Lessons E02 Starter Variables

Learn how changing the different variables in your starter will affect its behavior. We discuss hydration, temperature, flour, and seed changes. By understanding these concepts you can make more educated decisions about your starter throughout the seasons. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi friends, welcome back to a place for thoughtful conversations about bread, fermentation, grain, and the amazing people keeping this craft alive. I'm Alison White, and this is Saving Bread. If you're listening to this episode first, don't worry, you can still follow along just fine. But if you've never cared for a starter before or don't have one yet, I would recommend starting with Lessons Episode 1 because this conversation assumes that you have a healthy and well-maintained starter. Today I want to answer a question that almost every baker eventually asks. Why does my starter behave differently than someone else's? Why does one starter double in four hours while others take twelve? Why does mine smell different? Why does mine suddenly seem sluggish? Why did it behave one way last week and a completely different way this week? The answer is usually not that your system is broken. The answer is that usually one or more of the variables has changed. And once you understand those variables, sourdough becomes a lot less mysterious. And as a side note, I will never claim that there is one best way to make bread. There are endless ways to make bread and nuances that come with each choice, but when you understand why things are happening, you can make all of the game time decisions yourself and feel empowered knowing what outcomes to expect. One of the biggest misconceptions I see in baking is the idea that there is one perfect starter feeding schedule. People are constantly searching for the magic ratio, the magic flower, the magic temperature, the perfect routine. But starters are living cultures. They respond to their environment. And because every baker's environment is different, there is no single correct answer. A bakery in Arizona does not have the same conditions as a bakery in Scotland. Someone feeding their starter freshly milled whole wheat doesn't have the same conditions as someone feeding theirs with white flour. Someone baking every day doesn't need the same maintenance routine as someone baking once a week. The goal isn't to memorize things. The goal is to understand how the system works. Because once you understand the system, you can make adjustments in real time with confidence. Before we dive in, let's define two words you'll hear often. The first is starter. You may also hear this referred to as culture. From the previous episode, you'll remember that a starter is simply a mixture of old starter, flour, and water that's maintained over time. There's another word you'll hear, Levan, spelled L E V A I N. You may also hear that word pronounced differently. Levan sounds fancy or levain, lavan, however you hear it, but the concept is simple. In many cases, a starter and a Levan are the exact same thing, but the distinction is usually one of purpose. A starter is the culture that you're maintaining and feeding daily. A Levan is the portion you've built specifically to go into a dough. Think of it this way: your starter lives permanently in its jar, but your Levan will be moving from the jar into a dough. Now, people absolutely use these terms interchangeably, and that's okay. For the purpose of this podcast, I'm going to try to use starter for the culture living in the jar and levan for the culture heading into the dough. So, what actually changes the behavior of a starter? There are four major variables water, which is also called hydration, temperature, flour, and inoculation, or sometimes called seed, which is old starter from a previous feed. That's it. Four major levers. The interesting part is that these levers don't operate independently. They interact with each other. And that's where things get really interesting. To make this easier, let's name our daily starter from the first episode. We are going to name her Queenie because every respectable starter deserves a great name. So Queenie lives in a jar on your kitchen counter. She's fed at room temperature twice a day. Room temperature is approximately 75 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. She receives one part starter, five parts flour, five parts water. If we change that into our daily feed in grams, if you remember from the last episode, that was 20 grams of starter, 100 grams of flour, and 100 grams of water. Her flour blend is half bread flour, half whole wheat flour. Everything is consistent. This is our baseline queenie. Now we're gonna start changing one variable at a time. So let's begin with water. You will often hear bakers talk about hydration. Hydration simply means the amount of water relative to the amount of flour. In a future episode, we will start using Baker's Math terminology, but for now, we will keep our language as ratios because Baker's math deserves a full episode of its own. Hydration sounds technical, but I promise the concept is not. Queenie normally receives 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. Equal amounts. Now let's