Understanding Sourdough Starter | feeding, ratios, leaven, when to use, what to feed

Hi there, welcome back to another video. If you've been around here for a while, welcome to the new Baker Betty studio space. My husband and I actually moved a few months ago and we were able to set up a little space in our new apartment for me to film in. So welcome to the first video in this new space. And if you have not been around here for a while and you're new here, welcome. I am Baker Betty and I'm a professional baking instructor and I really hope that you will decide to stick around here for a little while and subscribe. So in today's video, I really want to take a deep dive into how sourdough starters function and cover all of the nuances of how different people approach feeding their starter, what ratios they use to feed, the different types of flours they use to feed, and how they use their starter to go into a dough. So this video is not going to be covering how to actually create a sourdough starter from scratch because I actually have a whole series that already covers that. So if you do not already have an active sourdough starter, I will leave a link for that for you in the description so you can head over there and get to this point in the process. Now, I want to just help you build a better understanding of just kind of how everything functions because as with anything in the sourdough world, there are a million different ways to approach things and no one way is the right way. So I like to just kind of help you understand all of the differences between the methods so that you can sort of decide what works best for you. Okay, first let's talk about feeding your starter. So as you probably already know, your starter is a living culture. Living within this mixture of flour and water are a lot of yeast and bacteria and those organisms need food. And when I'm saying food, I'm talking about fresh flour and fresh water being given to it so that it can thrive. So the more of this culture that you keep, the more life there is within it and therefore the more food it is going to need. But how much food is the right amount of food? Now that is probably the most common question I get because there are a lot of different approaches for the ratios to use to feed your starter. Now at a minimum, you really need to be feeding your starter what is called a one, one, one ratio. Now what this means is that however much starter you keep, you need to feed it equal amounts flour and water by weight. So just to keep this simple for understanding, say you kept 10 grams of your starter. Now you need to feed it 10 grams of flour and 10 grams of water at a minimum for that one, one, one ratio. And while that fresh flour and water is food for your active culture, it has now become a part of your culture. So in this example, you would now have 30 grams of sourdough starter. Now this is just a minimum feeding that you need to do and there are many different ratios that people use. You might hear people refer to a one, two, two feeding or a one, three, three, or even one, four, four or one, five, five. So these ratios represent the amount of food you are giving your starter compared to how much you keep. I typically do a one, three, three feeding, which means however much culture I keep, I give it three times the amount of flour and water. So in our example where we kept 10 grams of starter, for my one, three, three feeding, I would do 30 grams of flour and 30 grams of water, which means after my feeding, I would have 70 grams total starter. Now these are just example amounts. You can keep as much or as little starter as you want and feed that depending on what you need. So if it is a baking day for me, I will keep a larger portion of my starter and feed that my same ratios than if it's a non-baking day. So I am somebody who does keep my starter at room temperature because I bake with my starter really frequently, but I don't bake with it every single day. So if it's a day that it's a non-baking day, I will only keep five grams of my starter and feed that 15 grams of flour and 15 grams of water. So that gives me 35 grams total starter, which means the next day, if it is a baking day, I can keep a larger portion of that and feed that so that I have enough to go into my bread dough. But if it's a non-baking day, again, I really don't have very much sourdough discard. So I think this is something that people get really confused about in the sourdough world. There's really no reason to be keeping large quantities of starter every single day if it's not a baking day. You can really increase or decrease your amounts very easily and I really encourage you to do that to reduce how much discard you do have. Okay, so in order to understand the differences between these types of feedings and why you might want to use one over the other, I think it's important to understand sort of the cycle that your sourdough starter goes through after it is fed. So once you give your starter fresh flour and fresh water, those organisms in the starter are going to start feeding and creating CO2 gases. So what will happen is your starter is going to start rising up in the jar. Now, I just fed my starter probably about 