How I Maintain My Sourdough Starter
Take good note of the title of this post: How I Maintain My Sourdough Starter. Yes, this really is all about me. If you talk to ten people you’ll likely get ten different but perfectly good variations on starter maintenance. This is simply an account of what I do.
The reason I do it is because it works for me. I won’t say I know nothing of the science behind it, nor that the science doesn’t interest me. But mostly I do what I do because it works and I get bread I like from it. If what works for you is to feed your starter pencil shavings and sing “Uncle John’s Band” before adding it to your dough, by all means keep doing that.
I keep one starter. It is a white starter at 100% hydration, meaning that I always feed it with equal parts of white flour and water, by weight. My current starter is one I started from scratch a few months ago.
Unless I am going to be out of town or otherwise unable to feed it, I keep my starter on my kitchen counter and feed it twice a day (approximately every 12 hours). Because planning ahead is not my forte, and because refrigerated starter needs to be taken out and fed for two or three days before baking to restore it to maximum vigor, and because I often bake with my starter more than once a week anyway, I decided to just keep it ready to go at all times.
Normally I maintain about 100 grams of starter. I generally use a ratio of around 1:5:5 (starter:flour:water, by weight). So at each feeding, I remove all but around 10 grams of starter from the container and add approximately 50 grams of water and an equal weight of my usual bread flour.
I shake the starter and water together vigorously before adding the flour; the theory is that this will introduce oxygen, which promotes yeast reproduction, into the mixture. The truth is, I don’t know if that’s really happening. It does get the starter nicely dispersed, though. Then I stir in the flour with a spoon (yes, a metal one; it doesn’t hurt!).
I arrived at the 1:5:5 ratio simply by observing how much flour my starter seems to be able to “eat” in 12 hours. I’m looking for it to at least double in volume in about 8 hours, with a surface that is well pebbled with bubbles (but not foamy), and a light, airy texture like the inside of a perfectly-toasted marshmallow. If it’s runny (like that marshmallow was really well-done), it’s overripe. And if it’s still thick and pasty, it has not peaked yet. Once it peaks, it stays pretty much there for a few hours.
The temperature in my kitchen varies with the weather (especially in summer, since we don’t have air conditioning) and yeast are “hungrier” when it’s warmer. Therefore, I feed the starter more in hot weather. There have been times this summer when I have fed at 1:6:6, just following my observations and intuition. On the other hand, this winter, when my kitchen will be much cooler, I may reduce it to 1:4:4, and even less for the nighttime feeding.
If the starter is acting a little sluggish, I substitute whole rye flour for about 5% of the white flour, for one feeding. Rye is great for really getting fermentation going.
When I want to use the starter, I need more of it. On the feeding before mixing the bread, I just increase the amounts of everything, keeping the same starter:flour:water ratio, so I wind up with the amount I need for the dough, plus a little extra, to keep the starter going. It will be ready to use in 8 – 12 hours. (Okay, so I guess I am capable of planning a little, but it’s only a few hours ahead, so it’s manageable.)
But what if I need a rye starter for a particular bread, or a stiff one? Some people maintain multiple starters, but that’s not going to happen for me; I know my limits. If I set my mind to being uncharacteristically organized, I’ll start a few days ahead of time to convert a portion of the white starter into the one I need. But sometimes I just pretend, for example, that my white starter is actually a rye one, feed it once with rye flour to build it to the amount the recipe needs, call it good and hope for the best. It either works fine or not, but what the heck. This is bread, not birth control.
I am frugal by nature, and when I started this every-12-hour feeding business I admit I was bothered by the thought of throwing away all that excess starter. I decided my options were to A) find a different hobby, B) figure out something to do with the “waste,” or C) get over it. I settled on a combination of B and C. English muffins are a fine way to use a small amount of starter, as are sourdough pancakes (stay tuned). But I still I end up throwing a dime’s worth of flour and water in the compost now and then, and I’ve decided that’s not worth losing sleep over.
Ulrike September 29 2007 at 11:49 am 1
I maintain my sourdough and levain at 100 % hydration, but I feed only 1:3:3. I have only small amounts and I also hate waste. So I adapted all recipes to my way, like the hemp seed rye bread
ejm September 29 2007 at 04:35 pm 2
I maintain my sourdough at 100% hydration every three days - I keep it in the fridge when I’m not using it. I probably bake sourdough about once a week and still haven’t decided if I prefer the relative ease of using commercial yeast or the need for planning ahead (eek!!! plan ahead??? Me????) to get the superior flavour and aroma that sourdough bread offers.
I too can’t stand waste but must confess that I have composted a fair amount, justifying it by knowing that the garden will benefit…
-Elizabeth
MyKitchenInHalfCups September 30 2007 at 06:04 am 3
This is bread not birth control! Hoot! Fur sur!