reduce the water. Instead of 100 grams of water, let's feed her only 60 grams of water. Immediately the texture changes. Instead of a loose batter-like consistency, Queenie becomes much firmer. This is what bakers often call a stiff starter. You may even need to knead it together with your hands on the counter to mix it well. Now let's go in the other direction. Instead of 100 grams of water, let's feed her 120 grams of water. Suddenly, Queenie is much looser and more fluid. Same amount of starter, same flour, same temperature. The only thing that changed was the amount of water. Generally speaking, wetter or liquid starters tend to move faster. Stiffer starters tend to move more slowly and feel more stable over longer periods of time. Now, before anyone writes me an email, yes, of course there are exceptions, there's always exceptions with bread, but as a broad concept, this is useful information to understand. And we're already starting to see an important lesson. The goal isn't to find the best hydration. The goal is to choose a hydration that works for what you are trying to accomplish. Maybe you need your starter to remain stable overnight. Maybe you need it to peak more quickly. Different situations call for different approaches, and you can often manipulate the speed at which your starter ferments by increasing or decreasing the amount of water it receives in a feed. You may also need to adjust the hydration depending on the flour you're using and how that flour absorbs water. But more on that in a future episode. Now let's talk about our next variable, which is temperature. Thankfully, this one is very intuitive. The warmer a starter is kept, the faster it generally ferments. The cooler it is kept, the slower it ferments. Imagine leaving Queenie in a 65 degree kitchen. Now imagine placing Queenie somewhere where it's 82 degrees. You are going to see dramatically different behavior. One of the first questions I ask when someone tells me their starter suddenly feels sluggish is, did the temperature change? Because often that is the answer. We tend to blame ourselves when sometimes the weather simply changed. This is also one reason bakers can have such different experiences while following the exact same instructions. The recipe may be identical, but each baker's environment is a little different. Let's move on to our next variable, flour. This is my favorite one because starter and lavan flour contributes far more flavor and activity than many people realize. I would argue that much of the flavor of a final dough comes from the flavor of the fermented flour in the lavan. You can maintain a starter with white flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, high extraction flour, freshly milled flour, and different grains. And they all behave a little differently. Whole grain flour tends to provide more nutrients for the microbes and tends to ferment more quickly. White flour often ferments more slowly. One is not better than another. What I'm saying is they're simply different. Freshly milled flour can be especially active. Many bakers are surprised the first time they switch from white flour to freshly milled whole grains. Suddenly everything seems faster, sometimes much faster. Rye is another interesting example. Many bakers love rye starters because they can be incredibly active and flavorful. Rye has a reputation for being a bit of a powerhouse in the fermentation world. The important lesson here is that the flower choice affects the behavior of the starter. And once you understand that, you can make more intentional decisions. Finally, let's talk about the last variable, which is inoculation or seed. This is simply the amount of old starter included in a new feeding. So let's go back to Queenie. Queenie normally receives 20 grams of old starter, but what happens if we reduce that number to only five grams? Everything else stays the same. Same flour, same water, same temperature, but less starter. Generally speaking, fermentation slows down with a lower inoculation. Now let's do the opposite. Let's increase the amount of old starter to 100 grams. Now Queenie has a much larger population of active microbes from the very beginning, so fermentation speeds up. Again, same flour, same water, same temperature. One change but a very different result. This is one of the most powerful tools bakers have because inoculation easily allows us to speed up or slow down fermentation without changing many of the other variables. Now here's where things become interesting. Up until now, we've discussed each variable separately, but that's not how starters actually exist in the real world. So what happens when we combine them? What happens when Queenie is fed whole wheat flour, kept warm, and given a large inoculation? What happens when Queenie is fed white flour, kept cool and given a small inoculation? Both starters may be healthy. Both starters may be active, but they will behave very differently. And that's why there are endless combinations. There is no single correct starter. There are only starters behaving according to the conditions we've created for them. I think that this realization is incredibly freeing because it means your goal isn't to copy someone else's starter