Based on my infant-stage baking experience with sourdough I propose the following strategy that I believe could suit me:
My objectives:
- Bake a loaf once per week.
- Keep the sourdough starter in the fridge.
- Feed the starter once per week.
- Keep the starter quantity at a manageable level say, 4 oz/120g.
- Maintain a reserve of 2oz/60g starter and use the rest for the feeding process. This is in case something goes wrong with the feeding.
- Keep the starter as a 100% rye flour starter.
- My loaves will rarely exceed 750g/1lb 10oz.
I’ll be proceeding as follows:
On feeding day I’ll take 2oz/60g starter from the fridge and feed it with rye flour on a 1:1:1 ratio.
I’ll let the fed starter to rise (to prove that it's fine). I estimate that this will take at least 7 hours. If satisfied with the result, I’ll merge part of the refreshed starter with the (reserve) starter in the fridge bringing the total back to 4oz/120g.
I’ll use the rest of the starter that I refreshed that, is 4oz/120g, to bake a loaf up to 750g/1lb 10oz.
I'll be grateful for any comments, advice and criticism.
One drawback of that feeding/use schedule is that the 60 gr of reserve starter left in the fridge never gets properly fed/revived. It is only getting "cold fed", and even then, it's getting fed flour that is "used up" after being eaten for 7 hours.
Moreover, it usually takes more than one feeding for refrigerated starter to wake up and get fully active after a 7 day rest.
Thank you, I noted that. Do you have any suggestion about saving some of my starter until I would be sure that the newly fed starter is working properly? Obviously I'm looking for a practical solution, but I can't think of anything simple.
You're not going to kill a working starter by feeding it, unless your water or flour is contaminated.
As a "backup", you could dehydrate some good-working starter and store it. Do that several times, spaced apart, so you have a few "generations" of backup, like you do with good computer backups.
You can also freeze regular hydrated starter, but that is only good for up to maybe 4 months. After 3 or 4 months it dies in the freezer. But, if still alive, it refreshes quicker than revuilding from dehydrated, at least in my experince.
ALso, be aware that a pure rye starter is going to age and degrade faster in the fridge with all that rye amylase. I use a little rye flour in my starter, but have never done 100%. Try 80/20 white flour and rye if that is cheaper.
one of the rules on starter is: you have to a) feed it, or b) use it, or c) throw it away. "old" starter has to be "cycled out" and kept at a small proportion.
Someone who is more knowledgeable than I might speak to the percent of flour in a levain that has to be "new", that is less than 24 or 12 hours since it got added in the levain to the time it is added in the dough mix.
If you do just one feeding/build a week, at 1:1:1, that means that 1/3rd of your levain that you put in the dough is at least a week old. ANd 1/3 of 1/3 (1/9) is at least two weeks old, etc., if I'm doing the math right.
People who don't want to throw anything away, keep very small amounts of starter in the fridge, 30 g or less, and do multiple feedings, or do 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 or 1:4:4 builds.
Chad Robertson's formula takes only 1 tablespoon of refreshed powerful starter and builds up a levain from it. It's really a two step process: build up/maintain apowerful starter, then using only a tbsp of it, build up a levain, so only a tiny percentage is over 24 hours old.
I didn't know that a starter could be dehydrated. Having seen a couple of videos about it, I can understand that it's a possible solution, but not necessarily easy to do as one is dealing with a relatively small quantity of starter.
Currently my starter which is about two weeks old is kept in the fridge in a closed jar. When I open the jar I hear a whoosh of air coming out. I don't know if it's good news - my starter is alive - or bad news - my starter is being consumed even though it's kept at a low temperature.
The best thing would be to create a small condensed starter, if this is possible according to a suitable feeding schedule, but I'm just thinking aloud. I have no idea how to do that.
When you dehydrate starter, you first build it up to a quantity that you want to dry out. it's not really much work. And only costs some flour and water, and a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper. Depending on humidity, it will dry in 24 hours to 3 days. if you have a dehydrator, you can use the fan, but don't use the heat, unless you can set it to 85 F.
Just playing with numbers here... assuming 100% hydration.
This way, only 10.7% (16/150) of levain is at least a week old, instead of 33% of previous calc. And only 1.14% (10.7% of 10.7%) is at least 2 weeks old, instead of 11.1% of previous calc.
I'm going to adopt this suggestion. It quells my fear about losing my starter and the quantities involved are perfectly manageable.
I'll also experiment with dehydrating some of the starter, to see if I can have a plan B in place.