred Bread" here on this forum.
Thanks!
I will read it!
4 days seem like too much time to wait. I thought it was only 8-12 hours after feeding for the starter to reach its peak.
It seems you are making a starter with a really high hydration level