Hi all you helpful people here. If you’ve seen my blog post you’ll know I’m quite a newbie a baking bread and have just started building my sourdough starters 2 weeks ago. I have two starters currently after tossing the first away when I thought it wasn’t working. The two I have going now seem to be quite healthy and are 100% hydrating. They rise very well after feeding and so I’m thinking that I won’t be baking bread with either of them until later this coming week.
I’m wondering how much you guys usually feed your starters before putting them in the fridge to rest until you plan to bake in several days? Do you feed 1:1:1 or 1:2:2? After feeding do you put the starter in the fridge immediately or do you leave it out at room temperature for a while, 2-3 hours?
I'd keep feeding it even tho you aren't going to use it for a bit.
After that, what I do is just dump some and then feed 1:1:1. Everyone does it differently. I"ve read that if you are leaving for a long while, make it into a stiff starter, like 60% hydration.
hester
Thanks for the reply hreik. So how much longer would you suggest daily feedings for until the starters are “mature” enough to put into the fridge? Would doing once a day feedings be fine during this period or would I have to up the feedings to twice per day?
here's a link to the famous dabrownman's no muss no fuss starter: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/40918/no-muss-no-fuss-starter
It's a good read.
I think I'd feed it once a day for another week, and maybe even try one bake with it... and then toss it into the fridge. Do you have a recipe for your first bake?
hester
Thanks for linking me to that very informative thread Hester.
I wouldn't worry so much about how much to feed it, I would be more concerned about making sure it was at its peak before the cold storage. Before you put it in, make sure it has risen fully and started to fall (to make sure there is a high concentrating of bugs). Then give another feed and right into the fridge. I tend to do cold storage with a very thick starter. Remember, a few hours after it goes in the fridge, the entire mass will be cold enough (as long as the fridge is cold enough) to put our friendly buggers into a dormant state where they will not require much, if any, food. I recently brought back a starter after a year and a half in the fridge doing this. I'm sure a week or 2, or a year or 2, won't kill it (these things are remarkably resilient). And when it comes out of the cold, keep it warm and make sure it's healthy again before using. After a year and a half it took about 10 days before my starter was in good health again. After a week or 2 I'd imagine it would only be a couple days before it was back in good health. Enjoy!
And I just noticed you are only taking about a couple days storage. In that case, I would dump some starter and just feed normally. Start small and feed until you have enough for the bake. I do a loaf about once a week. I start with a very small amount and build it up by feeding till I have enough for the bake. It's a good way to ensure things stay in good shape.
Thank you Phaz, that information is very helpful too.
This morning I fed both my starters 1:4:4 and they are rising nicely. So once they reach their peak and just start to fall I will feed them again and put the older one into the fridge.
As you are suggesting, maybe I’ll keep the younger one out on the counter and feed it daily and perhaps use it to bake a loaf later this week.
My first sourdough is almost done baking, I made this when the younger starter had peaked and used it to leaven the dough. I’d never worked with such a high hydration dough before so I have some skills to work on. I don’t think it had good oven spring but because of when I started the dough and having to be out last night, it didn’t fully follow much of a recipe so I’m sure that had something to do with how the oven spring was so meager.
I've given up on set recipes a long time ago, but I've done it enough to know what a dough looks like for what I'm going to use it for. Stiffer for normal loaves, more slack for pizza, somewhere in between for focaccia, soupy for ciabata, so on and so forth. As different ingredients react differently, I don't believe the exact numbers that work for one will work exactly the same way for another. Experiment, be observant, and go from there. It's more fun that way. And if things turn out badly, feed it to the birds. They love bread, especially sourdough. Enjoy the ride!
Phaz, what do you think about feeding your starter until it rises and just begins to fall, then adding a small amount of flour for feed and enough water to maintain the hydration, then put it into the frig?
As I read your post, the above thought came to mind. The idea is to take a fully active starter and add a little food to the starter so that it has something to snack on for the cold rest.
Dan
Cuz I'm lazy right now, I just copy/paste this from the above post
"Before you put it in, make sure it has risen fully and started to fall (to make sure there is a high concentrating of bugs). Then give another feed and right into the fridge"
PS - did I miss the link to the spread?
I did exactly this to both of the starters.
The loaf a baked actually tasted pretty good despite it looking like a brick. It had poor oven spring and I definitely over baked it. Despite that and a lack of ears, the crumb is glossy and has a nice uneven open crumb. So at least I know that my starter can leaven bread.
Hello there benito. I bookmarked you're post since I'm a newbie baker too and this is an interesting post. I was looking for you're website blog if you may post it. Thanks
Hi Bakersman
My blog on making my starters is on this website here http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/59963/sourdough-seed-culture.
Here’s a photo of my first very ugly, kinda overbaked sourdough.
Thanks for you're reply benito, I'm looking forward to reading that. Nice sourdough looks like it's working. I don't know if the sour dough is what I call mother yeast but OK.. Lol