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Check my Math? I maintain my starter using 10g previous starter, 50g water and 60g bread flour. This technique has been working well for me, as suggested by MiniOven. She also pointed out in a previous thread that this is no longer a poolish -- since it is not 100% hydration... My question (Mini or anyone) Is my star...	Your starter is 83.3%, for Your starter is 83.3%, for exactly the reason you suggested. The 1 in the 1:5:6 ratio gets diluted fairly quickly. If you wanted to return to a 100% hydration, just start feeding equal amounts of flour and water, say 1:5:5 or 1:6:6 (or if you want to continue using 10g starter and end up w...
Changing a firm starter to liquid - when is it ready? It's been a while since I've written here but it's always nice to come back for answers to my questions. I've been reading Debra Wink's blog to learn about sourdough "mechanics" and love it! It makes my brain work harder. I know that a firm starter is less "sour" t...	If It's' Alive I'd Use It I would use it when it shows evidence of active life, perhaps after the first feeding. As long as the yeast is active (wild or commercial) it should work. Whether it's sour enough at that point is another question.
'In a dark place' Yesterday, after feeding my starters (thanks again, Benny!), I left them away from (direct) sunlight for most of the day.But with nothing actually covering or obscuring my sealed Weck jars.In the late afternoon - probably about four hours later - I covered both jars with an opaque cloth.Both starters ...	It's the time. It's the time.
When starter is ready to make new starter? What are the signs that starter is ripe enough so I can use it to make new starter?	Ripeness Daniel DiMuzio has a nice photo showing ripeness of levains. It also appears in his book, Bread Baking, An Artisan's Perspective.
Rye Starter- smell? I have a rye starter going, it has been fed every 12 hours for the last week. Then I put it in the fridge about 3 days ago. The rye starter was converted from a firm white starter that is very healthy. I took it out last night to build up to make a jewish deli rye. When I unscrewed the lid, the acet...	Sounds like the starter was in need of a feeding when it went in to the refrigerator. Better to put it in sooner. Have you looked up acetone in the on site search box? Sounds like you've got your starter up and running. It will be alright as long as you give it enough food. Put it into the fridge sooner, like 3 ho...
Home milled flour & stoneground flour I've been using store bought stoneground wholemeal flour to feed my starters and to bake with. The baking has been a great succes and I will never use anything else. However, I have had trouble with my last 3 starters. My first starter was incredible and behaved as though it wer...	Your title refers to home Your title refers to home milled flour but your question does not so I am a bit uncertain of what has changed in your procedures. What happend to your first starter which apparently died? Any flour that is going "bad" will smell rancid. With home milled flour I would expect this to take month...
Acetone? So my starter smells like nail polish remover :(. Is acetone produced before being converted to acetic acid? Should I start over? Thanks.	Re: Acetone? Is this a new starter that you are growing? If so, it is common to get that acetone smell in the early stages. Just dump most of it out, saving only a couple of spoonfuls and feed it again. Stir vigorously several times a day. It will come out of it and be fine. It might take a few feedings but you will no...
Refrigerating my Starter Over the last week I've diligenty nurtured my own liquid levain culture with the guidance of Jeff Hamelman's Bread. It's now ripe and ready to go! I've taken some out to start building it to bake tomorrow, and put the rest of it in the fridge for the first time. How much does temperature mat...	should be fine. It just goes should be fine. It just goes dormant more or less, with lower temperatures. It can even freeze without harm.
Two sourdough questions Hi everyone, I've started a new sourdoug a week ago and i have now a healthy and active culture (Whole wheat flour, 75% hydration). I want to convert it to a white flour starter and I'm having troubles in deciding what hydration should I go for. I had a stiff sourdough starter for a year or so (...	"Whatever works for you" would seem to be a common theme for most sourdough users on this site. So long as you are weighing your ingredients, it's easy to convert from stiff to liquid, or from liquid to stiff, as the formula dictates. The same would be true for flour selection. Start with a small amount (10-15 grams...
As least sour as possible Can someone reccomend a recepe for a sourdough bread with the following restrictions: 1. As least sour as possible 2. No comm. yeast 3. WF 4. As least sour as possible! 5. Easy to make, but may take long waiting time 6.Will work for WW as well. 7. As least sour as possible!!!!! I am planning...	probably different It is probably different from starter to starter, but with my starter, when I make dough for a sweet application I make a ferment in a warm environment and use it as soon as it is bubbly.. the shorter the time the dough is fermenting the less sour it would be..
Less Sour starters/breads I read the thread Squeeze more sour from your Sourdough. I'm not really wanting a more sour tasting bread so I was wondering if avoiding those things would make bread less sour. I'm happy with the lack of sourness that my present homemade starter produces. In the past, whenever my starters h...	I keep a mild starter and rarely have hooch I don't like the sour flavor, either. I use my starter mostly as a dough conditioner, occasionally as the leavener, and sometimes for its very mild sour flavor (sourdough English Muffins). I rarely have any hooch because I refrigerate my starter immediately after feeding 1:...
Weights and volumes in calculating I'm having an issue with hydration in the sourdough formulas I'm getting in books and on the web. I weigh out to the letter and from more than one source I keep coming up with goop as a finished dough more like a biga then a finished dough. I'm always adding flour to get to what I f...	One of the hardest things I have had to learn, and I'm not through learning it yet, is that the dough must rule, not the formula. Depending on your flour choices, the temperature and humidity in your kitchen on baking day, the moisture content of your flour, and many, many things, you will get variation between what r...
Crust colour In another thread, I read that having too much starter in a bread will mean too little sugars for a good browning. I recently rewrote my french bread recipe for using grams instead of volume, and I increased the amount of starter. This has helped get a much nicer, sour flavour out of my dough, but I´ve not...	probably a temperture issue I don;t think it is a residual sugar issue, it is most likely that the temperature is too low..