30 minutes before I started filming, so I'm not seeing a lot of rise in my jar yet. But what's going to start happening is this mixture is going to start rising up in the container and it will eventually kind of look domed on top. You're gonna see a lot of bubbles on the side and on the top. Now, that domed shape on top of your starter when you look down into the container is a sign that your starter is still going up. It still has food, it's still really active, and it hasn't run out of food yet that you have given it. Now, eventually, that dome on top is going to flatten out, and if you were to look down into your container from the top, it would start to look almost weak, like it could collapse really easily. So once your starter gets to that flattened point where it looks like it could collapse easily, this is called its peak point, which means that the starter has run out of food and it is at its most active state, but it's going to start going back down in your jar, and as it starts going back in the jar, it is becoming less and less active because it has run out of food. So it will eventually fall all the way back down in your jar if you don't feed it at that point. And the reason it starts deflating is that it is no longer creating those CO2 gases, and the gases that it did create are just slowly releasing out of the starter. So depending on a number of factors, this whole cycle is going to happen at different rates. If you live somewhere where your house is really cold, this is going to happen slower than if your house is really warm. Also, if your starter is younger, if it's a brand new starter, this might not happen as quickly, or depending on the ratio that you use to feed it. So if you were to feed your starter a smaller ratio, a 1-1-1 feeding, that is going to cause your starter to peak much quicker than if you do feed it a larger ratio, like a 1-3-3 feeding. And that is just because with the smaller ratio, your starter is going to have less food to go through, and therefore it's going to peak much quicker. Now, once your starter peaks, and if you were to let it fall, it's going to start smelling more and more acidic. And the longer you let it sit, it can kind of start smelling like acetone or paint thinner or something like that, and that is a sign that your starter is in a hungry state and it really needs to be fed. Now, there are different theories about how to approach this and when to feed your starter. There are some methods that really encourage you to feed it right as it peaks or right after peak, and to not let it get into this hungry state. Now, this method assumes that it's really bad for your starter to sit in a hungry state and that it's going to produce inferior bread if you do do that, and that you need to keep it fed at all times. However, there are other approaches that are okay with letting it sit in that hungry state for some amount of time, and this is actually my approach. So my approach is that I have you feed it once every 24 hours, regardless of if it has already peaked and fallen in the jar. Now, the reason this is my approach is one, it's because it's the way I learned, and it has always worked out really well for me, but also, it's always my approach to help things feel really simple and approachable for people, and I think that allowing your starter to be fed only once a day around the same time every day is a little more approachable for the home baker. Now, my house typically sits around 72 degrees Fahrenheit, so when I feed my starter the 1-3-3 feeding, it will typically completely peak around the 12-hour mark and start falling, which means there are about 12 hours in between my feedings in which my starter sits in a hungry state, and it still works great for me, and I make great bread with it. Now, there's actually a really well-regarded sourdough baker here on YouTube, and he actually keeps his starter at room temperature and only feeds it right before he bakes with it, which means his starter might sit unfed for up to a week or more. Now, this is not my approach. I wouldn't push it that far, but he does make great breads with that approach. The reason why I wouldn't push it that far is it is possible for your starter to start molding over if you do neglect it for too long, but this is just to say that there are a lot of different approaches. No one way is the right way, and so you can just figure out what works best for you. The older your starter is, the more resilient it's going to be, so definitely don't neglect it in the beginning for sure, and I don't encourage you to neglect it at all, but you don't have to be super, super rigid about your feeding. If you're somebody who's a home baker that's just trying to make really good sourdough bread, you're not trying to sell your loaves. Now, if you are somebody who is trying to open a bakery and trying to have really consistent results and sell your breads, you probably do want to be a little more rigid about how you feed your starter, what you feed your starter, and all of those things, so just keep in mind that your starter is going to have its own timeline. My timeline of having my starter peak around the 12-hour mark is dependent on my room temperature being around 