I see a lot of people around here wasting a lot of flour by discarding sourdough starter. I've been making sourdough bread every week for 10 years and I've never discarded anything.
The method is very simple and it works!
These quantities are what I need for each batch, but anyone who needs less just needs to adjust the quantities.
I always have 125 gr. of sourdough starter stored in the refrigerator. When I want to make bread I separate it into two portions:
1- Feed 25 gr. of starter with 50 gr. of water and 50 gr. of rye flour.
Let it reach its growth peak and store it in the fridge again.
2 – Feed 100 gr. of starter with 100 gr. of water and 100 gr. of flour (Rye, Whole Wheat or Bread Flour)
Let the starter reach its peak of growth and add to the dough.
by _driftwood__
15 Comments
Good plan except for the odd time I need to pacify my starter by doing a 1:5:5. I do rye/WW 50/50 and sometimes it gets too sour for my wife.
What about waffles or cookies or muffins, etc? Still rye?
“Scrapings method” is simpler since it only requires a single sourdough container.
– ~10g of sourdough in fridge.
– Take sourdough out ~8h before use and feed with how much you are going to need for the bake.
– Leave ~10g sourdough in the jar after using it which goes back into the fridge.
That’s a cycle where one container is used for storage in the fridge and door feeding. Zero discard.
I have an even easier method, wherein I keep around 30g in my fridge. When I want to bake, I take it out, feed it its usual 70% AP + 30% Rye flour at 100% hydration for what I need in my bake, plus enough to ensure I have about 30g left over at the end. Once the starter has reached its peak, I take what is needed, wipe down my jar and back into the fridge it goes until needed again.
To paraphrase Lord of the Rings, one jar to rule them all.
You use 300g starter in your recipe? How many loaves is that making??
I do something similar. I have approximately 130gm of starter in the fridge. Remove from fridge, pull off approx 100gm to bake with. Add about 70g flour (mix AP and WW) and 30ish grams of water. Mix well and return to fridge.
Take the starter I pulled out and mix my dough.
Rinse and repeat every 6 days.
If I want to impress people (usually my brother) I do a few extra steps. I never tell him the actual work I put in. I’m the baby and need to win something on my over achieving sibling!
Or just utilize some discard recipes and keep thing simple
But but but but … discard is awesome.
I make discard pancakes every Sunday. And I make discard knock-off Cheddar Bay biscuits at least every other week. And I make discard bagels. And discard tortillas. And ….
I love my discard. Sometimes I even run out and will feed and discard my starter just to get more discard.
Good info.
I just like to keep it simple and feed my starter every day and make something quick with the discard the next morning. Usually I just pour the discard straight into a pan with some oil and make a little starter discard pancake. Top it with green onion and seasonings and that’s part of my breakfast.
This is great!
But do people actually throw away their discard? I assumed everyone made other things with it. I use it for Rye bread or crackers personally
I also don’t get the discard method. Why throw away so much when it is really not necessary. It’s even more work.
And yes, you can use it in other recipes. But I want to make bread, not pancakes.
I do it this way
https://youtu.be/Uj6YpNCUYYQ?si=afFU2YSaHU6xc1M3
https://youtube.com/shorts/LddGEfOs-_M?si=MnJPjmJxVsHVBWlU
Unless you don’t bake bread that often?
I just keep all the discard in a separate jar in the fridge and use it for whatever discard recipe when I feel like it.
Why not just feed the 125g jar and use what you need to bake. Whats the benefit of your method? Besides the different feeding ratios.