Starter vs preferments Hi, so I have some questions regarding the use of starters vs preferments. I understand the topic has been discussed at length on the forum, and I feel I've read through most of the threads, but still have questions.To begin, I understand there's some confusion/misuse of the different terms.As I ...	I throw a spanner in the I throw a spanner in the works. Don't get hung up on definitions - starter, mother, levain; they are all sourdough cultures with varying percentages of ingredients. I follow Hamelman's method and I will describe it by referencing the below table. The table is a 750-gram dough of Vermont sourdou...
Home milled flour sourdough observations I've been using home milled flour now for a couple weeks. My setup: I have a drum each of hard red winter and hard white winter wheat, soft spring wheat, durum wheat, rye, and corn. I am using starter from commercial flour and it's about a year old and has been faithful and trus...	I would like to say this word I would like to say this word one day: ... the flavor was indescribable, like a fine wine ... Do you think is only because you used fresh grounded flour? Giovanni
OK, What to I have and What can I do with it? I've been saving some of my starter discard in a couple of Glad bowls. I now have over 1400 grams of rather sour smelling discard that I don't do a whole lot with as far as maintaining. What I have been doing is adding about 40-60g of AP with out adding any water once or tw...	Here is a recently posted solution http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15584/my-123-bread-using-discarded-starter
Not Refregirating Sour Hello, I am just starting with sourdough baking. I tried to start my our starter and failed (it was before I read about using orange juice instead of water). So I just get a starter from a local baker. He gave me the directions on how to make more sour starter. It was 1KG whole wheat flour, 170 g...	Not really, no. Keeping Not really, no. Keeping starter in the 'fridge is usually just to store it. As long as you have a healthy starter, and it certainly sounds that way if it doubled in 2 hours, it should be just fine for baking. Also, it's fine to use a WW starter in place of a rye one, as long as you don't mind d...
New 'Pain au Levain' Article from James MacGuire In the latest issue of 'The Art of Eating' (Winter 2009, Number 83), there is an excellent article by the noted Canadian baker and instructor James MacGuire about 'Pain au Levain'. He touches on the history as well as the technical aspects of making Levain (Sourdough) an...	Title? Thanks for that info, Don. Is "Pain au Levain" the title of the article? I want to do an electronic search of our state library database to see if the article is available online.
Lingering Questions: Can you help me with answers? Over the past few weeks I've been experimenting with my sourdough to get some different results. In general I've been happy with where I am at, but want the crumb to be a bit less chewy and the crumb to be more custardy. (Is that a word?)I've also been pushing my hydra...	Are you proofing these as freestanding boules? If so, how about proofing on parchment with no additional flour on the bottom? When you are ready to bake, just slide the parchment onto your peel and then into the oven. Some people recommend removing the parchment partway through the baking, but I don't think it's real...
converting 50% starter Okay, so I have been juggling three starters lately. I have a firm rye, 50 % hydration firm white/rye, and a 100% hydration white. I use my 50% hydration white/rye starter the most, and he's the healthiest. I am going to change my feeding schedule to Glezer's recommendations for a firm starter (1...	Try This .... 167/1.50=111 167 - 111 = 56 Your starter has 111 grams of flour and 56 grams of water (.50 x 111=56 - rounded up) The easy way to accomplish your goal is to simply add 55 grams of water to the 167 grams of starter you have on hand, which should bring your total weight to approximately 222 grams. Use 16...
whole wheat starter--suggestions? I have been keeping a 100% hydration, white, sourdough starter since the summer. A few weeks ago, I started another, because I thought I'd accidentally killed Sebastian. However, he's recovered, and now I have Mortimer, that I'd like to experiment on. (cue maniacal laugh) The past coup...	whole wheat starter I've been finding that the whole wheat starter seems to mellow the flavor of the whole wheat, decreasing that "bitter taste" some people find. I often sub to 100% whole wheat with a combo of WWW and WW in my sourdough breads and do just fine, getting good crumb and rise. The benefit of sourdough wit...
Utterly confused Okay, I'm lost. I've been trying to read forums, google, ask - this only led me to more confusion :( I feel like I'm a total idiot who can't get the basic notions of baking. So I'd GREATLY appreciate if you could answer some of my questions, or point me to a source where I can read about it (online, pl...	Hydration I've found this comment in one of the threads here: The loaf I make most often is: 350g 100% hydrated poolish 350g white flour (I've tried both AP and BF) 25g organic rye 232g cold water 16g salt If I'm doing my math right, that's a 74% hydration loaf. Now, I added up: 175 flour from poolish + all other d...
Challah, Gateau a l'orange, German Sunflower bread I'm going to make these recipes: Challah , Gateau a l'orange , and German Sunflower Seed bread , on Wed, Thu, and Fri. I'm keeping a 50% starter in the fridge now. Do I have to adjust the recipes to my starter? Here's what I'm thinking, and please correct me if I'...	chollah Hi Just to let you know I have put full details on making Chollah on my blog. It only uses a quick pre-ferment, so is different to what you had planned. There are several photos plus a video to help you on the way. Full details of formula and method are given. It may be of interest to you. Best wishes Andy
is 355 grams enough? Hi I was at the supermarket today, I saw this glass sugar shaker that looked cool. It was the last one had no price on it the manager gave it to me for $2.39. It is round glass with ribs. Ill take a pic when my batteries charge. It has a S/S top screw on with the little flap to shake the sugar out....	Yes. I have made a starter Yes. I have made a starter with only 40 grams before. I imagine that some people have done even less.
Whole-wheat flour for sourdough starter New to the site, this is great! I followed a recipe that called for whole wheat flour for the initial starter. I also did one with unbleached all purpose flour. I’m just noticing that the whole wheat starter doesn’t seem to be producing bubbles the same way that the all purpose f...	Welcome!Can you share a Welcome!Can you share a picture, or explain what you mean by that? Whole wheat absorbs much more water and consistency must be very different, so that will affect the way it looks.
It has been a few months now.. Its now a few months since I discovered and started reading this forum. I must say I learned a lot from the very experienced members here. However I find it hard to contribute as I am not formally trained nor did I have such resources as the Internet or popular books when I started baki...	Your experience is worth more than 100 books Hallelueah! Never feel that you have less to say than any of bakers here that have had better access "proffesional training" than you. I would rather hear what you had to say about baking bread than any of them. If only I could go back to my first loaf anf learn from you....