exactly. Your goal is to understand what variables they're using and why, and choosing how to change variables for yourself, your environment, and your goals. Let's talk about how I might apply some of this information in my own kitchen. Let's say I have a very warm kitchen in the summer, which I actually do. Morgan Hill is quite hot in the late summer specifically. Maybe it's consistently 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer, often it reaches over 100 degrees Fahrenheit here. So I know that fermentation is already being accelerated by temperature. Because of that, I might choose a lower inoculation to slow down fermentation. I could also choose a stiffer feed, meaning less water in the starter to slow down fermentation. I could also choose to feed Queenie with cooler water to slow down fermentation. I also might find that I need to feed her more frequently if the starter peaks and begins to fall faster than I had hoped. Notice I would never change something randomly. I would make adjustments in response to the conditions and the starter behavior. Now let's imagine the exact opposite. It's winter, the kitchen is cold, and fermentation is moving more slowly. In that situation, I might increase inoculation. I might use warmer water. I might choose a flour that tends to support more rapid fermentation like rye or freshly milled whole wheat. Again, I'm responding to the conditions, not following a fixed recipe. Let's talk about flour a little bit more. One question I get often is whether everyone should maintain a starter with whole grain flour. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I use a lot of whole grains in my baking, both in my Levant and my final dough. But I fully recognize it takes time and practice and a lot of learning before people jump into that. I also want to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone has access to fresh flour or may not realize where they can source it just yet. So I want this conversation to feel approachable and inclusive. While my ethos aligns with using as much local whole grain as possible, I recognize there is a journey and a path we have to walk to get there. So my answer is no. You do not have to meet a starter with whole wheat flour. You can use any flour that you have access to and can afford. The flour should support the goal. If you are primarily baking white country loaves and want a relatively neutral flavor contribution from your starter, maintaining a starter with white flour may make perfect sense for you. Let's say you're primarily baking whole grain breads and you want a strong grain flavor. Maintaining a starter with whole grain flour makes sense. Neither is better. They're just different tools. Rye is another interesting example. Many bakers maintain rye starters because rye tends to ferment very reliably and rye contributes its own amazing flavor characteristics. So now we're making another decision. Are we optimizing for maintenance, flavor, schedule, convenience? These are the questions experienced bakers ask themselves. Because eventually baking becomes less about finding the perfect formula and more about understanding the trade-offs associated with each choice and being flexible in the moment depending on season, timing, and access to flour. So at this point you might be wondering: should I have multiple starters, like a rye starter, a white starter, a whole wheat starter, a spelt starter? No, you do not need multiple starters. I maintain one healthy starter and then build different levans depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. Meaning, I maintain one starter on the counter. And the night before my mix day, I may build two to three separate levans with different inoculations and flowers and hydrations to be able to make a lot of different kinds of bread on dough day, but the seed all came from one mother starter. For me, that's a much simpler system. The starter's primary job is not to contribute flavor to the final loaf. Its primary job is to provide a healthy population of microbes that can be used to build a levan. The levan is where I start making more intentional decisions. If I want to build a levan with rye flour, I can do that. If I want to build a levan with freshly milled whole wheat flour, I can do that. And if I want to build a levan with white flour, I can do that too. All from the same mother culture. That approach allows me to keep maintenance simple while still giving me flexibility on dough day. And I think that's an important distinction. When we talk about flour choices, we're not necessarily talking about maintaining multiple starters forever. We're often talking about the flour we choose for a specific Levan build. Let's say I'm making a whole grain loaf. Well, then it makes sense to build my Levan with whole grain flour. Why? Because the Levan is going into a whole grain dough, so the flour choices are aligned. Likewise, if I'm baking a country loaf that's mostly white flour, I might choose a different Levan strategy. Again, not because one is right and one's wrong. I'm just making decisions based off the type of bread that I'm trying to make. This is why I also think beginners sometimes feel overwhelmed. The internet can make it seem like you need