Hi, what’s your experience using a white sourdough starter in rye bread? I maintain a 125% hydration white starter based on Hamelman's recipe and have successfully baked many white loaves with it. Now, I’d like to try baking rye bread, but I’m unsure if I can use this starter directly in Hamelman's recipe or if I should maintain a separate rye starter. Also, what’s the simplest way to convert my current starter into a rye starter?
as far as I know, any starter can work -- or at least my rye starter works with wheat & spelt breads.
That being said, it really depends on how much starter you plan to use as the innoculation. A tiny bit of rye starter won't mess up a wheat bread & I'm sure a tiny bit of wheat won't mess up a rye.
If you want to maintain a rye starter alongside your wheat starter, the thing to do would be to take some of your wheat discard and start feeding it with rye. Within a week you'll have a rye starter.
Hope this helps.
Rob
Starters are not created equal and neither are recipes. The only thing you can do is to try.
I have rarely used a specific starter for a formula. I have one starter (wheat) and I don't bother to convert it over based on the type of bread I am making (e.g. rye, spelt, etc.). It has worked fine for me. I really don't want to work at converting a starter over for several days just for a bake, so I don't.
I routinely make a “borodinsky” style using the leftover from the wheat and rye starter that I maintain and feed daily.
I maintain about 100 grams of a starter fed with all-purpose and about 10% rye. Depending on the bread I plan to bake I make a levain the night before and feed it with the type flour I plan to bake with the next day.