October 24, 2024 - 9:35am
Different flour for starter, leaven, dough?
Dear all,
I admire your results and I am so sure, that I can learn from you!
I have a quite strong starter, that consists only of organic fullgrain wheat flour. And I feed it at the moment only with that flour. If I use it for my bread dough (standard white wheat flour), it does sort of work and rise, but there could be more rising.
My question: Should I always feed the starter with the same flour, I want to bake with later-on? Does it get sort of used to a special flour? And: my leaven is at the moment just a large amount of starter–– meaning: a starter, that I fed very generously. Am I missing sth? Is that, how "leaven" is meant? :-)
Any help is appreciated, thanks so much in advance,
Vicco
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First - it is the starter forum you are looking for.
Second - a change in flour will make a change in the starter. You'll see soon enough.
Keep an eye on it - go from there. Enjoy!
Hi Vicco - welcome...
The flour will always make a difference, but that doesn't mean it "hurts" or is bad to change flours from starter to levain to dough. Lots of people obsess/worry over things like this a ton (and I did too when I started), and while your yeast and LAB's will adjust to the flour, hydration, schedule of your starter routine, that doesn't at all mean they can't do an excellent job of leavening a levain or dough with different flours.
In my bakery, I have one starter and one flour mix for feeding my single starter, a similar mix that is similar for all my wheat based bread levains (my whole ryes get a rye levain), and then obviously a range of flours for final bread doughs. The same wheat starter does a great job in all of the above.
I think it is MUCH more important to become a student of your starter and watch it's behavior over time, try some different things without abusing it and continue to note what happens (rise and fall, appearance, smell, and taste)...
Here's a sample of my results, just for reference ;-)
https://www.instagram.com/roundriverbaking/