poolish using my sourdough starter

I came across a recipe that said to use a sourdough levain. It didn't say how much sourdough starter to use so I just took some our of the container and added the water and flour.

I used this formula:

44g sourdough starter

200 g flour

200g water

Mixed it and let it sit for 12 hours I then added to the dough recipe and all went well.

My question is this, what would happen if anything if I used less sourdough starter?

the bread had a 4 hour RT bulk fermentation and a 45 min proof.

Thanks

but not change much of anything else.

Thanks, I will stay with what works,

My own personal way of building a levain (poolish is a term used for bakers yeast) is...

1:5 starter to flour and water will be adjusted accordingly depending on what hydration is needed.

So if I needed 120g levain at 100% hydration I'd build like so...

20g starter
100g water
100g flour

Or 1:5:5. This is good for an overnight 12 hour ferment to be used in the recipe. But this is my own way based upon Hamelman's builds which also are 1:5 but normally at 125% hydration. You might wish to build a few grams extra btw as it tends to lose weight when fermenting and also when using some sticks to the container etc.

But as Danni says it wouldn't make much different as long as you give it enough time.

Those are really lovely breads.

Abe,

Thank you for your thoughts on this and as this is a lifetime learning experience for me I will try your method this weekend, will let you know

Thanks

Abe

I am rereading your post, how did you get to 20g starter? is that a number you just chose from past experience? Thanks for taking time to explain when you can

20 = 1

100 = 5

So there's your 1:5

There is a typo though as I meant 220g levain (I generally try to build as close to exactly how much I need with no discard) but that's the principle of it. It was just an example.

A good maths formula for ratios....

For example you want 160g levain at 100% hydration at the ratio of 1:5:5

1:5:5 ---> 1+5+5 = 11

160g / 11 = 14.5454

Round up and...

15 = 1
15 x 5 = 75

(Rounding up will build a little extra as discussed before)

Now you have your build of...

15g starter
75g water
75g flour

Total = 165g

Abe,

Your explanation just opened up my understanding to this immensely. As luck would have it and maybe why it worked so well in my the bread I showed. I needed 400g of levain so the 44g I just took a guess at actually was just a bit more than I needed.

Thanks again,

There's no wrong way per se. That is just one ratio I often use when doing an overnight build. It's not the only way though like Danni says. As long as you've given your levain enough time for amount of starter used. Try it and see if you like it. You might prefer a shorter timescale in which case you'd use more starter to the ratio of flour.

Try different ideas, experiment and find something you like.

i sometimes make bread the same way but use:

10g sourdough

250g flour

250g water

leave to bulk for 10 hours and then make use commercial yeast, flour, eater, alt, etc, whatever to make final bread

I havent considered using that much more as 10g is fine for me over that period of time...