Three starters died in a row - need help. My third attempt to start a started just ended as the two previos ones - in less than 24 hours my starters acquired extremely strong acetone smell. First, i've tried to make Nancy Silverton grape starter. Then i've tried pineapple juice receipe. The last was this one - http://w...	Starter Home What type of container are you using to build your starter?
Another sourdough delimma?? Hi: I am having quite the time with making sourdough bread. I have sucessfully grew my yeast using the sourdough ladys recipe. It is now 3 months old. I do not know much about hydration? This could be my problem. My first recipe was the recipe for the sourdough ladys recipe. I followed ...	levain Hi Lucy-sue, I'll give you my take on your two questions. In regards to question number one, I wouldn't say there is one 'best' hydration for starter or for breads. Higher hydration breads generally tend to have a more open crumb, although you can get open crumb with a lower hydration. Higher hydration formul...
New to Sourdough I'm new to Sourdough so I need a bit of help with feeding starters. I have been reading and reading but not finding the clarity for this simple question. I need to feed my starter. The problem is at what point do I discard. How does the process go? I grab my starter that is hungry. Do I discard al...	I feed on a 2-3-4 ratio by I feed on a 2-3-4 ratio by weight: 2 parts original starter, 3 parts water, 4 parts flour. 20-30-40 is my normal gram amounts. I feed this way once every 24-36 hours and my starter is happy, bubbly, and ready to go in 6 or so hours.
Hamelman SD- folding during ferment question I have a question about folding a sourdough during fermentation. This is in response to a delicious but overfermented attempt at a similar sourdough that I got advice about over here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15386/sourdough-noknead-diagnosis I'm tring a variation o...	2 vs 3 This is one of those feel or intuition things. If the dough is sufficently developed, then one stretch and fold to just redistrubute the yeast and food will be fine and degas a little. If you do not have enough dough strength from say hand mixing vs mixing in a machine, then 3 maybe needed. How does the dough...
what kind of starter to have if only to have one kind? Hello TFLers, As I look through the books I have and mark the breads I would like to make, I notice a variety of starters in the formulas -- firm, liquid, various hydration levels... I do not want to maintain more than one starter. I know that I will use organic...	Rye Rye, but any grain will do. second choice... wheat. Depends on your available flour and what you like to bake. I also slip my rye starter a little mixed flour once in a while to keep the beasties guessing. Stays more well rounded and perky that way.
is my starter considered weak? attempted JH sourdough hi, i tried to recreate the sourdough breads i baked at my trip to KA and in doing so, i learned that my proofing times were way off. i created the levain using my culture and had it rest for 12 hrs @ 70 degrees. after i added the levain to the dough, i stored it at...	weak starter When hooch starts to collect at the top of the starter, you definitely need to feed it. I feed my starter daily just to keep it healthy, and it rises for me in about 4 hours. I could leave it out until the next feeding, but i'm pretty paranoid of it exhausting itself so I usually stick it in the refrigerat...
Different types of sour? Okay, another new thread and another new question :) Yesterday I fed a small batch of starter, then used it to make the same sourdough french bread recipe I used with my first starter, and let it rise over night. The first thing that was apparent is that this starter was much more sour, and was...	A good thread to A good thread to read: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10375/lactic-acid-fermentation-sourdough
Starter seems to work, but not getting a complete loaf.. Hello! I'm fairly new to baking, but have been homebrewing for many years now. I'm no stranger to proper temps and measurments and such, and I can make a regular loaf of white bread with no trouble. In fact, I started baking simply to have fresh white bread for m...	Update on this bread... I was waiting for this 2/3rds loaf to cool while I was posting that above post... I just cut it up, and.. well, I wish I could figure out how to post a picture, but essentially, the inside is still very moist.. and there's a huge airpocket just under the crust, with about a 1/4 inch air gap yo...
Simple questions on the basics :) First I should say Hi, my first message here since I joined yesterday :)I have been wondering on peoples oppinion mostly on how to keep the starter, because I find so many conflicting ideas everywhere about it, and today when preparing some of my new yeast for baking, I noticed it smel...	I use a firm starter and I use a firm starter and store it in a plastic container with airtight lid. Plastic, so if it ever slips from my fingers, there's no risk of broken glass. I pretty much bake every day, using as much as I need for the bake. Then when I get close to the end, which is after about 3 or 4 days, I do...
Ken Forkish - Transferring Levain I think that Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast is a terrific book but that said, I do scratch my head in certain places. One is the levain quantities he calls for, a much-discussed subject on this site. Another is the way he calls for adding the levain to the final dough. I canno...	If not in book... I think he explains in one of his videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/KensArtisan/#11 in the playlist.if you weigh the levain in a dry container, it could stick and you wouldn't get it all out.Personally, I usually weigh it in a dry bowl or cup and just go 2 grams over to allow for loss.If you weigh i...
phytase When soaking wholemeal flour as a pre-soaker for baking, at what point do phytate enzymes become active (room temp)? 6 hrs +? 8-10 hrs +? Cheers marie	Phytase Thanks Rockfish. My devotion and approach to using beautiful, pure and simple products such as stoneground wholemeal flour, is to use it to its optimum flavour and nutritional capacity. I always use sourdough method for baking bread - cool proofing temps, but have recently started using stoneground wholemeal f...
Artisan Bread Every Day "Mother Starter" So, I've reached the point in my first homemade sourdough starter (using Reinhart's _Artisan Bread Every Day_ method) of having a "mother starter." I was surprised to discover that the mother starter is very stiff-- basically a dough. I thought sourdough starter was liquidy? Is ...	There is no law that says There is no law that says that a sourdough must be either thick and doughy or thin and runny, it does matter how this decision incorporates into your recipes though, and with that in mind, you can adjust your starter to be whatever you are comfortable with keeping, or readjust it so that it be...
can you combine starter "wastes" in a container in the fridge, and let them accumulate? and then bring the container out weekly to feed, and use that? I just started my own (1st) starter last night, following Wild Yeast's blog, ( and I have read everything on here I can get my hands on too....), but I'm wondering if yo...	Yes, but ... You can certainly accumulate starter discards, but I would continue another starter for regular feedings and use the discards for any of the uses that have been mentioned in previous threads on this subject. For example, I have one jar of recently fed starter and had another jar of discards that I used up ...
