…the starter will most likely evolve to incorporate local micro biota from the air, flour and possibly water it is exposed to. So you can take the starter out of San Francisco, but you probably can’t keep the locals from coming to the party. Doesn’t mean that it’s quirky left coast-iness will disappear completely…
Yes. The same starter , i.e. starters with the same bacteria and yeast, is found in many bakeries, large and small, in many countries, not just in Boudin bakery, San-Francisco, USA.
I was wondering about the flour, if it is not fed the same flour I
was thinking eventually it will lose its characteristic, now the eventual time is unknown, I have San Francisco starter and I really like the smell specially when I compared it to mine, I would hate to lose this devine smell.
I understand, some starters are precious. I lost one accidentally by drying it and was unable to restore it back. I will grieve forever, it was such a special starter, with unique fragrance. But it was fragile.
Do not worry. San-Francisco starter is very sturdy. As a precaution, use bread flour to feed it, it is white, with low bacterial and yeast count, and wil not cause it any damage.
You can use it to bake whole grain breads, to prepare whole grain preferments (levains, sponges, etc.) but the main starter should be fed only white bread flour.
Thank you so much, this makes so much sense, the company I bought the Starter from recommended to me to feed it All purpose, I didn't know why, but now I see it makes sense, so it would have fewer bacteria attached to it than Whole wheat or Rye.
Mariana, what is the rationale for feeding a starter bread flour only? What about using AP? I understand that we would like to minimize introducing a new yeast to the mixture, but I see pro and elite bakers feed rye and WW to their starters and obviously they seem to work just as well. Are there lab data to support this theory?
if you are in the US, then "bread flour" means strong white wheat flour with both protein and ash content slightly above all-purpose flour and usually malted or with alpha-amylase added by the millers.
It is more nutritious for the microflora of the starter than APF, because microbes need probiotics ('bran', some 'ash', mineral content and fiber) to thrive, and yet not as rich in its own microorganisms as darker or whole grain flours. The darker the flour, the more probiotic is has (bran particles, ash), the more abundant and diverse is its own microbial community.
Other countries either do not have such things as 'bread flours', they indicate ash only, essentially they are all all-purpose, regardless of the ash content, or have 'bread flours' in the full range of ash content, from extremely white bread flour with ash around 0.35% to fully whole wheat/whole grain bread flours with ash in 1.5-2.5% range.
Once the microbial community is stable, nothing will disrupt it for a while, it will survive when fed any flour and outcompete and outdo any newcomers from the flour. The same San-Fransisco starter culture of two microorganisms: Lb San-Francisco and C. milleri thrives for decades both in white wheat sourdough in bakeries in Spain, Italy (pannetone), US Boudin bakery (sour French bread) and in France, among many other places. It also survives unchanged for decades when fed whole grain rye flour, as proved by the German scientists in lab conditions. German manufacturers sell their pure sourdough starter cultures as blocks of rye grain dough, for example. There is almost no flour, it's grain - a very coarsely milled schrot (grist).
At home we have an enormous variety of starters, they are all different in their microflora with dozens of microbial species living together in them, and we are not as meticulous and subject our starters to ever changing conditions and often store them refrigerated, unfed for days, weeks or month, we dry them, then restore them, etc. These microbial communities are under a lot of stress which makes them evolve. They change and might be affected in their weakest moments, when they are half dead from cold and starvation, by the change in flour or temperatures, or proportions of feeding, etc. They may get sick, infected by other bacteria or viruses and many more things happen to them. There is about a century of the lab data and field research (samples collected from bakeries and analyzed in the lab) that supports it.
Some starters are so delicate that even daily feeding with white flour, without refrigeration, doesn't maintain them unchanged. They evolve so fast that they have to be re-created from scratch either weekly or once a month. For example, Chad Robertson's starter which is so mild, with milky or creamy aroma, not sour at all, or Rubaud's starter which he had to develop from scratch by the end of every month to avoid sourness in his breads.
- we would like to minimize introducing a new yeast to the mixture...
The value of our sourdough starters is in their lactic bacteria, not yeast. Yeast is freely available in any grocery store, or beer/wine-making supplies store, dozens of varieties of species and strains of yeast, all originally coming 'from nature', from someone's sourdough or beer, or from the surfaces of fruits, etc., should you want to bake with it. It's cheap and reliable.
But sourdough bacteria found in sourdough starters, the nature's best bread improver, is sold very rarely in pure form, unlike lactic bacteria for yogurt or cheeses, for example, and almost never to the retail customers, so we have to find a way to develop it at home and propagate it.
That is a lot of info for my little brain to digest Mariana. As usual, appreciate your insightful feedback regarding this subject. I might order a sample of this SF starter to check it out to see why it is so famous. Thanks.
