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02-10-2013, 08:51 PM | #1 |
Rose Garden
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 4,003
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sourdough noob
I might have been inspired by the latest episode of Top Chef
It's day one, and I have mixed together 2T flour and 2T orange juice, as recommended by this page (scroll down a bit). Pretty straightforward, but I don't quite get how often to feed after day four. I think you throw out half the starter but still feed once a day? But how long do you keep this up? Forever? I've been looking through sourdoughhome.com, but I can't figure out the timetable. |
02-11-2013, 05:46 AM | #2 |
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Posts: 8,685
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Re: sourdough noob
I've never done it either, but here are some articles that I've flagged for myself to read when I'm ready to try it:
http://www.breadtopia.com/make-your-...dough-starter/ http://sourdough.com/blog/sourdom/be...tarter-scratch http://yumarama.com/968/starter-from-scratch-intro/ |
02-11-2013, 08:01 AM | #3 | |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 12,271
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Re: sourdough noob
Quote:
What you do with it then is up to you. You can:
Everyone has a slightly different way of doing sourdough. Now, you might want to consider feeding twice a day instead of only once. You can feed once a day, but it may take a little longer for the starter to establish, and it may be more, well, sour (easily remedied by feeding more, either in flour/water to starter ratio, or times per day). I've found that white flour can easily go 24 hours, but whole grains definately start getting that "hungry" alcohol smell sooner. Sourdough is all about observation. Watch and sniff, and you'll know if you need to feed again.
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Christa Oldest, 22 Middlest, 13 Youngest, 10 Last edited by HuggaBuggaMommy; 02-11-2013 at 08:05 AM. |
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The Following User Says Thank You to HuggaBuggaMommy For This Useful Post: | UltraMother (02-11-2013) |
02-11-2013, 01:24 PM | #4 |
Rose Garden
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 4,003
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Re: sourdough noob
I'm guessing I will use it about once a week, and less than that when it gets too hot to bake. What kind of "hungry smell" am I looking for? Can you describe it?
I also feel weird about purposely throwing batter out. How do you get over that? |
02-11-2013, 08:44 PM | #5 |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
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Re: sourdough noob
It is hard to throw out the starter, and for a while I tried not to, to keep splitting and culturing, and believe me, I was totally overrun in a few days and it took me *literally* two hours to feed it all. I read on sourdoughhome that if you don't toss the starter, in 10 days you'll have a swimming pool's worth. It's not too far from the truth. In the end, I just had to do it because I had waaaaaay too much starter.
Once it's established, if you're baking with it once a week, you won't really be discarding very much. What I do is, each week, I split the starter in half, feed the the refrigerator jar (again, if the starter is healthy, you only need one or two feeds before popping it back in to the cold; then you're only discarding at most once) until it doubles and put it back into the fridge. Then I feed the starter I removed and use that portion for baking. The hungry smell is a very strong alcohol/acetone smell. You'll know it. It's easy to fix - just feed more often. Like I said, I do find that whole grains, especially freshly ground, need to be fed at least two and sometimes three times a day to keep the yeast/food/bacteria balanced. The more sour the smell, the more lactobacilli bacteria there are in the starter. I don't really like that tang in my bread, so again, in my "baking" portion, all I do is feed more (usually a 3:1 or 4:1 flour/water to starter ratio) so the yeast overtake the bacteria and the taste mellows.
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Christa Oldest, 22 Middlest, 13 Youngest, 10 Last edited by HuggaBuggaMommy; 02-11-2013 at 08:48 PM. |
The Following User Says Thank You to HuggaBuggaMommy For This Useful Post: | UltraMother (02-12-2013) |
02-12-2013, 03:38 PM | #6 |
Rose Garden
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 4,003
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Re: sourdough noob
I love sourdough bread, but I think a mellow starter would be more useful. So, extra flour at the feedings will keep the sourness down?
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02-12-2013, 03:43 PM | #7 |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 12,271
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Re: sourdough noob
Yes. Either extra flour or more frequent feedings. Both work.
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Christa Oldest, 22 Middlest, 13 Youngest, 10 |
02-21-2013, 03:38 PM | #8 |
Rose Garden
Why climb a mountain? Because it's there!
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Selkirk Mountains
Posts: 52,860
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Unless you're baking bread daily, keep your established starter in the fridge.
Unless you're REALLY bored or your house is really cold. The VR Guide to Bread is fascinating, btw. I haven't tried any of the recipes, though, I haven't bought a copy yet. Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2 |
02-21-2013, 07:08 PM | #9 |
Rose Garden
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 4,003
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Re: sourdough noob
Here is a cool free sourdough starter. It took about 4 weeks for mine to arrive, so now I have two going. The 1847 is really mild (compared to my homemade one), and it has made very tasty waffles.
Last edited by UltraMother; 03-09-2013 at 03:08 PM. |
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