And even not perfect bread is so much better than the store. Looking forward to the pancakes.
blue zebra October 1 2007 at 08:40 am 4
Susan love hearing how you do it. You are obviously so successful at it!! I wish I had the discipline to let Stinky hang out on the counter, but like a bad mom, I sometimes forget to feed him. *blush* So he is safer in the fridge.
I adore using the leftovers for English muffins, sourdough pancakes and pita bread. YUM!
P.S. Your breads look gorgeous as always girl!
BZ
Susan October 1 2007 at 02:03 pm 5
Ulrike, the hemp seed rye looks very interesting.
Elizabeth, I love sourdough but commercial-yeasted breads are also very good, especially using a preferment. I don’t think you will have an inferior product just because you use yeast.
Tanna, it’s good to keep a little perspective, right?
BZ, I don’t want to admit how many times I’ve forgotten to feed mine. It bounces back from my abuse pretty quickly. Pita – good idea! Can you point me to a recipe?
ejm October 1 2007 at 03:30 pm 6
It’s not that I think the bread made with commercial yeast is inferior to the wild yeast bread (I usually do use a preferment - except for pizza, foccaccia, naan and our sandwich bread). It’s just that as they come out of the oven, the smell of the wild yeast bread is so amazingly good in comparison to the smell of the bread made with commercial yeast. It’s as if there is something missing from the commercial yeast bread (and I guess, in fact, there IS something missing - I’m guessing the lactobacilli??)
However, the jury is still out on whether wild yeast bread tastes better than commercial yeast bread….
-Elizabeth
Kim October 1 2007 at 09:11 pm 7
Thanks. I abuse my starter quite often.
Will try your english muffin when I refresh my starter next time.
Rose October 2 2007 at 07:21 pm 8
I’ve killed my wild starter a few times by neglecting it on the counter, but after devouring “Local Breads” recently I was inspired to keep some going with more regularity. It’s worth it, and as he points out, you can easily change it over to a different kind with a little planning!
Susan October 3 2007 at 07:10 pm 9
Elizabeth, I like the taste of both. Depends on what I’m in the mood for.
Kim, I hope you like the muffins!
Rose, Local Breads is a great book, isn’t it? I’ll look forward to seeing some of those breads on your blog.
Farmgirl Susan October 27 2007 at 11:30 am 10
I, too, feel bad sometimes when I toss out starter, but if you have a septic system, it can really benefit from all that yeast!
As for pita bread, a couple of years ago I embarked on The Pita Project, in search of the perfect recipe. I’m certainly no pita puffing expert, but I quickly became addicted to pita pizzas made with the unpuffed ones.
Susan October 27 2007 at 05:08 pm 11
Farmgirl Susan, I sometimes bake and tend my starter in a house with a septic system. I never though about the starter being good for it, so thanks for that! Your pita pizzas look amazing.
Loney Kitchen December 28 2007 at 07:36 pm 12
I’d like to know what you do to your starter if you have to be out-of-town for about 2 weeks? I keep mine in the fridge and feed it once weekly.
Dan December 29 2007 at 07:46 am 13
Fantastic Blog, thank you for such clear, concise directions, and explanation of the “why” as well. Beautiful breads,too. The Norwich Sourdough will be my first attempt at one of yours tomorrow…I hope. I’m trying to convert from Peter Reinharts feeding schedule in BBA to something similar to yours and my starter seems a bit slower than usual so far. Thanks again & looking forward to the Norwich Sourdough.
Susan December 29 2007 at 08:28 am 14
Lonely Kitchen, I refrigerate my starter when I’m out of town, then revive it with about three days of feedings before using it again.
Dan, thanks! Good luck with the Norwich SD, let me know how it turns out.
Helen March 5 2008 at 11:27 am 15
I think there’s something in the whole shaking of the starter and water to incorporate oxygen. I’ve been doing it that way this week, and I’ve had to keep the plastic container slightly open, because otherwise the top blows off, and that’s never happened before.
Also, it cleans off the sides, so you have more control over how much starter you have in the container (less clinging to the sides over time, which could make a fair difference when trying to get only 10 g of starter).
I prefer to think of dumping the starter as “setting it free.”
David May 5 2008 at 09:28 am 16
Hello Susan,
I have been baking bread for several years with commercial yeast using preferments, with pretty good success by now. But I just made my first wild yeast starter and was hungrily looking for information about starters, and Googled ‘Wild Yeast’ and there you were!
Thanks for this great, helpful blog (I almost typed glob). BTW I made my starter from scratch, using KA organic whole wheat flour and pineapple juice. I was surprised to see a few bubbles by the end of the first day. By day four I had an amazingly bubbly starter, so now I’m ready to take the plunge and bake. Your blog, successes and fail… partial successes alike, is very encouraging. I see now that the amount of starter one actually uses is relatively quite small and am rethinking my refreshments.
Again, thanks for setting a great example and helping teach the world about wild yeast!