Hello - I have a rye starter which is a year old and have only ever fed it with rye flour. It's been in the fridge the whole time and I confess that I don't always remember to feed it so it can go for up to a month sometimes with no feed. This creates a large amount of hooch which I'm told means that the starter is hungry. When I do remember to feed it I stir it all together including the hooch which I never remove. I have made some great rye loaves from this starter but today is the first time that I made a combined white/wholemeal loaf with the starter. It didn't rise much (at this point I must add the starter had not been fed for at least a month and I didn't feed it before using it for this particular loaf) but isn't too bad with good crust
and some flavour.
My questions are as follows:
- is it ok to stir in the hooch and not remove it?
- is it important to feed the starter before using it if it hasn't been fed for a while and if so is this why it didn't rise much?
- also, is it normal for a starter that has only ever been fed rye to be quite thin in consistency?
Many thanks!
Rosetta

• Reply