November 17, 2024 - 9:19am
New to sourdough
Hello- I just received my first sourdough starter and don’t want to screw it up. I have already made sourdough waffles. I would love any suggestions to help me with keeping a healthy starter.
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Hello- I just received my first sourdough starter and don’t want to screw it up. I have already made sourdough waffles. I would love any suggestions to help me with keeping a healthy starter.
Welcome!
There are many topics here that could help. Make some bread - tell us about it. Gotta start somewhere! Enjoy!
Heidi,
I take a lazy approach to storing my starter. Many others do daily feedings with discards x 1000 variations, but this has been working for us since my wife first built our starter 24 years ago.
From a 300+ g levain, I set aside 50 g in a small jar. I add 50 g of water and 50 g of flour (90% AP, 5% rye, 5% WW). Mix well. Store in refrigerator for 1-3 months tightly covered.
When I’m ready to make bread, I build my levain over 36 hours to ensure a lively inoculant for my dough:
Generation 1: 5 g starter, 10 g water, 10 g flour. Mix and store loosely covered on counter for 12 hours.
Generation 2: 25 g Gen 1, 40 g water, 40 g flour. Mix and store loosely covered on counter for 12 hours.
Generation 3: 105 g Gen 2, 100-120 g water, 100-120 g flour. Mix and store loosely covered on counter for 12 hours.
I generally start this process 2 nights before I plan to mix the dough, though you can shorten the process to two or even a single generation by using more starter or adjusting water and flour additions.
Best wishes and good luck,
Phil
…that the whole point of this method is to maintain my starter at no more than 150 g in a very small jar which requires very little refrigerator real estate. I do spend some time getting the starter ready to use by building a levain over 36 hours, but this only requires me to plan ahead a bit. Most of the time this is no problem. There’s always active dry yeast in a pinch…
P