Help - Should I add steam when baking sourdough challah? When baking sourdough loaves, I normally add boiling water to a small pan at the bottom of my oven. Should I do this for sourdough challah? (bonus karma if you can answer in 30 minutes, because I'm final proofing this 6-braid beauty as I type ;)	No! As a general rule, any bread or pastry that has been glazed with an egg wash is baked without steam. Does 34 minutes win? I can use the positive karma. David
Why don't we share ideas as to what to do with left-over sourdough starters? May be it is the recession! But I find it hard to throw out half or more of a perfectly good starter when I refresh it and it is not the right time to bake bread. Like many busy people in small households, baking more than once a week is not...	re: what to do with left-over sourdough starters It was this very problem of having to throw away so much of the starter that prompted me to accidentally-on-purpose murder my starter. But before I committed the crime, these are some of the really successful things I made using the left-overs after feeding: crackers (m...
Testing Starter Back-up This evening when I returned home from a couple weeks away for Christmas and birthday spent with family over in the city, I found a puddle on my kitchen floor, then realised that it had originated at the fridge/freezer. Opened the fridge door to be greeted by a rush of warm air! The power outle...	Not the best start to the new Not the best start to the new year for you, i do wish you luck, both with the revival of your dried/frozen-unfrozen culture and with a new fridge. Coming home to a dead fridge is not the most pleasant experience if you have been away for any time. It does give you a new appreciation for so...
Starting a starter in the frigid north? I'm thinking of attempting a sourdough starter, but was wondering if it would even be worthwhile. It hasn't been above frozen here in quite some time ( I'm in Northern Canada ) and it has been down as cold as -46* C! Any thought on whether this will be a fruitless pursuit? I'm no...	Sarah K. As long as it's not so cold inside you should be able to manage it. You could even carry a small amount around with you in a zip lock bag in your pocket if your room temps are below 70°F and you can't find a warm spot. Use organic rye if you can, it expands much less than wheat. Mini
And now for something completely different...(^-^) Living in Hawaii and being married to a part Hawaiian, I've had the chance to eat quite a variety of local foods. And one of them is a paste called poi. Poi can be made from many starches but it's usually made from the corm of the taro plant which has been steamed or...	Looks good! That looks great Dave! Nice even and open crumb. Are you going to feed the poi like a sourdough starter? Eric
Storing Starter in Mason Jar? Can I keep my active starter in the fridge in a big mason jar, loosely capped or ? I'm just looking for a way to store that's taller and skinnier in my small refrigerator!	Yes Absolutely! You can use any jar that has been cleaned and rinsed thoroughly.
Help with picking first recipe for sourdough newbie Hi All, Thanks for all the help I have gotten browsing this site already. I have been making bread by hand for about a year and decided to get some starter when I heard about Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail starter. I revived it starting last weekend which seemed to go quite...	Sourdough suggestions Hi, Wayne. Welcome to the world of sourdough! Since you do have Crust&Crumb, Reinhart's San Francisco Sourdough in that book is marvelous. It has a different schedule than you specify, but give it a look. Another choice would be my San Joaquin Sourdough. It also has a somewhat different schedule, ...
Need help troubleshooting Hi. My name is Olga and I'm new to TFL. I recently started to bake sourdough bread and constantly running into an issue of not getting nice open crumb and sufficient oven rise. I read a lot and tried a lot of things, but the result is always quite the same no matter what I do. I will bring my ...	Hi Olga, welcome to TFL!First Hi Olga, welcome to TFL!First off. You are being waaay to hard on yourself. Keep in mind the beautiful loaves that you are viewing were probably baked by those that have been at it for years. They are the results of hundreds of bakes. For someone new to sourdough, your results are impressi...
Overnight proof When retarding a shaped loaf overnight, what kind of container do you use? If I use a couche, I get a skin on the loaf; if I use an oiled bowl, the loaf loses shape and is a bit slippery for my taste. Any other ideas?	Bags will solve your issue As noted in a previous response, boules can be placed in floured bannetons or brotforms, then placed in a small plastic bag and retarded overnight in the refrigerator. If you don't have a banneton or brotform, then use a high quality linen cloth, flour it thoroughly, and use a small colander...
Starter Too Sour I have a starter that is about 3 weeks old (refrigerated after 3 days), but the bread I made from it is too sour. Should I toss all but about a cup and start feeding it for a day or two, then make my bread or what? The original recipe was 2 cups flour, 2 cups water, 1 teas. sugar and 1 teasp. yeast. ...	Gold Mine First of all, there are a lot of folks on this forum who would give their life for a REALLY sour starter so perhaps you've got a marketable formula there. Be specific about the type of flour, sugar and yeast you used. You may help someone who has a problem directly opposite the one you describe. Sorry, I ha...
starter has risen and now... i made my very first sourdough starter based on gaarp's tutorial. I started thursday. i had problems in day 3 and onwards, but today, I think I managed to revive it. It did rise, started at 1 cup and it's now up to 2 cups. i refreshed it 2 hours ago. will it get bubbly and frothy in a...	Curious If you just began the sourdough culture last Thursday, that means it is only five days old. Why would you want to refrigerate such a young culture? Do you have to leave town for the holidays?
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas and thanks for the shared, collective wisdom and generosity of this wonderful, dynamic community. Hope your holidays are joyous! Until the new year... cheers Marie.	Merry Christmas to all! Warmest wishes coming from the Great White North, for this wonderful holiday season. Al
Use weak starter? I created a seed culture using the grape method, but I think it's still rather weak. I created a firm starter from the culture and it's taken about 12 hours to double. Should I bother using this to make bread, or should I wait until my seed culture is stronger? Thanks	How old is the seed How old is the seed culture? Twelve hours to double the firm levain is fine, depending on the temperature where it was kept. If it's doubled, you could feed it again, timing the feeding so that it will be domed and ready to use when you wish to start mixing. Best way to find out is to use it! The...
