July 27, 2021 - 8:40pm
L.M./Lievito Madre - dry up and re-start for the occasional user - how? - or stick to poolish?
I have a rye starter for 2+ years going and it works perfectly fine. However, I don't like that taste in lite colored (T55/550 etc) breads. My idea is a milder starter - so L.M./Lievito Madre looks interesting.
Problem is, I do not bake much 'white' and I don't want to maintain a separate starter.
Can I get some dried up or living LM, take the leftover, dry it, and revive it a day earlier or so before I need it next time? There is dry LM in the market.
Or is LM overrated and using a poolish (plus yeast) does the same thing?
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Have you tried making a white levain with your rye starter? That's the easiest solution to reduce the rye flavour without maintaining a second starter
I agree with Ilya, it would be simple to do a two or three stage levain build starting with a high ratio like 1:6:6 and in the end there would be almost no rye in the levain at all.
Benny
Yep. FWIW, on some great advice given by mini-oven on putting a new rye starter to work, I've been using it on some wheat breads, to great effect. I'm not even building to a wheat levain - just a straight up liquid rye starter with a 14.3% preferment of whole rye. I'm so happy with it I'm toying with just using it on everything, to see how that plays out.
That's what I was doing before switching to CLAS: just using a whole rye starter, and usually not bothering with a levain unless attempting a specific recipe which required it. If I didn't want rye flavour I'd just use very little starter, but building a levain would let you reduce it even further, even with just one stage.
Interesting, Ilya. I'm down to 2 - this liquid rye and the chef per Rubaud/Marie-Claire's info (this latter, which although a "new" culture is for some reason much more vital than my first attempt at Rubaud a few months back. It's more than tripling in a few hours).
It would be interesting to use this rye everywhere and compare breads. I have to admit going back to a 2X/day refreshment on one starter v. multiple times per day on more than one starter is tempting, too (except I haven't even begun to "learn" the true nature of the Rubaud universe. Never will, sadly, but way too early to drop it to move to another paradigm).
Agree on how quickly a given starter "morphs" into its new ecology. I've screwed up and in my bleary-eyed early mornings or late nights have used a Rubaud blend to refresh the rye starter or whole rye to refresh the Rubaud chef. It takes very little to bring everything seemingly back into balance (though I have to admit I'm going on sensory impressions and baking performance only).
I am very keyed to try out the Kvass and CLAS methods mariana laid out.
Reviving a dry starter and doing a build over 1-2 days when it is revived is a great idea. However, no need to buy, use the starter you have. As mentioned, by the time you build it, it will taste like whatever flour you used to revive it with and since it is a well-fed starter, will probably not have much (if any ) rye sour taste.
To dry your starter, just do several feeds to get it very active with a high yeast population. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and smear a really thin layer of the starter (better if it is a pancake batter consistency) on the parchment paper. Dy thoroughly (by an air conditioner works really well), crumble and store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator or freezer. To revive, just take a few tablespoonfuls,add a little spring water and just a little flour to get it going. Once you see bubbles, do a regular feed and take it from there. You will need to do a progressive build as some of the yeast will have died and you need to build the population up again.
Thanks to all. So far I didn't made up my mind. I don't do that much 'white' breads right now, I am afraid a 'white' starter will not get used enough and go bad eventually. But good to have some information from here to give me a potential kickstart.
The LM wasn't extremely high on my priority list, but in the meantime I got a dry LM donation. They look a pit like very pale potato chips. Anybody knows what the suggested LM hydration rate is? For my rye starter I use 100-120%, but I believe for LM will be much less.
Silly, but the very first reply was pretty much spot on!
In the meantime I learned that the grain, wheat, rye, whatever, makes only a minor difference in taste, and no difference in sourness. Sourness is mainly controlled by the water content. More water, more sour.
So a lievito madre is absolutely no mystical beast, just a starter with 50% water content.
So I did cross check - I used a few gram (maybe 5-10g) of my rye starter, added 100g wheat flour, 50g water. It doubled. Then I used that as pre-ferment for a baguette, with no added yeast. I got enormous oven spring and a nice mild sour taste.
Things can be sooo simple. So much confusing information about sourdough out there.