six different starters living in jars in your fridge. But in reality, many excellent bakers just maintain a single, healthy starter and use levan builds to create flexibility. Think of it like this: the starter is the tree trunk, and the levans are like the branches coming out of the tree. So before we close out this discussion and move on to QA, I want to give you a couple of real-world examples and walk you through how I would think about them. Because at the end of the day, understanding these variables is only useful if you know how to apply them. So let's go with scenario one. Someone hands me a bag of freshly milled hard red wheat flour, and I decide I want to start feeding Queenie with it immediately. So the challenge is that I still want to maintain roughly the same 12-hour feeding schedule that I've been using. So what do I do? Well, the first thing is that I need to recognize that one of the variables has already changed. I have changed the flour. Freshly milled whole grain typically ferments more rapidly than the blend Queenie was receiving before. It contains all of the bran, germ, minerals, oils, everything from the entire grain, all of which can influence fermentation activity. So before I even mix the next feed, I'm already anticipating that Queenie may mature more quickly than she did yesterday. So now I need to decide which variable I want to change to compensate. I could lower the temperature, I could lower hydration, or I could lower inoculation. For me, inoculation is usually the first place I start. If Queenie was previously receiving 20 grams of starter for every 100 grams of flour, I might reduce that. Significantly and observe how she responds over the next few feedings. Maybe that means 10 grams, or maybe that means 5 grams total. The exact number isn't really the lesson here. The lesson is that I know fermentation is likely to speed up because of the flour change. And inoculation gives me an easy tool to help bring the schedule back into alignment with my goals. That's the kind of decision experienced bakers make every day. Not because they're guessing, because they understand the relationship between the variables. Let's look at the opposite problem. Scenario two, it's mixed day. I need mature Levan in about three hours. Unfortunately, Queenie is expecting her normal one to five to five feed, and I do not have 12 hours to wait. So now I need to push fermentation in the opposite direction. I need her to be ready ASAP. So what variables can I use? Well, I know I can increase the inoculation, I can increase the temperature, and in some cases, I can increase hydration. Personally, my first move would be to increase the inoculation, and I would also use a warmer temperature to help increase the speed of fermentation. So instead of feeding her at 1 to 5 to 5 with 75 degree water, I might move closer to something like a 1 to 1 to 1 with much warmer water, maybe 85 degrees, somewhere around there. The point is that I'm carrying over a much larger population of microbes into the next feed and keeping Queenie warm. Notice what I'm doing. I'm not crossing my fingers and closing my eyes and hoping that fermentation speeds up. I know that it will. And that is really what today's episode is about. Not memorizing feeding schedules, memorizing ratios. It's about understanding cause and effect. Let's just do one more. Scenario three. I have two bakers. Both are feeding at one to five to five. Both are using the same flour. Both are using the same hydration. One baker tells me that their starter doubles in five hours. The other tells me that theirs takes ten. Because we already know that answer. I have a feeling you know what the next question I'm going to ask them is. What temperature is your kitchen? More specifically, if you stick a thermometer in your starter, what temperature does it say? Because temperature alone can dramatically change the speed of fermentation. This is one of the reasons baking advice sometimes feels contradictory online. Two bakers can follow the exact same instructions and get completely different results because they're working under completely different conditions. The recipe may be the same, the environment is not. And that's why understanding variables is so much more powerful than bakers realize. The variables are what create the outcome. And as you gain experience, you'll find yourself thinking less about recipes and more about conditions, less about rules and more about relationships. You'll start asking questions like: Do I need this Levan sooner or later? Do I need or want more whole grain flavors or less? Am I working with white flour or freshly milled whole grain? Am I baking in January or August? And once you start thinking that way and understanding which variables you can change for the conditions that you're in or your goals, fermentation becomes much more approachable and predictable. Life is full of surprises. Schedules change, flower batches change, temperatures change, but now you understand how each variable influences the behavior of your starter and your Levan, which means you can start making intentional decisions instead of relying on guesswork. Okay, welcome back, Leah. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

