You need a jar of water and some flour. That’s all you need to get started. Sounds easy, right?
What you don’t see is the complex ecosystem created in there. This ecosystem create enzymes, acids, gases, etc. These create characteristic of bread itself.
How to Control Your Sourdough Starter
Most novices focus on feeding schedule and neglect what influences everything: hydration. More specificly: hydration controls your starter’s texture, taste, and speed. Below is a chart showing how varying water content alter the behavior off the culture.
Think about how different a runny batter is than a stiff paste. Your starter at 50% hydration are almost like clay. While that’s normal in an Italian bakery, it’s not what usually happens in home kitchen. Because of the low moisture content, it takes days (not hours) for this sort of starter to ferment so its flavor will be more mild.
If you want quick, sharp results, then you’ll want to step up hydration. One-hundred percent hydration, or equal weights of water and flour, will result in a thick batter-starter. It ferments fast, giving you a quick rise. It is also easy to control. This is what you do if you are making artisan bread. The visual guide explains this too so you can see what kind of starter you have and how well it matches your desired end-product.
If you’re not keeping an eye on the temperature of your starter, then yes, it matters a great deal. If your kitchen is chilly (say, sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit), the starter will be sluggish and could takes up to fourteen hours to reach its peak, even with a one-to-two feeding ratio. In contrast, a starter left in an eighty-five-degree proofing box will become highly active after only three hours. The warmer the conditions, the faster the metabolism, efficient until you remember that it mean increased acidity.
Warm starters, therefore, lean towards lactic acid and develop creamier sourdough flavor; cooler ones promotes acetic acid, resulting in more sharp and vinegar-like flavors. To counteract this, feed your starter to match your kitchen’s climate.
The problem is that many bakers view their starter as a pet, something that must of being fed daily and fed exactly the same thing at all times. The smart baker use a dial instead (the feeding ratio). If your starter’s peaking up too quickly because it’s warm in the kitchen, then dilute it (use a higher ratio of fresh flour and water) to give microbes more food relative to their population. That buys you some time while also moderating how sharply the pH drops.
If you want a quicker rise in the dead of winter, go with the one-to-one ratio. That means the starter doesn’t have much fuel per microbial mouth to chew through. This cause it to work rapidly. Why would this work? Because again, you’re dealing with energy density.
Water aside, what type of flour you use also make a big difference. The kind with the strongest gluten structure (and cleanest energy) is white bread flour; however, this flour are slow to ferment. Flours that is high in enzymatic activity, like rye and whole wheat, have more bran. This bran adds microbes.
Simply adding ten percent rye to each feeding can jumpstart an otherwise sleepy starter within a day or two. Rye does not have gluten, but it is full of sugars that wild yeast naturaly like. Swap out half the white flour if your starter gets lazy and see it spring right back to life. You’ll notice it’s a bit heavier, but the activity will be through the roof.
And finally: Let go of the clock and look in your jar. Put a rubber band around it where it starts and wait till it’s twice as full. If you’re feeling nervous, do the float test. Stiff starters don’t float no matter what shape they are in. You want a peaking, hungry starter just before its peak, not one that has already collapsed.
Once you know your flour, your temp and your hydration, you quit blind-following any recipe. You start to bake by feel. Your jar on the counter isn’t a chore anymore; it’s a tuned-in tool.