February 7, 2017 - 10:46am
Sourdough starter
If a bread recipe calls for a packet of instant dry yeast, about how much starter would be necessary to replace the yeast? I apologize to the community for so many questions. However, I am relatively new to baking and I have a severe learning disability besides. Thanks for being so patient and understanding :).
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That can be a little complicated. When you are adding both flour and water (the starter) you are changing the percentages of flour and water to whatever you are baking. Bread baking is all about percentages. You can get a percentage calculator fairly easy on this site. Now back to your original question.
How much starter?
Experiment. Try 25% of the final weight (don't forget to adjust the percentages accordingly). If that is too slow, try 33% of the final weight. Or for a long slow rise, try 10% and see what happens.
That is about all I know. Perhaps someone else can go into more detail. Good luck with it.
Sourdough by taking 20% of the total flour and liquid in the dough and making levain with it using 10 g oif your starter. Agfter mixing it will take about 12 hours to be ready to use. If you already have a ready to go liquid starter do lie AlaninLA says above.
The thing about converting from a yeast bread to a sourdough is that it's not really converting but rather it's a whole new bread. You can end up with the same amount of flour and water in the final loaf but it'll be different. So you can preferment any amount taken from the flour and depending on what percentage you've taken will alter the timing (and taste) of your new recipe. So your answer is there is no one formula for how it should be done. Take a simple recipe...
500g flour
350g water
10g salt
5g dried yeast
Now take out the yeast and you're left with...
500g flour
350g water
10g salt
Then you need to preferment some of the flour. You can do any amount so for arguments sake...
Levain
20g starter @ 100% hydration)
40g water
40g flour
Final Dough
450g flour
300g water
9g salt (adjust to 2% of flour)
100g levain (just over 20%)
Now you adjust times to fit your new sourdough recipe. The only thing the same is the total flour and water though. Your bread will have a different profile and by no means do you need to preferment the amount in the example. You can do more or less and this will further change the timings and results. Choose what fits your schedule and tast
Thank you so very much for the replies. It was so very kind of y'all to take time from your busy schedules. Yes, I found out a formula on how to replace yeast with a sourdough starter on another web site. Very informative and simple. Have a wonderful day. This forum and the community really rocks!!!!!!!