I'm great. That's great. I'm great too. We're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Ready for this QA session. Last time the listeners really loved when you were on the podcast. So I think they're going to be really excited this time too. So why don't we start with the QA? Yeah, sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

All right. Uh, question one. Can I build a rye leaven from my starter if my starter is not maintained with rye flour?

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Yes. You can build a rye levan with your regular starter. So basically, let's say you maintain a starter with white flour, half white bread flour, half um whole wheat flour, and you want to build a lavan that's going into your dough of all rye flour. So you would just feed your lavan with rye flour instead of your usual mix. You can feed your lavan or your starter with any flour that you want at any time. Um, sometimes it can take a little bit of time for it to get acclimated to a new flour, but I have many times, almost every single week, I build a separate lavan for my bake with an entirely different flour. So it's completely fine. You do not need to keep a separate rye starter just for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Okay. I mean, I have a follow-up question to that. I don't know if it's applicable for today. Tell me the follow-up. But um, with the different flowers, I can't remember if you and I have talked about this. Does it make the starter like easier or more difficult to work with based off of the type of flour that you use?

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah, it it definitely depends on the type of flour. So rye, if we're sticking to that example, can be it can make the dough a little bit more sticky. So if you're a newer baker and you don't quite have those like quick hands yet, a rye lavan or rye in the dough can potentially be a little bit more difficult to work with. But for the most part, if you stick with whole wheat um or even rye, you should be, you should be okay. It's when you start getting into the weeds with maybe some gluten-free flowers or like um eincorn or things like that that break down a little bit more quickly. That could be a lot more complicated. So we'll definitely get into that later on in the podcast. But for now, if you stick with whole wheat or any kind of whole wheat varieties, you should be okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Okay. I didn't even think about gluten-free flour. That's probably a whole nother episode section. Yeah, for sure. Okay, yeah. Okay. Um, question two. Can I maintain a day-to-day stiff starter? And what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Yeah, that's how I keep my starter. I have a stiff starter, so I feed it right now. I have a T85 as my main flour, which we haven't talked about that yet. But um, if anyone wants to look that up, you can. It's um just a sifted whole wheat flour, so some of the bran has been removed. I use that and I feed it every day, twice a day, and I put about six grams of starter for every 150 grams of flour, and then I use um 90 grams of water, so it's hydrated at about 60% if you do that math. And um that just helps me, especially during the summer months when it's warmer, it helps give a little bit more stability to the starter, and it just makes it easier for me for for maintenance. I don't have to worry so much that it's going to, you know, over-acidify too quickly. Um, and yeah, I just do that every morning and every night leading up to my dough day. And then from there I might pinch out a little bit and build my separate levans, which are could be rye or levan, which could be rye, eincorn, uh, whole wheat, another sift starter, a liquid starter. It's very versatile and stable, so that's why I like it.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Okay. That was my question, which you answered was um, when is it most applicable to use a stiff starter? Okay. Yeah. All right. So next question. Uh, how do I need to adjust my feeding ratios working if working with fresh stone ground whole grain flour? What do you do? Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

So the fr more fresh the flour is, especially if it's stone-milled whole wheat, it tends to be quite active. So, for example, for every 100 grams of flour, you might only need one to two grams of starter. And then the hydration could be up to do, you could do a low hydration starter or you could do a high hydration starter. Sometimes I do all the way up to 120% hydration, meaning if there were one gram of starter, there'd be 100 grams of flour and 120 grams of water, but that one gram will typically between one and five grams, I would say, will take you through a 12-hour window. So it's very, very active. If you were feeding out our typical like queenie, she's got a one to five to five ratio. We would be doing one to one hundred to one hundred ratio for a whole grain starter. It's very, very fast moving, especially in the summer months.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah. Okay. I have no follow-ups.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

That's fine. Yes, not that many people are keeping a starter with a freshly milled whole wheat. I feel like people they they do for sure. There's there's going to be people out there who do and who want to, but I feel typically people are using like a T85 or a very, very stiff whole wheat starter um with maybe like roller milled whole wheat. But I will say when you get into that stone ground whole wheat territory, it's quite fast. So really decreasing the amount of seed, decreasing the inoculation will be really helpful. Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Okay. All right, next question. Yes. How do I identify peak when I change my flour or hydration? What cues am I looking for?

