Sandwich Loaf Bread Using Starter

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gooz on 20 Apr 2020 at 20:50

Hi! I want to make a sandwich loaf bread using my sourdough starter but I’m not quite sure how much sourdough to use if the recipe calls for 1 packet of yeast. The recipe I’m looking at calls for:

174g of water

125g of whole milk

1 packet of yeast

3 cups of bread flour

I have a couple of questions regarding this:

1. How do I know how much sourdough to use for this specific recipe and/or any given recipe at all that calls for commercial yeast?

2. Do I use ripe sourdough starter or the discard? Will there be a difference?

3. Can I proof it for the same amount of time it asks for using a commercial yeast or should I double the proofing time until the dough reached twice its original size?

Any tips and advice are greatly appreciated!

1. The amount is up to you but general guidance for sourdough recipes are 10 to 20% prefermented flour. This is just the flour, not the water in your starter. I stick around 11% prefermented flour. If you convert your 3 cups of flour to grams, it will make the math a lot easier. Be sure to remove the flour you use to feed your starter from the main dough amount. You need to end up with the same amount of flour in the end as is presently in your recipe. 
2. Ripe sourdough as it will be at its most active. 
3. Oh no! Definitely not the same amount of time! It will take significantly longer. And yes, use the description to judge when to go on to the next step. You might even want to move on a bit before the dough fully doubles during bulk proofing. 
Hope this helps. 

Hey! Thanks for the response! It’s certainly helpful! The recipe calls for 440g of flour. Does this mean I have to use 44g of my starter? I have a follow up question for #3: Do I still have to do stretch and folds or just follow the instructions given in the recipe as if I’m using commercial yeast? 

Half water and half flour by weight, you would use 88 g of your starter (44 g water and 44g flour). You definitely could use more starter than this but be aware that only half of your starter is flour, the other half is water. Which reminds me that I forgot that you need to subtract that amount of water from the recipe as well! Good thing you asked for clarification! You could have ended up with soup instead of dough. ?

I would do the stretches and folds just to be sure that you have a strong dough. But then again, you havent said what method is used in the recipe. I can just let you know that even though I use a mixer to develop the gluten, I still do 4-5 sets of folds with my breads. Then I let the dough finish bulking before preshaping, rest and shaping. 

Thanks again for taking the time to help me figure this out! So to clarify, I used a total of 88g of my starter which is 44g of water and 44g of flour combined and this makes up just 10% of the flour weight which is 440g?

I got my dough proofing and resting now and I did subtract 44g from my flour weight and also 44g from the liquids. It’s always nice to experiment with these things especially even commercial yeast has been hard to find these days.Fingers crossed I don’t screw anything up! Thanks again for everything!

Unless you're a professional or a well-seasoned home baker, there's absolutely no reason to reinvent the wheel by converting a CY formula to SD.  There are plenty of SD sandwich loaf formulae out there and few better than that featured in the recent Approachable Loaf Community Bake here on TFL.  I would highly recommend that.  I made a couple more loaves of that sort last week and they are probably now part of our regular rotation.  Hard to beat.  No need to make it 100% whole wheat or even majority wholegrain.  Any way you want - it's a very forgiving and always satisfying formula.

Happy baking,

Tom

Hey Danni,

I don't know about up in TBay, but life is challenging enough around here lately.  Maybe once all the jigsaw puzzles have been done and Netflix exhausted, reinventing the wheel is just the ticket when the order of the day remains to STFAH.

Be safe,

Tom

To figure out what STFAH meant. I like it!

Life in TBay feels like we are on hold. I am/was retired so it wasn’t a huge shock to the system to stay home. I miss my pottery and my friends but I’m not the one to worry about these days. My daughter is a pediatric nurse and the hospital has decided that the kids are going to go on the kids floor if the have COVID-19 instead of going to the dedicated floor for it. The only little bit of good news in that is that they may segregate them in one section with the other kids in a different section. She has arthritis and is on meds that suppress her immune system so if she gets this, it won’t be good! So a challenge does help keep my mind off of what could happen in the near future. Anyhow, stay safe everyone!