72 degrees Fahrenheit, my ratios of 1-3-3, and also just how old my starter is and how active my culture is, so everybody's going to have their own timeline. So knowing all of this, you can see how you can change those ratios that we talked about in the beginning to better meet your needs. If you are living somewhere that is extremely warm and your starter is peaking really, really quickly, you might want to increase that ratio or add an extra feeding. In contrast, if you live somewhere that's really cold, you might want to reduce that ratio. So the next most common question I get is when do you know when your starter is ready to go into your bread dough? And the answer to this question is actually a little less complicated than you might think. There is actually a pretty big window of time in which your sourdough starter is going to be vigorous enough to leaven your bread, and where you use it within that cycle after it's been fed is kind of dependent on what you're looking for. So a few hours after you feed your starter, when it starts looking really, really bubbly on the sides and bubbly on top, it has that nice dome on top, and it probably has at least doubled in size. This is kind of the first point at which your starter is vigorous enough to leaven a loaf of bread. Now there is a test called the float test where you can take a little scoop of your starter and gently drop it in a glass of water, and if it floats, you know it is vigorous enough to leaven your loaf of bread. Now this test is not foolproof. You have to be really, really careful not to deflate the air out of it when you do go to do the float test. Now this first point at which your starter is active enough to leaven bread is sometimes called a young starter. Now this word can be a little bit confusing because some people use the word also to refer to a starter that's just brand new and isn't quite active yet. But the earlier you use your starter in this cycle after feeding, the more mild flavored your bread is going to be because it just hasn't had as much time to ferment and build up as much flavor. Now this younger point of your starter is also going to be in a stage in which it is really, really working to become more and more active, which means when you use it at that point, it is going to leaven your bread a little bit quicker. Now if you use your starter when it hits that full peak point or just before it hits that full peak point, that is where you are going to get the most rise out of your bread. It's not going to happen as quick as it does if you use it at that young point, but overall you are going to get a bigger rise out of your bread. Now this peak stage is also going to give you a more complex flavor and you're gonna have a little bit more sourness to your bread if that's something that you're looking for. Now you can also use it a little bit past peak. So at that point where it's starting to fall down, it hasn't completely fallen down. You can still go ahead and use your starter to leaven your bread. Now at that point, you're gonna have even more sourness in your bread, but because it has run out of food and it's starting to kind of go into this dormant state, it is not going to be as powerful to rise your loaf of bread. You're probably not gonna get as big of a rise out of it, but you are gonna get more flavor and more sourness if that's something that you're looking for. So my starter usually gets to the point where it's vigorous enough to go into a bread. It's in that young starter state, probably around the four-ish hour mark, and then it can go all the way up to about the 12-hour mark. So there is a pretty wide timeframe in which I can go ahead and use my starter to leaven my bread. Now, I do want to quickly address something that can be really confusing, especially for new sourdough bakers, and this is the concept of creating a leaven. Now, the word leaven is really just referring to the part of your starter that is going into the bread dough. However, there are some methods that approach this as creating a little offshoot starter that you feed, and they call this building your leaven or creating your leaven. And you're gonna take a little portion of your main starter and feed that separately, and that entire portion would then go into your bread dough, and your main starter would then be maintained separately. Now, there are a lot of reasons why someone might want to do this. If they wanted to change the hydration of the leaven that was going into their dough for some reason, if they wanted to feed it something differently than what they usually feed their regular starter with, or if they really needed to change the timeline of when the leaven was ready to go into a bread. However, I think for most everyday home sourdough bakers, this process is not only unnecessary, but it's really confusing. So I did want to address that just so you understand what people are talking about when you do see that in a recipe. However, it's not my approach. I don't see a lot of need for it in most everyday sourdough baking. I prefer to just feed my regular starter enough so that I have enough to go into my bread dough, and then I have enough leftover for my next day's feeding. Okay, so let's