A sane fermentation/proof procedure I've been baking with a home-grown starter off and on for a couple of years now, with occasional success, and I'm finally trying to get a little more serious and organized about it. I don't think I've ever used the same recipe twice, and I'm realizing that I'll never get better at th...	Starting Point I would suggest this formula.http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6927/well-i-finally-did-it If you don't have a scale it may be best to invest in one to get a feel for the dough. Many people here have been very successful with this and everyone will share experience. You can also try the Northwestsourdough....
can't wait till new year, started "starter" tonite Hello folks, I said would venture into sourdough bread next year after almost a year of making soft rolls, loaves and sweet breads with yeast in 2009. I am now graduating into sourdough as part of my education. I planned to start after the new year, but i just can't...	Lightly. Realistically, it Lightly. Realistically, it shouldn't matter much since you won't keep the container wrapped long enough to suffocate your culture, but the idea is to just keep the starter moist and unwanted particles out.
When to refrigerate starter? Hi all, A quick question needing a quick answer (if you don't mind... ;-) ) I'm leaving the country tomorrow night for about 10 days and am just about to feed my rye starters. They've been out of the fridge for a few days and been fed twice daily. I've been 'thickening' them somewhat, redu...	My practice with refrigerating starter is to feed it (I keep mine at about 50% hydration--it's mostly white with a bit of rye or whole wheat), let it sit at room temperature for an hour or so, then put it into the refrigerator. That seems to give the yeasts and bacteria an opportunity to colonize the new food without ...
High Hydration Boule: Explosive Fermentation (and size)? Hi All. Playing with different hydration rates, to get a loaf I'm really happy with. Very puzzled by my latest loaf: (clothespin for scale). -as the size of this monster is through the roof, comparatively speaking, an...	Tired Yeast From what I recall of my homebrewing beer days, the different strains of yeast had their own individual levels of tolerance to alcohol before their effectiveness ceased. The British ale yeasts seemed to be the hardiest with high gravity beers but even they lost their ability to work at around 8-9% alcohol. ...
Confused about starters, bigas and soakers. I am reading Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book which is my very first introduction to bread baking techniques. Thats right, I am a newbe to the bread baking world. I have zero knowledge with starters, bigas, poolishes, soakers ect. and I must say I am completley overwe...	wild vs commercial yeast The big difference between a starter and a biga or poolish is what type of yeast is used. A starter, as you stated above, is cultured via wild yeasts. A biga or poolish use commercial yeast (fresh, active dry, instant) and act as a pre-ferment to help develop a more in-depth flavor before bei...
For LAB to flourish must Yeast be present For LAB to flourish must Yeast be present?Just today I read that 2 bakers had starters that were grossly overtaken by LAB. That made me wonder if some amount of Yeast were necessary for this to take place.The gist of my concernIf a starter is overrun with LAB is it feasible to ...	My take on this:Yeast and My take on this:Yeast and LABs have no direct relationship. However, when yeast consumes simple sugars, CO2 and alcohol are produced. When lactic acid or acetic acid encounter alcohol, esters are produced that result in the aromas.I also note that when you want to store a starter in the refrig...
I need some help troubleshooting my spongy crumb... Hi, I'm quite new to this, and really happy I found this site. My starter is about a month old and I'm having some problems with a dense kind of spongy crumb on the loaves I am baking. I'm hoping someone can make some suggestions so I can get a better result. Some ba...	Seems like a lot of starter First of all, I would grow another starter.There is a LOT of info on this site as to how todo that. There is even a handbook (look at the top to the right of Forum/Lessons). Second,the recipe seems very starter heavy. I use about 1/2 cup (150 g)of 100% by weight starter.Using 500g starter an...
Flat loaf profile I've been baking PR's basic sourdough which calls for an overnight retard, the 4 hrs. at RT. When I put the risen boule on the peel, it always flattens out. The final bread is OJK, but I'd like a higher profile. Would shaping againg before the bake to get it toghter result in too much degassing? BH	You could try less water in the recipe and see how that works. Or don't let it sit out so long at room temp. Try just two hours. Or if you feel you should try folding it, do so right after it comes out of the fridge. See what happens! Gently folding would be alright and it warms up the dough too. Get to know your...
Sourdough Rising Problems So my sourdough starter is bubbly and seems to look fine. I'm almost sure it hasn't risen after about 9 days. How do I get it to rise?	More details needed 1. How old is your starter? 2. How often do you feed it? 3. What's the hydration level? 4. What recipe are you trying to use? 5. what's the temperature in your kitchen?
200% Sourdough Starter So after working on many of the recipes here on The Fresh Loaf, I have finally started my first sourdough starter! I love sourdough, but after reading a couple of recipes for starters I got a little scared. I searched on google for sourdough recipes and found this website. I just started his reci...	That sounds like a That sounds like a 100%-hydration starter, more or less. Once your starter gets going, you can easily convert it. Just use equal weights of flour and water when feeding it and you'll quickly have a 100% starter. I would highly recommend the starter tutorial on The Fresh Loaf. It's rock-solid if the d...
Pain au levain questions. Hi. I have some questions about pain au levain starter. For starters (no pun intended) on the Internet i've discovered two almost identical, yet different receipes #1 - http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/baked-good/recipe-basic-sourdough-starter-047337 #2 - http://www.foodnetwork.com/reci...	starter issues Xevus- For starters (pun intended) you took the correct path in weighing your flour and water instead of relying on cups or ounces for measures. What you saw on day 3 was good - you have an active yeast culture which produces alcohol as a by-product which rises to the top as a murky liquid (popular myth...