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Yeah. Um, so when we talked about starter in the last episode, the starter, once you feed it, it's going to rise as much as it can before it starts to fall. It's a lot harder to tell when you have a stiff starter, though, or a whole wheat starter because the dough is more is thicker. But it still has the same cues. So when I open up my jar, especially when I'm feeding my stiff starter, I'm still going to see the dimpling on the top and it just starting to sink down. But you definitely have to look a little bit more closely because it's not as obvious. So it tends to be domed on the top when it's a little bit young, and then it starts to break open and then it begins to dimple back down. But again, just because the dough, the starter, is much more thick, you have to really like get your eyes in there and look for that dimpling on the top.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Got it. How often are we looking for that dimpling?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah, if you're switching from keeping a liquid starter to a stiff starter, once it's doubled or tripled in size, it's probably a good idea to open it once every hour or so, or even every half hour, just to kind of get a good idea of how it's looking towards the end of its sort of top of its life cycle before it goes back down and sinks back down so that you can start to pick up on those cues for a different type of starter. Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

All right, for the next question, when you say bread flour, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 35:07

That's a great question. Someone brought this up to me the other day and asked in the first episode why did I refer to bread flour as white flour? So any flour can be bread flour, any flour. But I think just for the purpose of casting a wide net initially for this podcast and these discussions, when people hear the word bread flour in their newer bakers, they automatically think of a white flour with a high protein. So when I'm talking about bread flour right now, I'm referring to a white flour with somewhere between 12 to 14% protein. That's very good at gluten development. And later on in the podcast and episodes that are further along, and when everyone kind of understands these concepts, we'll talk more about different flour classifications and different names for different types of flour. But I just don't think that we're ready for that discussion yet. And in America, we don't really have a great naming system for things. So I want to make sure that when we do get there, it makes sense. But for now, when I say bread flour, I mean a white, heavily sifted flour, a white flour, like a King Arthur bread flour with a high protein percentage.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Okay. Yeah, I'm I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure I've Googled bread flour. And it was after taking your classes that you finally just identified. Like it's really not that complicated. It was the protein that you're looking for. And I thought, oh, okay. I thought it was something like when you think about bread flour, at least when I did, it was like, oh, does it have any additives to it that makes it completely different from one flower to another?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

That's so yeah, that's a really great point because you might see like enriched flowers or bleached. Those are not things that we would want to use when we're making bread. So I would definitely recommend buying something that doesn't have any bleaching or um or additives in it, like enrichments. To you not to get too deep into the weeds, but for example, an eincorn flour, eincorn has a really high protein, but it's very, very bad at forming gluten bonds. So those two relationships aren't always if you see a high protein on a flower, a bag of flour, that doesn't always mean it's going to be good for making a freestanding loaf. But for now, buying white bread flour with a high protein percentage is a good place to for all of us to kind of start and be on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

All right, so next question. Yeah. What are some signs your starter is in poor health?

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Besides the obvious of what we talked about in the last episode and a little bit in this one as well, of the smell and um the color, things like that. If you use your starter and then you bake your bread and your bread is coming out really pale or like splotchy, or your loaves are very under fermented or kind of flat, those are all cues that something could be wrong with your starter.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah.

unknown 38:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

That's that was the last question of our QA. Yeah, that was it. Until next time.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Bye. Thank you for listening to the Saving Bread Podcast. Music by Joshua from Dope. I'm Allie White. And as always, happy baking and long live real bread.

unknown 39:08

Then we're gonna give them the single