August 20, 2013 - 8:24pm
New starter questions
Hi all,
I just started my first 2 cultures and they are looking good and smelling nice on day 3. (knock wood) Both are using AP white flour, how long should I wait to try and convert one over to Whole Wheat or other grain? And just for extra confidence is there an easy recipe for beginner or should I just try one that looks good?
Thanks in advance. ;)
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After day 10 you can switch flours. Here's a guide that I posted about creating a new starter that addresses this question.
Here is a good beginner sourdough recipe that is quite forgiving (shameless self promotion) :) It does require that you use a scale. Accuracy is important, especially when you are starting out, weighing ingredients is a way to improve your baking accuracy.
Good luck and let me know how it goes!
recipe is the 1:2:3 SD. one part SD starter at 100% hydration 2 parts water and 3 parts flour - with 2% salt (of flour weight). So 150 g of starter would be 300 g of water and 450 g of flour and 9 g of salt.
The method is up to you. You can do no knead, slap and folds, stretch and folds, regular kneading, bulk ferment shape, proof and bake or you can bulk retard in teh fridge after the bulk ferment to develop more flavor then warm up shape proof and bake. You can bake on parchment in a DO, in a stone on overturned doubled up cookie sheets with steam or just overturn a pot or mixing bowl over the bread.
Happy baking
Agreed, this is very good advice as well. 1:2:3 is a good baking ratio for sourdough.
Day 3 and my starters still looks alive and smells OK. Hopefully next week I will be able to get a loaf baked. Thanks for the advise and recipes, greatly appreciated.
Hi all,
I followed the pineapple juice starter and I am now using just flour & water everyday for the feeding. Both experiments are bubbling (below and on top) but neither is really rising any after 1 week. I have read about the 'stall' being normal so I am trying to be patient. They both smell OK, kind of a sweet alcohol thing going on. The indoor temp is 76, the flour is new from a busy store and the water is from Arrowhead Spring. I read on another post that says not to feed the starter until it rises and falls, so am I on the right track or should I change something?
thanks
you are following. If using D Winks pineapple juice method then keep following her advice. Sometimes starters can be too thin to rise. If yours is really thin just add some flour to it to thicken it up and see if that makes it rise. You don't want to go too long without feeding it.
Day 4: (and once daily until it starts to expand and smell yeasty), mix . . .
2 oz. of the starter (1/4 cup after stirring down-discard the rest)
1 oz. flour** (scant 1/4 cup)
1 oz. water (2 tablespoons)
I did add a bit more flour this morning as it looked a bit runny, the bubbles look bigger this afternoon. Maybe I just have a slow starter. :)
Thanks for the advise.
I will definitely try your recipe. I have a nice, healthy starter, which is AP flour. I have, from time to time, used spelt or rye. For some reason, using KA whole wheat flour did not do so well in my starter.
Here's my starter advice.
As for careful measuring in feeding a starter, I pretty much go for texture and consistency. I stopped measuring months ago. I should start again, if only for figuring out starter use in recipes such as the one just recommended. My starter page is at http://108breads.blogspot.com/p/sourdough-starters.html. I list other sources of advice.