I have been baking sourdough for about a year. I now realize from reviewing many blogs and books the great variety in proportion of starter to flout and water for the Levain some use 1:1:1 and the highest ratio I have seen is 1:5:5. So my question is, what do you generally use for your "go to" country sourdough? And what difference would it make to change the ratios? Would you also have to change the amount of levain used in the recipe?
I also notice that depending on the source, some use very little levain and some use larger amounts to make the dough. Here is the recipe I follow rounded up to 1000 g flour to make it easy.
1000 g flour (I generally use 80% bread flour and 20% whole grain)
700 g water
200 g levain
20 g salt
I am really just curious to have a discussion about the effects of different ratios for levain both in the levain build and in the recipe itself, so that I can start to experiment and compare.
I like your recipe. Two things one also has to take into consideration is how much time you can spend on the dough and temperature. Your recipe looks like a good one with ratios that fall within normal range.
What I find is a nice variation for a country bread is a mix of bread flour, whole-wheat and whole rye. In descending order. So something like...
80% bread flour (in keeping with your recipe) and then the 20% the other two. So you can try 15% whole wheat and 5% whole rye?
Play around with the flours. Country bread has no one formula. It's "normally" the majority bread flour and the rest a little bit of this and a little bit of that. A bit more wholegrain? Then go for 70:30.
I think what you are talking about is the inoculation rate - how much 'yeast' (or culture) you put in to the subsequent mixture. So, if your starter build is normally 1:7:7, that's a fairly low inoculation rate. I usually do a 1:2:2 build with my starter. It depends a lot on how healthy your starter is and what varieties of yeast are growing in it. They will have different growth rates. It is possible to overfeed your starter, I think. And it probably affects the yeasts differently than it does the bacteria.
Basically it's a juggling act between time, temperature and inoculation rate. Generally a low inoculation requires a longer time at a warmer temperature. You can make do-nothing bread with a tiny bit of starter in a high-hydration dough and just let it sit on the bench for two days - it will take a long time for the yeast and bacterial cultures to populate the whole mass but they will. And the dough and bread will be very sour! Or you can make a bread with a high inoculation (high percentage of pre-ferment) that is very stiff, and the bread will be much different in texture and taste. So many variables!
My go to recipe is:
1000g flour
720g water
20g salt
250glevain
I do my levain in 2 builds to fit my schedule. The first is 1:2:2 and the second is 1:1:1. Kind of surprised it works but it does. I keep my levain at 100% hydration. I think my levain percent is fairly standard, but I live in a colder climate and my bulk takes about 12 hours. The bread is just sour enough that you know it's a sourdough, but not so sour that it really stands out.
Thanks for the replies. I just acquired The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Berenbaum at a book sale and immediately went to her sourdough section, where I found the only reference I have seen in any book to what I am trying to understand. She says: The minimum amount of starter required to raise the dough is 15% of the entire weight of the dough. If you like a sour flavor, you can use up to 40%. If you prefer a less sour flavor, another way to achieve this is to increase the amount of flour and water used to refresh the starter prior to baking. She increases the starter by eight times its original weight before using it each time. She also discusses the differences between stiff and liquid starters. This is the kind of basic, general information I have been seeking in order to understand what is behind the differences in recipes and tweak them to my liking.