quickly talk about the timing of your feedings and how you can adjust it to better meet your schedule for your bread dough. So there's really no reason to create an offshoot leaven to change the timing of your feedings. If you are on the 24-hour feeding schedule, and that doesn't work out for the bread dough that you have scheduled, you can just add an extra feeding in or feed your starter a little bit early or a little bit late. Starters are resilient. It's not going to really mess with it. Now, same thing is if you are on the two-a-day feeding schedule, the 12-hour feeding schedule. If that timing doesn't work for your bread dough, you can just feed it a little bit early or a little bit late. Alternatively, now that you understand how the feeding ratios work, you can increase or decrease your ratios to better meet your schedule. So if you need your starter to be ready to go into a dough much quicker, you might want to use the 1-1-1 feeding schedule, or if you need to extend that time for when it's ready, say you wanted to feed your starter before you go to bed and you're not going to start a dough until the next morning, you can increase that feeding ratio so that it has a little bit more of an extended time for when it's ready to go into your dough. All of this is just to say that this is my very relaxed approach to sourdough starter. There are a lot of different theories. Some people believe you really need to be more rigid, and again, if you are selling your bread, you probably do want to be much more strict with yourself, but for home bakers, you can be a little more relaxed about it. So another common question I get is, what do you do after your starter goes into your bread dough? Do you need to feed it immediately? So that kind of depends on what method you follow. If you are somebody that is feeding your starter right when it peaks, then yes, it probably is about time to feed it again because you're probably going to be using your starter close to that peak time. Now, if you're somebody who is just doing the one-a-day feedings like I do, then no, you don't need to feed it right away. So I will use my starter in my bread dough, and then whatever's left over in my jar, I just leave it until the next day's feeding when I do my typical feeding. The only reason why I might feed it right away is just if I needed to start a bread dough quickly after I already started one, which is pretty rare. I might do that if I am making dough for a workshop or something, but you can just keep it on its normal feeding schedule after it goes into a dough. Okay, let's quickly talk about what to feed your sourdough starter. So pretty much any type of flour that is made from wheat, as long as it is unbleached flour, can be used to feed your starter. So you can use unbleached all-purpose flour, you can use bread flour, whole wheat flour, white whole wheat flour, or a lot of people like to use rye flour. So depending on what you're looking for out of the flavor of your bread can kind of dictate what you might want to feed your starter. When you're first building up your starter, I always encourage people to use whole wheat flour because whole grains are going to encourage fermentation more quickly. But once your starter is really nice and active, you might decide to switch to other types of flour depending on what you are looking for. So a starter that is fed with all whole wheat flour or all rye flour or a really high ratio of whole grains is going to create a more sour bread. Now these whole grains also ferment more quickly, so they are going to probably peak more quickly than if you were feeding your starter all white flour. Now in contrast, if your starter is fed with all white flour like all-purpose flour or bread flour, it is going to create a more mild flavored bread. I personally like to use a combination of some whole wheat flour and some white flour at a one to two ratio. So I do one part whole wheat flour and about two parts bread flour, and I pre-mix those together. I actually keep a container here, which is my starter blend, and then that is already pre-mixed for me to just use whenever I need to feed my starter. Now I like this combination because it gives me a nice balance of a little bit of sourness, but not too much sourness. And I like to use the bread flour when feeding my starter just because that extra protein content in it gives it a little more strength. But you can very easily use all-purpose flour, and in fact, if I'm running low on bread flour, I will use all-purpose flour. Now if you do want to change up the type of flour you're using to feed your starter, you can definitely do that. It's probably going to take a few feedings for your starter to adjust and regulate to the new type of flour, but it should definitely be able to do that. I would suggest if you do want to change what type of flour you're using that you take part of your starter and feed that separately from your main jar. Maybe put your main jar in the refrigerator or just keep it fed separately with your normal feeding until you're sure that your new starter is going to adjust to that new type of flour. Like I said, it should definitely adjust, but just as a little insurance policy. And you