I have a sourdough starter made with unbleached white/wheat flour that I’ve been using on and off, mostly on, for over three years, used mainly to make pizza dough with a mix of white/wheat/spelt. It has worked great.
But this weekend I’d like to make a boule of 100% rye and I’d like to use my wheat starter in a very small quantity and then build the levain using rye. This would mean starting tonight. I realize the ideal would be to start a rye starter, but I can’t swing that for this weekend.
Does this sound plausible?
Will my levain die when I try to feed it rye?
Will the resulting loaf be dramatically inferior to one made with a rye starter?
In case it matters, I planned to base my loaf on this recipe.
- 200g /1 Cup/235ml Rye Sourdough Starter
- 400 ml Warm Water
- 600 g Rye Flour, sifted + some for dusting
- 12g Sea Salt
Start to feed it rye and depending on how much of a purist you are you can either do it in one build using a small amount of starter or a few builds, over a few days, to get a 100% rye starter.
Now you'll have a wheat and a rye starter.
You can either keep the rye or simply build a new one from your regular wheat one each time.
Terrific. I confess, this is the answer I so wanted to hear!
I wonder if it's true that a starter started from scratch would be superior to one started as suggested above.
Thank goodness one doesn't need to start a new starter each time if a recipe uses a different flour. I use one mother starter and build all different types of levain using different flours and to different hydrations.
Every so often I build new starters for fun but don't keep them going. I'll bake a few times with it and then just amalgamate it with my mother starter. Gives my mother starter a more complex profile.
SD bread if they don't have a rye starter.
Follow up question: when I go looking for instructions on starting a rye starter, they all seem a tad complicated. Can't I start are rye starter in the same way as wheat: 50/50 water/rye, let it sit 24 hours before cutting in half and replacing/feeding; repeat until you have a nice starter?
Dabrownman, over to you...
The method and science behind a rye starter is exactly the same.
I really appreciate this help! With all the info out there, it's surprising how often what you need to know is somehow yet between the cracks. Much obliged.
I use Dab's no fuss no fuss method to maintain a pure rye starter. I only have one starter and I use it for every loaf (wheat and rye). My starter doesn't like white flour though. it takes a little longer to become really active if I feed it white, so I normally do my levain builds with a bit of whole wheat.
Your starter won't die but it might go into food shock, it'll recover though.
Abe and Dab give great advice, so I'd just do what they say. LOL!!
Good luck :)
You guys are great. I've been reading these forums for years and not registering...too many experiences on other forums with semi-snotty answers to earnest questions. I should have known bread people might be different, ha, ha. Thanks again.
I've tried that several times (i.e. to make a rye starter with my wheat starter), and for some reason it simply doesn't work for me. I grind my own organic rye, and every time I try to make a starter with it, either from scratch or using a little bit of my nice, active wheat starter as the seed, it does nothing. I've wasted a couple kilos of hand-milled organic rye flour trying to make loaves of 100% rye that end up with no action whatsoever. No rise, almost no bubbling of any kind, nothing. I don't know if there is something on the rye (but shouldn't be), or what the problem is. Very frustrating.
I'll let you know how mine comes out, but mine is being made w/ a Caputo 00 starter kicking off Hodgson Mill Whole Stone Ground Rye, so if mine works as the others have (fingers crossed) perhaps it has something to do with storebought flour? I wonder if you've ever tried starting a starter with storebought rye?
I wonder if rye berries have something in them that when fresh ground fend themselves off from yeast?
So far my new rye starter is working great. Will make and and shape tomorrow and bake on the next morning to see the end results. But the starter is doubling in size in less than 8 hours, so I'd say she's rockin'! Thanks everybody.