Question regarding maintaining a 50% hydration starter.. Hi all.. Sorry for being a pest here.. Still wearing my learning cap.. So.. I'm trying to get my dough to be a bit more sour and was reading some of the old archived message threads including this one : Lesson: Squeeze more sour from your sourdough In there i...	The eyeball/feel method For a while I scaled, then got tired of cleaning up more containers and obsessing over grams, so I chucked that concept and switched over to the eyeball-feel method. My levain has been in the fridge all week, so about an hour ago I pulled it out, discarded about 75 percent, added a bit of water,...
new to sourdough Hello, im 100% new to sourdough baking, and i have a question. When you feed the starter, the 1/2 you discard is the part you use to bake your loaf? So if i have 16 ounces of starter, i take 8 out for a loaf and replace what i took with 4 oz of water and 4 oz flour(or whatever hydrations % i am usi...	Can be, for sure While you're getting the st6arter going, it's probably best to just toss that excess. Until the starter is good and lively it really is just "used up" flour soup. But when your starter is active and hearty, the discard is just as good as the stuff you leave in the jar. Some may say it's exactly the sa...
How firm is a firm starter? I'll start by admitting I feed my starter by feel. So far it has worked well for me. When I must, I weigh the feedings. I plan to make the sourdough challah posted in the blogs (dmsnyder) and started firming up my starter last night. I followed the advice of Susan (in San Diego) who knea...	sponge I have two versions of sourdough starter, liquid and firm. My firm starter usually requires 100 grams of flour for 50 grams of water. Usually I feed it before going to bed and by morning it has just about tripled in size. I then usually end up using about two thirds of it for the bread I plan to make and the ...
Potato Sourdough I recently had some wonderful bread and asked for the recipe. She gave me some of her starter and the directions. I currently have a wild yeast starter going 6 months now so I know a little bit about how starters work but this one has me puzzled. I should feed this starter 3/4 cup sugar, 3 Tbls Potato ...	Say again? It's not a sourdough starter - it's a mismash of old flour goop, water, sugar and dehydrated potato flakes probably containing a host of chemicals that killed off whatever yeast hadn't died of starvation. The wild yeast you are seeking are contained in the flour used to refresh a (normal) sourdough. No flo...
First Sourdough loaf.. What should I do differently next time? Hi all.. Well my Carl's 1847 starter is off and running and growing like gangbusters.. I'm currently feeding it using bottled water (Arrowhead) and using KA Brad Flour. It's very happy with that combination at 100% hydration. I've also got I think a 50% h...	Over Proofed? From your description of the proofing experience, I suspect your dough was over-proofed by the time it was loaded into the oven. Dividing the dough into two pieces prior to final proofing and allowing the final proof to take place in an unrestrained environment might have given you a more manageable doug...
i am searching for a sourdough chocolate cake or other cake that uses only sourdough i am searching for a sourdough chocolate cake or other cake that uses only sourdough without the baking soda....	I won't say it can't be done But I will say that I haven't found any such recipe, yet.Most of the sourdough cake recipes on the internet are basic butter cakes. In other words, they rely on creaming butter and sugar together to create nuclei for bubbles that can then be inflated by gases produced by the chemical leave...
Starter after just one day? Hello. I've started my whole wild perennial rye starter yesterday at 19:00[7 PM]. I've feed it today at 17:00[5 PM] and after 4 hours it has doubled in size. It has this slight sour smell, like a jar of sour/pickled cucumbers/gherkin or sauerkraut. I've never seen anything like that. The sta...	Looking good, RT! You probably got your hands on some rye with a dense microbe population. is it whole grain, 100% extraction?I’m not sure about the “no discard” method. Please explain.See THIS LINK for more info.
Dough Temperature I mostly use PR's formulas, and he calls for about 77º-81º after kneading. My dough never gets there; usually its around 71-73º. Is this important? Doesn't the temperature in the room have an effect? Our kitchen is usually about 66-67º before the oven goes on. BH	Yes, room temperature counts So does the friction factor of your mixer, BH. If you read through this thread, I think you'll find Dan DiMuzio's expertise quite helpful. KAF also has an excellent page on the topic. You'll find it here Hope this helps.
First Post - A work in progress, but a question? This is my first post at this incredibly helpful site. Here are my latest loaves - pretty happy w/crumb and taste, but would like more oven spring. I am using a 40% hyd starter, and Sir Lancelot 14.2% flour. Ingredients - 675g water, 420g starter, 964g flour, 75g raw wh...	Judging by the crumb, and... my estimated 70% dough hydration, I think you're getting about all the oven spring you might expect. However, I have one suspicion: underproofing. Do you keep your dough at room temperature while you stretch and fold, and for how long? Or do you begin to chill it immediately after autolyse?...
May Sourdough starters be stored in the fridge using screwtop quart-size Mason Jars? I am planning on starting my sourdough education this winter. Have enjoyed happy baking of yeast breads and pastry for about 30 years or so but sourdough will be a new journey. I am very grateful for this site. May I store my start...	Absolutely Mason jars will work just fine but you do not want to refrigerate your sourdough culture until it is well established and active. I only hope that you don't get caught up in all the hype about how difficult sourdough is. It isn't. Flour, water, and patience are all the ingredients you'll need. Have fun on t...
Sourdough Question! How long does it take for a sourdough starter to be ready? How long does sourdough bread take on average to rise/proof? :o)	What do you mean? What do you mean by ready? Do you mean from the time you start trying to catch the yeast to when you can bake with it? Or from the time you refresh it to the time to bake? That would help. But most starters vary. Depending on the strength and health of the starter.
Barm and unsweetened pineapple juce question I was exploring BBA today for the first time (I mostly bake from Whole Grain Breads) and was intrigued by rye with sunflower seeds. It requires barm. The formula in the book results in 6 cups of barm -- that is a lot! Is it OK to make less, or is there something sacred ab...	No Problem I get my unsweetened pineapple juice at the local market. If you can't' find it on your grocer's shelf you can simply by pineapple packed in it's own juices (with no sugar added) and drain/straing the juice from that. You can make the barm in BBA in any amount you like, as long as you honor the relative amo...
