TO: Debra Wink....RE: Sourdough Nutrition: active starter VS dormant-discard
Hello Debra,
I'd very much appreciate your input and guidance on sourdough nutrition, as well as reviving a dormant sourdough.
1) I keep my SD Starter in frig for many weeks, often several months, without feeding b/c I bake bread so infrequently, but I use that discard/unfed sourdough in recipes for pancake batter, naan, cheddar twists, muffins/quickbreads, etc…according to the recipe and they turn out good....I think!....b/c I have nothing to compare it to, but it generally tastes fine/good/delicious. I’m wondering what nutritional benefits might still be present in longtime-unfed sourdough or are the good bacteria expired and are only present in freshly fed active sourdough starter?
2) When preparing to bake bread, 3days in advance I start feeding with 5g SD at ratio 1:1:1 (SD:F:W) totaling 15g; then after active approx 6hours, put 10g back in the mother jar and use 5g of fed SD at ratio 1:2:2 totaling 25g SD; after active approx 6-8hours, then build at ratio 1:3:3 totaling 175g SD to use for recipe; any excess, I’ll use in another recipe or mix back into mother jar. After a feeding, time-wise if I'm not ready for the next feeding to watch and monitor, then I keep in frig until next morning and continue with the next feeding. This reactivation process generally takes about 2-3 days. My question....is this period of time and number of feedings sufficient to recalibrate the desired balance of bacteria and produce optimal SD Starter to make great tasting bread?
3) I just started reading your article about the addition of pineapple juice for sourdough starter feedings. I'm curious if other ingredients were tested in comparison to pineapple juice, and what alternative ingredient/s work in place of pineapple juice?
I first created my SD Starter in 2014 and I’ve fed it various flours (but primarily AP Flour) with episodic feedings, yet it has never turned spoiled and has always smelled fragrant like fermented fruit or sweet-tangy apple cider vinegar.
In advance, thanks so much for your expertise, time, and efforts; I very much look forward to hearing back from you!
Patricia
Hi Patricia, thank you for your interest.
1) I'm afraid I can't help with nutritional value of old starter. Even in freshly fed starter it isn't clear cut because it depends on a lot of variables.
2) My starter sometimes goes unfed for long periods of time too, and the number of feedings it takes to get back into tip-top shape varies each time. I keep feeding until it is back to rising strong and smelling pleasant the way I know it is capable of. Sometimes that's 2-3 feedings, sometimes it's a week or more if it's been neglected a long time. It's not about the number of feedings, but about it's character and performance. If it's performing up to its potential and the way you like, that's evidence that the populations have repaired themselves and balance has been restored.
3) On the alternative ingredients, I wrote about some of them in The Pineapple Juice Solution, Part 1. Of those, I liked ascorbic acid powder the best. But there are many more alternatives that can function similarly. One that I tried later and that worked well for me was leftover dry wine. Another approach that I'm loving is the one I wrote about in The flower experiment and talked about in this interview with Andrew Janjigian on Wordloaf. The starter I created with a dozen varieties of wildflowers and plant materials is still my all-time best starter to date.
Happy Baking to you,
dw