Joyce

September 10, 2008 at 2:41pm

I read your blog today with great interest. I have sourdough starter and have made bread from it but I don't like having to throw away starter when I feed mine. We had sourdough blueberry pancakes for breakfast this morning and they were excellent. But now I have a lot more recipes to use starter in! I have a question after reading your sourdough tips. Several times you mention get rid of 1 cup of starter and then add in the stated amounts of flour and water. The question is how much starter will I have left? Since I already have starter I might not have the same amount as you do and getting rid of 1 cup could leave me with too much or too little starter to feed. Another question -- I shared some of my starter with a friend and she called this morning as she was getting ready to feed it for the first time. She had King Arthur Bread flour and King Arthur whole wheat flour but no unbleached flour of any kind. I believe there was also some Lilly bleached in her house. If she feed the starter with KA bread flour or whole wheat what would the results be like? Thanks for your help with these questions. I too read your blog every day and find your blog and web site to be "over the top" helpful. Finally under the category of never satisfied -- I like that I can get your recipes using weight rather than measures as I have become a big fan of the kitchen scale. My bread consistently turns out better when I weight the flour. But there are times when I write in the measure on the printed recipe (say 1 tablespoon of oil). Any chance to get a selection to get both types of measures on the same sheet? Thanks again for all you do for the home baker! Joyce Hi Joyce: Not sure I understand your question about discarding starter and how much you'll have left. When you discard 1 cup, you replace it with 1 cup (1 cup flour + 1/2 cup water - 1 cup) - so in theory you never end up with more or less than when you started. If you want to increase the starter amount, discard 1 cup for awhile and feed with 2 cups flour and 1 cup water. Feeding with bread flour would be fine and would yield the same type of starter, albeit a bit thicker. feeding with whole wheat would also be fine, although then you'd have a part whole wheat starter. Which is also fine, if that's what you want. Finally - lots of people have asked for the side by side weight/measurement thing (me included!) Our Web guy says "not possible." ("Computers are our friends...") Sorry! PJH
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