Question about lifespan of a wild yeast culture Hello, I have read that Calvel stated that the old dough method cannot be used indefinitely because after a while undesired tastes appear. Also, on Ed Wood's site, he says that "With proper care, you can bake for years with the contents of one package (of wild yeast -- cu...	I hate to tell you this but under ideal and even non-ideal conditions, it will out live you. I heard some the other day just singing away when I put them into the fridge (they got the song from Joe's cockroaches.) "Welcome to Mini's apartment, it's our apartment too. We've been here for millions of years and we'll be ...
levain I have maintained a sourdough culture since early summer, and use it successfully at least once a week. My method has been sporadic. I bake a variety of breads, and have not had the discipline to perfect a single formula, but vary the experiment with each bake. This site has been a great help to me, and I apprec...	Levain If it works for you, don't fix it. You might consider what you're doing procedurally incorrect but if your starter is thriving, and it sounds like it is, you're fine. There are a boatload of threads here testifying to the resiliency of a good starter and I have my own story. As long as you follow a reasonable pr...
Any saga you may have gone through trying to create a new starter Recent humourous and downright slap-stick tragic events have led me to ask all our fellow sourdough addicts - What is the most weird/funny/tragic/humourous/sad/outrageous/unfathomable etc,etc, events that you have experienced or done while trying to ge...	These stories are all thru the archives look up: feed it a dead chicken!
Scaling down ingredient quantities using baker's percentages Until now, I've used recipes from the good folk who post on this and other forums, or from books like Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf catering specifically for the home baker. I've always either followed the ingredient weight as per the recipe, or if it looks ...	Scaling Hamelman Hi Ross I find using the metric column easier to work with myself and scale that to the amount of dough I want to prepare. I'll do the maths for the semolina and send you a private message, standby! Robyn
Sourdough Problem(s)! So I made a sourdough starter a week ago. It looked done, because it was sour smelling, had bubbles, and had a hooche. I made a spounge with it by adding 1c water and 1c flour (I used ap). I let it sit for about 12 hours, but it would not make the dough rise, I let all of the rising and proofs sit...	Let's back up a step or two and start from the beginning. Your starter is a week old, which is on the young side to start baking with, but not impossibly so. It also has hooch, which usually indicates that most of the food has been consumed by the yeast and bacteria. You mention that the sponge (1 cup each of flour a...
Community Bake - Maurizio's Oat Porridge Sourdough The Community Bake (CB) is featuring Maurizio's Oat Porridge SD. The bread is considered special because of the Oat Porridge. Both the soft texture and taste reflects the Oats in fabulous way. The bread is moist and keeps for a long time.For those not familiar with our...	Bring it on! I could eat this bread all the live long day! This bread is too good to settle for the results from my first attempt. Now that I have a feel for the recipe, with the communities help, I'm going to take this to the next level! Bring it on!
Commercial Yeast in your Sourdough? In Ed Wood's Sourdough book, he writes to never mix commercial yeast into your sourdough starter or dough. I can understand the starter, but most of the books I've seen that address sourdough all call for a small amount of instant or active dry yeast. This seems like a contradiction...	Yes you can You can spike the dough with commercial yeast to give you a shorter rise time. But it will not be pure sourdough. And yes it will not be as sour.
Would you consider this extreme Oven Spring? If so, ideas? Hi All - As a few might know, I've recently returned to baking, which is a first love, after many decades steeped in the world of stocks, butchery, and the like; baking was my first foray into cooking, as a child, but I haven't done it in many decades. Relying...	Excess oven spring. Hi, Paul. First off, many would be happy with the oven spring you got. But, if you want a more symmetrical boule, you need to proof your loaf either before retardation or when you take it out of the fridge. Let it expand to 1.5X it's original volume at least. When you press a finger into the loaf ab...
Reviving Carl's 1847 Starter.. Ok.. So I'm on my last possible revival -- the 2nd half of my free Carl's starter -- the first was thrown away after a few weeks when I neglected it for several days when my wife was in for hip replacement surgery.. Anyway, I used the 2nd half of the dried starter to start a new batch a c...	aerobic vs anaerobic respiration i noticed the same thing when i first started drying my starters. i'd spread the early-stage (small bubbles) starters out onto a flat surface to air-dry and the fermentation, while continuing, showed a definite decrease in activity. it turns out that yeast cells work best anaerobically ...
Sourdough starter problem Hello Everyone. I am starting a sourdough starter again since my old one "die" due to several problems. Anyway, I choose the "pineapple juice "formular of the "sourdo lady". It is now on it 8 days and doing poorly. On the 4 days it double and I was very excited that it is on its way to matu...	Pineapple juice Are you using the fresh kind or the pasteurized kind? I was taught last summer at SFBI that fresh pineapple juice will kill the levain. I have never used anything but flour and water to start a levain. Maybe you could start over and skip the juice. Do a wheat starter first (but with some whole spelt and...
Help!! 7 day starter has quadrupled! Please tell me what I should do next. Last fed was about 6 hours ago, still on 1:1:1 ratio. Today is the first day it has quadrupled, and is still at "peak" levels. Should I go 1:2:2 next? Smells nice and tangy. Actually have used some of the day 6 "discard" to do a country sourdoug...	I can remember a starter that I can remember a starter that I fed one night, just before bed, so that I could make lots of pancakes in the am. When I got up it had crawled out of the crock, up the wall, across the window sill, and was heading up the window! Geeeze. Lively sucker! Luckily I had enough left for panca...
spelt flour to start a starter has anyone ever used spelt flour to make a starter? i read somewhere that whole wheat and organic flours are usually best. i have some left over spelt and would like to use it before it expires. i am starting my sourdough education next year, so just wanted to know if spelt flour is re...	Spelt starter may be tricky Why? I don't know it just happens. Usually takes longer. I would start a rye starter and then slowly convert it to spelt. There is a thread here where it took quite a while. Might be listed under spelt starters in the search box. Mini
Starter behavior correlates to starter hyrdation? So this question is based on what I am seeing with my starter. I am currently trying to find a daily bread/ basic bread formula that is my own so to speak. I want the to make just one loaf at a time, by hand. I want a sourdough. I want a small percent of whole grain...	But why does the dough... Thank you for the info. I have read Chapters 3&10 and I made a sheet to work out the formula for this. It is 68% water, 2% salt and 3% honey. I am prefermenting about 20 of the flour. So I work from 1 lb of flour as 100%. This isn't really my problem. I understand the math part, and I am...
