I thought I would write about what works for me to maintain and use my starter.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I migrated my original starter that was equal parts by volume to equal weights. Technically, the original starter was a 167% hydration starter and the current one is a 100% hydration starter. What does hydration mean. In bakers terms the weight of the flour is defined as 100% and the weights of everything else is represented as a percentage of the flour weight. It is straight forward when working by weight. My 100% hydration starter gets refreshed every day with 80 grams of water and 80 grams of flour.
When working by volume it becomes a grey area. One cup of flour to one cup of water is the usual ratio. The water part is easy. One cup of water weighs 8.34 ounces (if your measuring cup is accurate). But what does one cup of flour weigh? If you follow King Arthur’s practice for measuring flour which is sprinkling flour gently into the measuring cup and gently leveling it off, a cup of flour weighs 4 to 4-1/4 ounces. If you dip the cup into the flour an level it off, on average a cup of flour weighs 5 ounces. In the King Arthur example the hydration level would be over 208% (8.34/4 expressed as a percentage). In the second case it would be 167%. What was hydration of my original starter? I don’t really know but I am guessing somewhere between 145% and 160%. This is why I recommend any baker who is still working with volume measurements to switch to weight now and to make that unit of weight grams. Yes, I know its the metric system. Get over it.
When I first made my starter I kept it in a 1 quart container. I am now down to to a pint container and could go smaller.
As far a maintaining my starter, at 8:30 every morning I refresh my starter. I discard everything but approximately 40 grams. I know that because I recorded the tare weight of the empty container on the container. I say approximately because there is dried starter on the sides of the container that is included in the weight of the remaining starter. I then add 80 grams of Poland Spring Water and 40 grams each of King Arthur All Purpose flour and King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour. That means on a daily basis I am discarding approximately 160 grams of starter. To me that is a waste but for now it is what it is. I hope to reduce that amount in the future a I refine my practices. There are some good uses for discard starter which we may talk about in a future post. my whole refreshment process takes me 10 to 15 minutes each morning.
You might ask “why do you discard so much of your starter. Why not save more?” I have found I have a stronger starter by discarding more. Remember , refreshing the starter is is feeding the bacteria that are helping us make wonderful bread. The higher percentage of food to their weight they get, the stronger they get.
When I first started baking sourdough breads I would increase my starter refresh to include the amount needed for the recipe I was baking. For example, if a bread recipe called for 200 grams of starter I would add an addition 100 grams each of water and flour. That would be 180 grams each of flour. That caused some issues. As the starter expanded it filled the container and actually lifted the lid part way. I use an air tight container that has two tabs to squeeze to reduce the seal to get the lid off. Obviously, that made a mess of the lid and the container. After the second time I learned my lesson and changed my process.
Now if I need 200 grams of starter, 6 to 8 hours before I am going to mix the dough, I weigh out 100 grams of water in a bowl. To that I add 20 grams of starter, mix it in and add my flour and mix it in. For me it works every time.
I should add that even though I have had my sourdough starter since 2013, all the breads I made with it before last November were hybrid breads. In other words they contained both commercial yeast and sourdough starter. My guess is the authors of those hybrid recipes wanted to ensure success and speed up the process. That is the opposite of what I am looking for. I believe that the flavor and texture I am looking in bread comes from slow fermatation of the dough. So far this has proven true.