"Katie Kondo" <kmkondo@gmail.com> asked:
>I've been working with sourdoughs for awhile now, but there is a
>question that I have been unable to find the answer to. When using
>a sourdough starter, should it be fed immediately before using? Or
>should I feed it a few hours before and then use it in my
>dough? Before baking with my starter, I make sure to wake it up (I
>usually store it in the refrigerator) three days before, feeding it
>three times a day until the baking day.
Sourdough is a matter of balance. You balance rise with taste. Let
the sourdough work too long after a feeding and you could lose
rise. Use it too soon and you could lose taste.
I prefer to feed it and let it reach its peak before using it. I'll
use it anytime before it starts to fall again.
Most amateur bakers keep a storage starter in the refrigerator
because feeding a starter every day is a major waste of time and
flour if you bake infrequently. Like many hobbyists, I kept my
storage starter at 100% hydration (1 part flour to 1 part water by
weight, or about 1 1/2 parts flour to 1 part water by volume). When
I was ready to bake, I'd pull the storage starter out of the fridge
and feed it several times, doubling its size each time I fed it. I'd
feed it twice a day. Any unused starter would go into the fridge again.
I changed my methods when I was running a bakery, and still work the
same way now that I'm a home baker again.
Sourdough at 100% hydration tends to work too quickly, even in the
fridge. It will form hootch, a clear indication that the starter has
eaten all the available food and is hungry. Going to 60% hydration
on the storage starter (10 parts flour to 6 parts water by weight or
about 1 part water to 2 parts flour by volume) makes things work much
more slowly. This gives me longer refrigerated storage of the
starter with improved viability.
When I want to bake, I determine how much starter I'll need, and then
start with a very small amount of the storage starter out of the
fridge, feed it up twice a day, doubling it's size with each feeding
until I have the amount of starter I need. I usually feed it up over
a 3 to 5 day period. There is no waste, and the starter is very
lively. With my first feeding of the storage starter, I change the
starter's hydration to 100%. In 5 days, I can produce enough starter
to make 120 to 160 loaves of bread for the farmers market with no
problems, so even in a production environment this is workable.
I've never had the thicker starter form hootch, through it will turn
gray after a long storage. After 3 to 6 months, when the storage
starter is looking gray, or when I am running low on storage starter,
I take a small amount of the storage starter out and start feeding it
up again. My usual feeding regimen, modified from Calvel's "Taste of
Bread" is something like this (all measurements are in grams, and I
hope the table looks OK):
Day/Feeding Starter Water Flour Total
1/1 2 1 2 5
1/2 5 3 4 12
2/1 12 7 11 30
2/2 30 18 30 78
3/1 78 47 78 203
3/2 203 122 203 528
4/1 300 180 300 780
4/2 300 180 300 780
After the first feeding on the fourth day, you discard the excess
starter before the next feeding. The starter should at least double
it's size after each feeding by the end of the second day. Once the
starter is healthy, feed it one last time and then put it into a
storage container and into the fridge. Remember to leave enough
headroom, as it will rise in the fridge.
Even if I have a larger amount of starter and could start at the
fourth day's feeding level, I prefer to start at the day 1, feeding 1
level so that I'll dilute any unpleasant metabolic byproducts in the
starter to the point where the are insignificant. The goal is to
revive a starter to the point where it is vibrantly healthy.
I suggest feeding the storage starter just before putting it into the
fridge because of some work done by Dr. Sugihara on freezing
starters. While a mature starter had more organisms a volume of
starter than a starter that has just been fed, the mature starter has
more organisms die off in storage. The starter that was just fed
before freezing had more viable organisms when thawed than the mature
starter. I don't know if the same holds true with refrigeration, but
I know my starters revive better since I went to storing the storage
starter just after a feeding.
As to discarding starter, it hurts me to do that... it's a
waste. So, I use the excess starter to make pizza shells, carrot
muffins, pancakes or other goodies.
Hope this helps,
Mike