Where can I get an authentic copy of SF starter? I see Cultures for Health and Sourdoughs International sell it but are these sources reliable to obtain an authentic copy of it? While we are here, is there another reliable and famous SD starter out there that I should get a copy of it? I am fed up with my own SD starter for getting inconsistent baking results so I am on a quest to acquire one, but it better work better than mine for wasting my time and effort for it.
I am sure I can get a good SD starter from a local source but that is not what I want, I would like to have a famous one if I am gonna to acquire one. Thanks for the suggestion though.
I've had the CHF San Fran starter going for almost 5 years now. It's more powerful and reliable than my home-made one.
To revive it, As you've learned here on TFL, don't start discarding until after you get that initial bloom. That tidbit may not be clear in the seller's instructions.
If you're ever in Indy, you're welcome to some fresh CHF SF starter. And if you try the CHF San Fran and it won't revive, I'll see if I can send you a fresh 50% hydration chunk of mine.
I really appreciate the offering, I will hit you up on it if I do get to that point (not likely). I think I know the drill now how to start or revive one. I have actually dried some of mine and revived it to test the water, it did work, waking up from the dead. Thanks.
Ming, AFAIK only Germans sell an authentic SF starter with specific SF lactobacillus and yeast species in their label.
Cultures for Health got their SF starter from Sourdough International, they simply propagate it and sell it as their own. It has never been authenticated, because such analysis is not available to retail customers in the US, and it cannot be an autentic SF because it is kept refrigerated between bakes whereas an authentic SF starter does not survive in the fridge for long. It can be kept at cool (10C), but not cold (4C) temperatures, to preserve its yeast.
I tried "SF starter" (got mine from SD International) and it is amazing, very fragrant and reliable, easy to maintain, has strong gassing power, you can bake anything with it.
Desem is also famous, super fragrant, a different aroma from SF starter. It is fed whole wheat flour only, SF starter lives on white bread flour. Cultures for Health sell it as well.
Mariana, you are like :) Karl the sourdough librarian with a deep knowledge of this sourdough subject. Wow, I did not know some starters are not meant to be in the fridge. Okay now I know where I should get my SF starter from with this info. Thank you so much for all the knowledge.
…the starter will most likely evolve to incorporate local micro biota from the air, flour and possibly water it is exposed to. So you can take the starter out of San Francisco, but you probably can’t keep the locals from coming to the party. Doesn’t mean that it’s quirky left coast-iness will disappear completely…
Yes. The same starter , i.e. starters with the same bacteria and yeast, is found in many bakeries, large and small, in many countries, not just in Boudin bakery, San-Francisco, USA.
I was wondering about the flour, if it is not fed the same flour I
was thinking eventually it will lose its characteristic, now the eventual time is unknown, I have San Francisco starter and I really like the smell specially when I compared it to mine, I would hate to lose this devine smell.
I understand, some starters are precious. I lost one accidentally by drying it and was unable to restore it back. I will grieve forever, it was such a special starter, with unique fragrance. But it was fragile.
Do not worry. San-Francisco starter is very sturdy. As a precaution, use bread flour to feed it, it is white, with low bacterial and yeast count, and wil not cause it any damage.
You can use it to bake whole grain breads, to prepare whole grain preferments (levains, sponges, etc.) but the main starter should be fed only white bread flour.
Thank you so much, this makes so much sense, the company I bought the Starter from recommended to me to feed it All purpose, I didn't know why, but now I see it makes sense, so it would have fewer bacteria attached to it than Whole wheat or Rye.
Mariana, what is the rationale for feeding a starter bread flour only? What about using AP? I understand that we would like to minimize introducing a new yeast to the mixture, but I see pro and elite bakers feed rye and WW to their starters and obviously they seem to work just as well. Are there lab data to support this theory?
Ming, good morning,
if you are in the US, then "bread flour" means strong white wheat flour with both protein and ash content slightly above all-purpose flour and usually malted or with alpha-amylase added by the millers.
It is more nutritious for the microflora of the starter than APF, because microbes need probiotics ('bran', some 'ash', mineral content and fiber) to thrive, and yet not as rich in its own microorganisms as darker or whole grain flours. The darker the flour, the more probiotic is has (bran particles, ash), the more abundant and diverse is its own microbial community.
Other countries either do not have such things as 'bread flours', they indicate ash only, essentially they are all all-purpose, regardless of the ash content, or have 'bread flours' in the full range of ash content, from extremely white bread flour with ash around 0.35% to fully whole wheat/whole grain bread flours with ash in 1.5-2.5% range.