how do you feed your starter properly I have a starter that I grew using the sourdough ladys recipe. It is doing very well. I was reading in a members blog about starter and how it does not eat when kept cold in the fridge. So If I feed my starter 2-3 times per week, do I take it out of the fridge to warm up and the...	This is what I would do I would take it out of the refrigerator, feed it cold and leave it out at room temperature and let it double in volume which should take 6 to 8 hours depending on the ambient temperature and then either make your final build or put it back in the refrigerator. Don
Starter Hello, my question. If you have a working starters one that will double with each feeding. Now you want to use it. If you have 1.2 cup of good working starter and you want to bake a loaf of bread that needs 1/2 cup of starter. Do you take the 1/2 cup from you startewr or do you take a tab;lespoon full and now ...	If your 1.2 cup of starter is active and still rising (almost peaking) then by all means use some of it. Stir it down first and measure. If it has already peaked and is deflated, then it might be wise to remove some and feed it first, let it rise and then use it just before it peaks for the recipe. Mini
The sticky starter I have made a discovery. This discovery has changed the way that I maintain my sourdough mother, and since that change in maintenance has occured it has been quite a bit less of a hassle to maintain her every day. Bear in mind I keep a 50% hydration starter, I've kept her at that hydration for the p...	How I'm still a SD newbie, so I don't know if I really understand the process. How did you do it before this discovery? Did you just try to mix/knead the new flour and water into the existing mother? How did you change after this discovery? How did you "break up your mother into water"? Just tear little pieces off a...
Tartine flour 'equivalents' Thanks to several threads here, I have decided to build on the successes I have had so far (also in no small part thanks to advice and encouragement here) by focusing on Tartine #3. Thanks - again - to help in this thread, I have matched several of the flours mentioned throughout the Tartine...	devil in the details. "High-extraction wheat flour = 50/50 mix KAF All Purpose + KAF Bread flour"No. high-extraction is a branny flour, with minimum .85% ash, maybe up to 1.0%. It has some of the bran, but not all the bran. It may or may not have some germ, but should not have all the germ.AP flour and bread flour ar...
My new steaming apparatus.. I find that ssteaming is not working as well as I like. Spraying works well, but opening the door every time, and the oven drop 50f. I was using a metal dish with water placed very close the the heating element but it didn't produce the blast of steam I wanted. so here is my contraption: ...	hmm... In Italy we say " la necessità aguzza l' ingegno" which would mean something like " in front of a particular need you always find a solution with a little touch of genius" , and no doubt your way to solve your need was original..however I personally prefer to use my espresso machine for the original purpose it w...
Some of my sourdough loaves I'm new here, and I see a lot of pics of folks' loaves of bread and thought I too would share some pics of some of mine. I make all sorts of bread, but sourdough is certainly my favorite to work with. I have 4 starters including one wheat starter going all the time. Here is the first sourdo...	Very nice Very nice looking breaded braids braided breads.
Sourdough CPR I knew one of these days I was going to do it... Sure enough, this morning I did it: I forgot to hold back some of my starter. Last night, as usual, I pulled my starter out of the refrigerator, fed it, and left it out in a cupboard overnight. This morning I put together a batch of dough and dumped all...	Re: Sourdough CPR and I just fed mine and mixed it with a stainless spoon! it's fine. I think this stuff is not as fragile as most would have you believe. I've even left it out for two days after feeding before using it. just feed it a little more ... and poof! up it bubbles again. looks like mount st helens ...
In search of a bread recipe using sour cream and sourdough starter I currently have a wonderful starter that originated from the pineapple juice based starter recipe and would like to find some bread recipes using it in conjunction with sour cream as an ingredient. I've always liked the texture I get when I use sour c...	I have used sourdough starter I have used sourdough starter to make biscuits which came out well. I have also used sour cream and a little water to make biscuits when I didn't have milk and they also came out well. I'll bet a dollar the combination would work. Either use bisquick or make your own by mixing flour, sal...
San Joaquin Sourdough, Take 2... The first time I baked this bread the results were tasty, but nothing to advertise. The loaf was ugly, and an edible learning experience. So we learned away at it! After some consultation with dmsnyder on technique and hydration adjustments I've tried again with results I'm more prou...	Lovely, OWS! I suppose we just can't stopping fiddling, but I'd say you got a winner there. I'm glad you got the nice crumb texture and flavor. I would not say you over-proofed the loaf from its appearance. It looks like you got good oven spring and very nice bloom. The large holes in the crumb are characteristic of th...
Starters: differences and longevity Having jumped in to the sourdough way of life in my typical 'all the way' fashion, I now have three very happy sourdough starters bubbling away in my dungeon: the first is from a friend in SanFrancisco,nickname, "Jerry," (what else?) the second I purchased from KAF in Vt., nickname ...	I think if you can take care of them individually, they will remain individuals. That includes individual feeding schedules type of flour and temperatures. If they all eat the same type of grain, that makes things easier. If they all eat at the same time, great! If you want to keep them in the fridge, make sure th...
Whole Wheat Starter: Pros and Cons? Hi again! It's me, the newbie that experienced existential angst over Carl's starter a couple of months ago :) The starter, fed with AP, was doing pretty well and made a great loaf of JMonkey's 100% WW bread. Then I realized that I had cut out most refined (read:white) products out...	starter I just maintain one starter, and feed it with white flour if I want to make a predominantly white loaf, or WW flour for WW loaves. Generally my starter grows well when fed either flour, but this would presumably depend on your particular starter. I do notice that with longer fermentation times the WW starter ...
"Cheater" overnight sourdough So, I admit it. I love to cook and never really did much baking. Had a bread machine and it was little used. Saw one of the 'no-knead' sites and was intrigued. Started reading (and of course buying 'stuff.') Tried Anis Bouabsa's recipe on this site for baguettes and nailed it. Been bubblin...	Question ... What's the hydration level of your starter? That'll make a difference.

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