Thick Whole wheat starter with low hydration doughs

Hi, I started sourdough a few months ago with a 100% hydration whole wheat starter. It is so thick it comes out of the jar in one big mass. Compared to my partner's AP starter that is like a thick pancake batter. I find when I try a very low hydration dough (40-45%), it is difficult to get the it to come together.

Once I cheated after 10 minutes of kneading and added some water to incorporate the flour. Another time I used the stand mixer to bring it together and then did some extra stretch and folds before it was ready to bulk.

I'm only guessing it is my thicker starter, but it seems logical to me. I'm curious if anyone else has a similar issue and what tricks yall use. I see no reason to change my starter as most of my recipes are higher hydration and not a problem.

If it matters, I only keep 10g of starter and then feed as necessary instead of discarding.

Thanks.

that’s very low hydration indeed. What kind of flour do you use for that and what kind of bread does it make?

my 100% rye starter is like cement mix after I feed it. But it softens up when ripe. You can mix it in your water before adding flour so that it gets distributed well.

if the hydration feels too low, why not add more water. Depending on flours used hydration can vary quite a bit from the recipe. Adjust it until you get what it should feel like instead of sticking strictly to formulas.

James

Hi James,

The 44% is a pizza crust that was 300g starter and 200g AP flour. It has 10g oil, if that counts as hydration. I haven't told my mother, but I hated everything about this recipe and abandoned. That was the one I cheated with and added 30g of water.

The 40% is a dinner roll recipe that I did like. It was 100g starter, 190g bread flour , 75g AP flour, and 90g milk. It also had an egg which probably wets it a bit. But my math isn't that good.

I generally try to make a recipe once as directed before I start playing with it. Also, I'm getting better at listening to my doughs that are in the 75% range, but with only three attempts at these dry doughs it seems pretty different.

I know what you mean about the cement paste. Mine does soften up quite a bit. I'm not sure how to describe it, though. But, it does resemble the rye starter from the YouTube channel I learned it from (bake with Jack).

If it were just me, I think I'd add a little water to the rolls and then see where it's at after the S&Fs and add more of them if necessary. But, I figured I'd check to see if one solution was better, or if there was something else I should consider.

Thanks.

For the dinner roll

liquid is 50 starter + 90 milk + ~ 65 egg

flour is 50 starter +190 + 75

so closer to 65% not 40.

Wow, I didn't realize an egg counted like that. That seems like a much more reasonable number. I'll just keep mixing , maybe adding a little more water, until there's no visible flour. I think it'll look more like a typical yeast bread dough. Maybe it was just a converted recipe ski I should expect it to behave like a yeast dough and not like more other sourdough (light bulb clocks on).

I appreciate the help.

I'd expect it to come together like a yeast dough. I know it will still be a slower rise without the power of instant yeast.

I think only part of the egg counts towards hydration. And only most of the milk. Both contribute to oils somewhat too I think.

Sorry , I wasn't trying to be argumentative, just total ignorance on my part. I rarely really think of the hydration in detail. I just tried to get too fancy for my my own good.

It seems obvious in retrospect, but you've cleared this up a lot for me. I may not be ready for cinnamon rolls yet, but maybe a cinnimon raison bread. Thank you again.

dup Removed

IMO your starter is far too dry. No matter what you will be baking, a healthy started should be close to 1:1 ratio, leaning towards more water with ww as fiber needs more water. Based on that assumption you make your calcs for the recipe’s ratios.

My starter us 1:1 water:WW flour. If I would have thought about it I would have taken a picture of it this weekend before putting it into my bread. When it is all risen up and going in the bowl it looks like a big gooey sponge. But, it is gloopy enough that it doesn't seem to collapse after it has done it's thing.

I have made a loaf that is 100g Starter, 450g AP Flour, 310g Water, and 10g Salt a dozen or more times. Each time I do it it is getting better and better just because my handling of the dough is getting better. So, I am hesitant to mess with the starter, at least until I just have more understanding about the dough in general.

What James helped me figure out this weekend was that I am kinda dumb. OK, I knew that already. But, I realized that my pretzels I used to make with commercial yeast that was 65% hydration will not suddenly behave like my 72% hydration loaf because I sub out the yeast and a proportional amount of flour/water for starter. It will still take the same mechanical work to form the dough as it did with the yeast, just take much longer to rise. I'll have to play with it a bit, but I imagine I will still want to do some SNFs in there to make sure it is good and glutteny.

Thanks for the help.

Well, my apologies as I thought your question was about dealing with your starter. If you like it, then keep at it.

The only trick would be to add about 1/3 of your water (or less) to the starter and incorporate, then mix all the ingredients the way you like to do it.

Really, I appreciate your thoughts and advice. I generally try to get information from a variety of sources and then puzzle out what I think makes the most sense for me. Which is why I try to lay out my thoughts in my posts in case there is a flaw in my logic.

In thinking about it, since I usually feed my starter 1:10:10 (right? From 10g to 200g), I could add extra hydration when I mix up the starter for a dry dough, and normal 1:1 when making my regular dough. It would have very little impact on future batches, I think. It is certainly another thing to experiment with.

Thanks again.

I generally try to get information from a variety of sources and then puzzle out what I think makes the most sense for me. Which is why I try to lay out my thoughts in my posts in case there is a flaw in my logic

Can you tell I tried to do a cut and paste to reorganize my post? Oops.