Re:Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter
by dredmorbius on Saturday February 10, 2024 @02:23PM
(#39329373)
Also to clarify: creating a starter is different from maintaining one.
In the initial stage, your goal is to cultivate yeast in your source flour and/or environment (far more the former than the latter AFAIU), and have them reach a state where your starter is highly active 8--12 hours after a feeding or so. That requires frequent feeding, 1x to 2x daily, for a week or two.
Once you've achieved that goal, your starter becomes far lower maintenance, and typically requires feeding only prior to use and once a week or so as a maintenance process. (I've found I can feed less frequently than this, while refrigerating a sealed jar of starter, but you risk losing the whole batch.)
So, yes, you do need to go through a period of daily or twice-daily feedings initially. But you don't need to sustain that indefinitely.
And again as noted by others, the removeed "discard" starter left over after a feeding can itself be used for quick and simple baking recipes.
(When baking, that "discard" is the levain which you're adding to your dough or recipe.)
In the initial stage, your goal is to cultivate yeast in your source flour and/or environment (far more the former than the latter AFAIU), and have them reach a state where your starter is highly active 8--12 hours after a feeding or so. That requires frequent feeding, 1x to 2x daily, for a week or two.
Once you've achieved that goal, your starter becomes far lower maintenance, and typically requires feeding only prior to use and once a week or so as a maintenance process. (I've found I can feed less frequently than this, while refrigerating a sealed jar of starter, but you risk losing the whole batch.)
So, yes, you do need to go through a period of daily or twice-daily feedings initially. But you don't need to sustain that indefinitely.
And again as noted by others, the removeed "discard" starter left over after a feeding can itself be used for quick and simple baking recipes.
(When baking, that "discard" is the levain which you're adding to your dough or recipe.)