Keep your culture in log every day.
Do not pay attention to any external clues until your starter is established. Pretend you’re Helen Keller. Ignore all visual, tactile, or olfactory
input until your starter is established.
(“It smells like acetone.” or “It’s not doubling.”)
A culture can change completely in only 3 – 5 generations under optimal conditions.
If you use Saccharomyces
cerevisae commonly, there’s a good chance (more than 50-50%) it will end up
as a permanent, stable cast-member in your starter’s microflora, usually as a
mutant strain that, as a result of random genetic mutation, has decided to go
native.
Understanding why
a specific organism evolved the way it did will also allow the baker to
reverse-engineer optimal parameters.
Grain-based microflora will always win out over every other organism, except one: Lb sanfranciscensis.
Never refrigerate or freeze your starter. Ever.
Throw it out. Start a new
one. How? Easy. Just do this.
Lb
sanfranciscensis does not have a latency period (i.e., it
does not take two weeks to get a well-established culture up and running). Don't believe me? Read here.
A “mature” or “ripe” starter is one that has a pH of
at least 4.0.
100% flour is the same as saying maximum microflora
population.
For an Lb SF-based
culture, only feed your starter wheat or rye, preferably as whole a grain as
you can. Stone-ground’s even better.
Weigh. The
margins of error are too small, and you may very well unintentionally change
the entire nature of your starter if you do not.
Measure temperature.
See above.
Mix at the same time every day, preferably at some
point during day time. It is best to
find a point that best meets your
routine.
For the most flavour, maintain a starter with a
hydration within the range of 50 – 75%.
The most effective way to increase total acetic-acid
content is to oxygenate your starter. I
simply tear mine apart at regular intervals throughout the day and stick it
back together.
Do not stress your culture out: Adapt it.
How? More on this later.
Earlier you stated in a commentary to your own article (Jan 29, 2013) that
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I am also going to be busting many myths...
salt touching starter is bad;
flour touching a starter 'burns' the starter;
it's ok to refrigerate a starter;
100% hydration starters provide a comparative advantage to hard starters;
cold temperatures are good;
long extended fermentations create more flavour;
and so on.
The answers to the previous are
false;
false;
true, unless certain procedures are followed (everything shown before is wrong, as you'll learn);
false;
false;
false, with exceptions.
And here you advise that we should n e v e r refrigerate our starters.
Could you please explain the "never" and "certain procedures" that would allow us to refrigerate and to recover the starter after refrigeration (to 10-12C or to 4-8C).
Thank you!
I am also interested in understanding why Lb Sf based cultures shoud "never" be refrigerated. Considering that many home bakers keep their starters that way, what do we loose after refrigerating our culture for a week? Thanks a lot for all the great info on your blog.
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