Intro • Day 1 • Day 2 • Day 3 • Day 4 • Day 5 • Day 6 • Day 7 • Final Thoughts • [Day 15]
Day 15 Update
It has been eight days since this Step-by-Step Starter from Scratch project was posted on Day Seven and here is where the boys stand right now.
After about 5 days of twice a day feeding at 15g:30g:30g [S:W:F] for a total of 75g, I’ve reduced them further and they are now at 10g:20g:20g, a total starter size of 50g. Although this amount may seem small, it would actually allow, from the excess, 30g of starter which is all that the Vermont Sourdough recipe needs, still leaving 10g more of extra starter. So this is still plenty and means there’s less flour needed or discarded. Any recipe that required more starter would simply need that 40g of “excess” built up to the necessary amount a day or so prior to baking. That 40g can immediately be built up to 200g in just one feed using 40g:80g:80g.
At this point, they’ve both equalized in the “tartness” area as well in their in the jar expansion ability. Their flavours are pretty much the same so whatever differences their original mixes steered them to has now pretty much gone.
I’m going to give these two another week of twice-daily feedings which should help them develop their character nicely, although that in reality should keep improving over the next few months, if they were kept out and fed every day.
At the end of that week, I’ll then run a test bake, making three loaves of Vermont Sourdough making one loaf with each starter and a third using my current starter, Carl of Oregon. Based on these results, I’ll keep whichever starter is best as the refrigerated “mother” and dry up the other(s).
Last Update: After aging and making a couple of loaves from both starters, seems there was no discernible difference in proofing ability or flavour so I chose to keep PJ while Wally made tasty pancakes. I also used one feeding discard to dry up some flakes as a “back up” precaution. So until further notice that a new starter is on the go, any sourdough starter I use from here on will be PJ.
Intro • Day 1 • Day 2 • Day 3 • Day 4 • Day 5 • Day 6 • Day 7 • Final Thoughts • [Day 15]
Want to point friends to this Starter info? Copy this easy-to-remember short link back to this tutorial:
http://bit.ly/StarterFromScratch
DeQuincy Gardens
Wow, I ‘ve just read my way through your tutorial. It’s a great piece of work. I’ve bookmarked it for future reference and hope it’s ok to link to it when people ask me about making starters as I don’t think I could improve on it!
On jars I found exactly the same as you and ended up with these rather nice jars with wide necks and tough snap on plastic lids – think they’re French, and they are pretty easy to clean out and have lasted well. http://www.choiceful.com/disprod.php?pId=102270
I’ve never tried drying out the starter to flakes, does it work?
Yes, it’s easy, just spread some (may want to thin it out first for thinner flakes) on parchment or wax paper and give it a few days to dry. Collect, crunch up and store in plastic zip bags, add date & pet name. Presto, you have back-up “snapshot” of the current starter to fall back on or share.
The simplified URL to use for sharing is http://bit.ly/StarterFromScratch – can it get any easier?
Can I ask what your maintenence schedule is? Are you storing in the fridge and feeding weekly at 1:2:2?
Thanks,
Nick
My maintenance schedule is feeding every week or so, sometimes two weeks. I try to keep it to a “Friday night feed” so that it becomes routine and less likely forgotten but if life gets in the way, I don’t have an issue letting it go two weeks. If I know I’m making bread this weekend, I’ll take the starter out Friday (or if it’s lucky, Thursday) give it a feed (or two) and use the excess* as the basis for the starter build in the recipe.
If it’s just a feed and there’s no sourdough bread to make, then it gets fed at 1:2:2 (10g:20g:20g) and I use warm-ish water to counteract the fridge temp of the old starter. After it’s had a few hours to start increasing on the counter, it goes back in the fridge.
* I never use the starter itself in a recipe and just “hope” I remember to keep some back; that would pretty much guaranty I’d lose the starter.