might want to change the type of flour you're using if your starter is just not as active as you'd like it to be. Sometimes adding in a little more whole grain or even a little bit of rye flour can really, really boost the activity of your starter. Okay, now quickly before we end this video, I do want to address storing your starter and feeding it from the refrigerator and sourdough starter discard. Now I actually have two videos that address these topics more in depth. I'm going to leave links for them, but because these are some of the most common questions I get, I'm just going to quickly address them here. So if you are somebody who does not bake really frequently with your sourdough starter, if you bake with it less than once a week, I would suggest keeping it in your refrigerator. So that way you don't have to feed it every single day. If you do store it in your refrigerator, you are going to want to feed it about once every 10 days, just to keep it really nice and healthy and not neglect it too much. So when you are going to feed your starter from the refrigerator, I like to take it out and let it sit on the counter for an hour or two just to kind of let it wake up. And then I go ahead and do my normal feeding. Now, after I feed it, if I'm just doing a maintenance feeding and I'm not going to be baking with it, I will let it come up in the jar a little bit for a few hours, let it get really bubbly so that it's starting to feed on those flours, but I don't let it get to that peak point where it has gone through all of its food. So I let it get active for a few hours and then I put it back in the refrigerator because I want it to go back in the refrigerator still having some food left for it. When it's in the refrigerator, the activity is going to slow down very, very slowly, but it's not going to stop completely. So it's good for it to still have a little bit of food once it goes in the refrigerator. Now, if I am taking it out of the refrigerator to bake with it, I will feed it and usually I will give it maybe two feedings, maybe three feedings before it does go into a bread dough. Now, you can technically feed it once, use it, put it in a bread dough. However, it's going to be a little more sluggish with that just one feeding. So plan a little bit ahead, give it two feedings, and then you can go ahead and use it in your bread dough. Now, after you use it in your bread dough, if it has already peaked before you put it in your bread dough I would give it one more feeding, let it get a little bit active, and then you can put it back in the refrigerator. Okay, now I have a full video about sourdough starter discard, what it is, how to reduce it, how to use it. I'm gonna link that below, but just very quickly, I know people are very concerned about sourdough discard. They don't wanna have waste and I completely understand that. However, hopefully now you see with these ratios that we talked about and how to increase and decrease how much you're keeping, you see that you really shouldn't have a huge amount of discard. If you are decreasing your ratios based on if you're baking or not, you should only have a tiny bit of discard. So I actually have another jar like this that I keep in the refrigerator. I just add my discard to it and that is kept in the refrigerator for several reasons. I can use that discard in recipes like my sourdough discard muffins or I have backup starter in the refrigerator. If something were to happen to this active starter, I could easily take out that and feed it and get it nice and active. However, I do also want to say, try to keep a little bit in perspective your definition of waste. Hopefully if you are baking bread at home, you are replacing that with bread that you bought at the store. And bread bought at the store is probably packaged in plastic. It's probably been shipped across the country. And so if you do need to toss just a few tablespoons of flour and water, in the grand scheme of things, it's much less wasteful than if you're buying bread at the grocery store. Now, I will also add that there is a method called the no discard method. And there's a YouTuber named Bake with Jack who has a whole video on this method. It's not my personal approach, but if it's something that you think might fit better for your needs, I definitely recommend seeking out that video and he will give you an in-depth explanation of how to do the no discard method. I know this was a lot of information. Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end. I have a ton of sourdough videos. I'm gonna leave the whole playlist linked below. So if you're somebody who's new to the sourdough world, I know it can feel super overwhelming, but I have also a whole video on understanding the whole process of a sourdough bread. So it's very similar to this video, kind of walking through all of the nuances, all of the steps and different approaches. And I think that should also help you understand a little bit better. Just stick with it, keep practicing, and you will get there. Now, if you enjoyed this video, I hope you will consider giving it a like and sharing it with other people who might enjoy it. And I will see you all next time with another video. Bye-bye.