WW loaves - starters and other questions

Sev, sorry ,  I had trouble following your numbers, but did want to respond as to WW.  I use 100% home milled whole wheat,  and yes, WW ( store bought or home milled ) is much faster than AP or BF.  When I refresh my starter, if I am using AP,  I refresh in the morning at 1:1:1  and by dinner time it is ready.  If using WW, even store bought, it is 1:3:3 and the starter is ready before dinner time.  One thing I have found is that if the starter is ready and I use it, I don't get any sour tang. If instead ,  I refresh it, and once it is ready, I put it in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours before I use it in a loaf, it gives a nice tang ( though some don't like the tang ).  My general maintenance is to refresh just once before baking, then once I have finished for the week,  I put the spent starter in the fridge for the week, then repeat.

BTW,  I made a few loaves with sprouted flour - I found that the taste was sweet, in a good way, but it was more challenging to get a good result, so i no longer bake with it.  

I have the same experience as barryvabeach, and so also leave my starter in the fridge, taking as much as I need to make a levain for each loaf, and replacing the starter when it's finished (about a week or two). A few things I do to slow fermentation down: 1) use less levain in the dough; 2) apportion most of the white flour to the levain; 3) rise it in a slightly cooler place. The first method gives me the most control.

To my mind, using a stiff levain results in a less sour loaf due to less LAB, but I'm not sure it slows down fermentation significantly. Mixing your cold starter directly in the final dough, rather than using a room-temp levain of the same weight, would result in a slower initial BF due to temperatures, but eventually result in a significantly more sour loaf, especially if you only use the starter once a week. I see that currently 12.7% of your flour is pre-fermented and you're finding it too fast, so if you're trying the direct cold starter method (and I think the benefit of this is time and convenience, rather than slowing down BF), maybe it might be interesting to start with a more conservative 10% (176g) and go from there?

P.S. You can also slow it down by removing or reducing the amount of yeast added?

-Lin

>  I also saw The Bread Code recommend using stiff starters for WW, to slow down the bacterial/acid development.  

This is of course true. However, you can salt the preferment at 0.2-1% range to reduce activity. The reason I say this is softness of crumb. Based on some article I saw from Didier Rosada, I did 2 test bakes of an otherwise identical formula: one with with a 65% hydration biga and one with 100% hydration poolish. The total formula was identical. The difference in texture was remarkable to me - identical process, but the poolish one was softer, the biga one was chewier. 

Now I salt my whole wheat preferment at around 1% and it's fine. I'm 100% sold now on 100% hydration preferment for whole wheat breads:)

Thanks, Sev. Seems like it's back to the drawing board. 

1) Agree that using a fresh levain at peak or slightly before peak might give more reliable results than using the starter itself, especially because this is largely a weekly bake. So let's do that again. 

2) I think it is possible to get the results you want with a 100% hydration WW levain, although I tend to prefer 80-90%. But more importantly we need to use it just before or at peak. I find that using levain that is as close in temperature to desired DT gives more reliable results. Why not vary the feed ratio rather than the temperature to control the duration of fermentation? Also note that letting the levain ferment at lower temperatures will result in more sourness. Also consider salting it, as suggested above. I know that adding a small amount of sugar goes a long way in reducing sourness and slowing down fermentation, but I know you might not want to consider that for your reasons stated above. 

3) I really think that shaping at 1.5x and doing a cold retard in the fridge can remain part of the experimentation. I tend to do same day bakes because the family really dislikes sourness, but I think that if you like the flavour of the cold proof you should just stick with it. I think fermentation happens too rapidly at the in between temp you've described to give full control. 

4) With these in place, and a lower levain %, your BF surely will slow down. And I think if we want to slow it down further, then this is the easiest variable to play with. 

5) You mentioned improving the crumb while retaining a high % of WW. For a start, there is the option of kneading a lot more at the mixing stage. But really a lot more. I'm a somewhat lazy hand-mixer, so I always do too little of this, but when I do invest, I see the results. There are many other little modifications we could do, but I wonder if this will already help. 

-Lin