Once the microbial community is stable, nothing will disrupt it for a while, it will survive when fed any flour and outcompete and outdo any newcomers from the flour. The same San-Fransisco starter culture of two microorganisms: Lb San-Francisco and C. milleri thrives for decades both in white wheat sourdough in bakeries in Spain, Italy (pannetone), US Boudin bakery (sour French bread) and in France, among many other places. It also survives unchanged for decades when fed whole grain rye flour, as proved by the German scientists in lab conditions. German manufacturers sell their pure sourdough starter cultures as blocks of rye grain dough, for example. There is almost no flour, it's grain - a very coarsely milled schrot (grist).
At home we have an enormous variety of starters, they are all different in their microflora with dozens of microbial species living together in them, and we are not as meticulous and subject our starters to ever changing conditions and often store them refrigerated, unfed for days, weeks or month, we dry them, then restore them, etc. These microbial communities are under a lot of stress which makes them evolve. They change and might be affected in their weakest moments, when they are half dead from cold and starvation, by the change in flour or temperatures, or proportions of feeding, etc. They may get sick, infected by other bacteria or viruses and many more things happen to them. There is about a century of the lab data and field research (samples collected from bakeries and analyzed in the lab) that supports it.
Some starters are so delicate that even daily feeding with white flour, without refrigeration, doesn't maintain them unchanged. They evolve so fast that they have to be re-created from scratch either weekly or once a month. For example, Chad Robertson's starter which is so mild, with milky or creamy aroma, not sour at all, or Rubaud's starter which he had to develop from scratch by the end of every month to avoid sourness in his breads.
- we would like to minimize introducing a new yeast to the mixture...
The value of our sourdough starters is in their lactic bacteria, not yeast. Yeast is freely available in any grocery store, or beer/wine-making supplies store, dozens of varieties of species and strains of yeast, all originally coming 'from nature', from someone's sourdough or beer, or from the surfaces of fruits, etc., should you want to bake with it. It's cheap and reliable.
But sourdough bacteria found in sourdough starters, the nature's best bread improver, is sold very rarely in pure form, unlike lactic bacteria for yogurt or cheeses, for example, and almost never to the retail customers, so we have to find a way to develop it at home and propagate it.
That is a lot of info for my little brain to digest Mariana. As usual, appreciate your insightful feedback regarding this subject. I might order a sample of this SF starter to check it out to see why it is so famous. Thanks.
Where can I get an authentic copy of SF starter? I see Cultures for Health and Sourdoughs International sell it but are these sources reliable to obtain an authentic copy of it? While we are here, is there another reliable and famous SD starter out there that I should get a copy of it? I am fed up with my own SD starter for getting inconsistent baking results so I am on a quest to acquire one, but it better work better than mine for wasting my time and effort for it.
Ming where do you live? I’m sure there are bakers near you who would be happy to share some of their starter with you.
Hello Benny,
I am sure I can get a good SD starter from a local source but that is not what I want, I would like to have a famous one if I am gonna to acquire one. Thanks for the suggestion though.
I've had the CHF San Fran starter going for almost 5 years now. It's more powerful and reliable than my home-made one.
To revive it, As you've learned here on TFL, don't start discarding until after you get that initial bloom. That tidbit may not be clear in the seller's instructions.
If you're ever in Indy, you're welcome to some fresh CHF SF starter. And if you try the CHF San Fran and it won't revive, I'll see if I can send you a fresh 50% hydration chunk of mine.
I really appreciate the offering, I will hit you up on it if I do get to that point (not likely). I think I know the drill now how to start or revive one. I have actually dried some of mine and revived it to test the water, it did work, waking up from the dead. Thanks.
Ming, AFAIK only Germans sell an authentic SF starter with specific SF lactobacillus and yeast species in their label.
Cultures for Health got their SF starter from Sourdough International, they simply propagate it and sell it as their own. It has never been authenticated, because such analysis is not available to retail customers in the US, and it cannot be an autentic SF because it is kept refrigerated between bakes whereas an authentic SF starter does not survive in the fridge for long. It can be kept at cool (10C), but not cold (4C) temperatures, to preserve its yeast.
I tried "SF starter" (got mine from SD International) and it is amazing, very fragrant and reliable, easy to maintain, has strong gassing power, you can bake anything with it.
Desem is also famous, super fragrant, a different aroma from SF starter. It is fed whole wheat flour only, SF starter lives on white bread flour. Cultures for Health sell it as well.
Mariana, you are like :) Karl the sourdough librarian with a deep knowledge of this sourdough subject. Wow, I did not know some starters are not meant to be in the fridge. Okay now I know where I should get my SF starter from with this info. Thank you so much for all the knowledge.
Interesting from the article linked below, a SD starter used by a SF bakery does not have the infamous SF LAB in the mixture.
https://secretsanfrancisco.com/sf-bakery-sourdough-starter/