Things to make c/discarded sourdough starter?
plllog
9 years ago
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Cathy_in_PA
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Can I feed my worms Sourdough starter?
Comments (6)I know this thread is very old, but it's one of the only really relevant links to come up when you google this. After never finding a satisfactory answer, I just tried it in my indoor plastic tote worm bin (made from 2 nested 10 gallon totes from Lowes http://www.lowes.com/pd_332449-61896-332449_1z0yly3__?productId=3276019&pl=1), and the worms adore sourdough starter. At first I thought something was wrong because every worm in the bin ended up in a giant, writhing mass where the starter was put down, but it turns out they were just super excited to eat it. It gets kind of hot, though, so be careful with quantity if the temp where you keep your worms is high. You'll see more condensation in the bin with the starter in there. I've put down up to 1/4 cup with no bad consequences to my bin. I don't know about larger quantities--I would guess it depends on the size of your bin and worm population. I had no problems with odor generally, but there can be a funk for a while if you uncover just the area where the starter is--probably because it can cause a wet, sludgy spot. I've since started to take out some older bedding and mix it into the starter before putting it down. The worms seem to prefer to eat the castings/organic matter/bedding that has soaked up the starter rather than eat the starter itself anyway, and it helps me control moisture better. If I notice that the spot with the starter is getting compacted and funky, I fluff it, and it seems to nip the problem in the bud. Anyway, I'm sure this is no help to the original poster anymore, but maybe this will help the next person who Googles for the answer to whether it's OK to feed sourdough starter to the worm bin....See MoreSourdough starter for dummies...
Comments (35)Not idiotic. No question is if you don't know the answer, but you weren't supposed to know the answer to this one. When you make a recipe like that you feed it up first. Details below. First off, the measurements aren't important for keeping your yeast alive. They become important for using it because you want to know how much flour and water you're putting in. If you don't need a recipe, you don't even need to know that, and can just do it by feel. I.e., until it's wet or dry enough. You can work your way back to knowing your proportions just by feeding for a few more days. If you've been feeding half water and half flour by weight each time, which on second reading, I think is what you were saying, the only issue is how hungry the yeast is, and no biggie. It's still all "100% hydration", i.e., the same weight of water as of flour, so no matter how much you have total, you know how much of each. Re the whole wheat, as I said previously, you don't want to shock the starter. Especially since it's not rising strongly yet. I'd feed for another week with AP just to make it easier, but if you feel like playing it's not wrong. Start by giving it only a bit of whole wheat and the rest white, and work up to all whole wheat, or it may go into a coma. Give it some time even if it's dormant and it might recover, but this early it could give up. Probably won't, but could. If you start with 10g, and work up to the full 50g over a week, it's less likely to protest. Whole wheat doesn't form as strong a gluten because of the bran, and the bran can actually cut the gluten threads as it works and rises. Eventually, it will double, but it make take it awhile to develop "legs". If you can, use whole wheat bread flour, or hard wheat berries rated at 14+% protein (this is a different number from the one in the nutrition info on the bag, which due to rounding isn't precise enough to be meaningful for baking comparisons). I don't think red or white hard wheat matters much. White might be a little easier to work with, but not enough to fret over. Feeding up your starter means increasing the size. So you have 200g in your jar, and your recipe calls for 400g. Put your starter in a bigger jar and give it its own weight in food, but don't discard, so use 100g of water and 100g of flour. Wait your standard 8-12 hours for it to double, pull off your 100g feed and set aside/store, discard 100g and feed the remaining 200g by 100g flour and 100g water. If your starter is old and strong, you can probably just feed without discarding, but while it's young, you need more food. So, when you have a recipe that calls for "1 cup of starter", it's usually talking about a wetter starter, that's more of a thin batter or slurry consistency. For your sanity, if the recipe doesn't say the hydration ratio, or give a starter recipe where you can see the proportions, skip it until you're comfortable baking with your starter. If it is a 300% hydration recipe, for instance--the weight of the flour is always 100% and the proportional weight of the water is measured off that, so 300% means three times as much water by weight as the weight of the flour--so once you've separated out your keeper starter, you can increase the water in your feeding, or you can feed first and add the water right before you use it. If you're baking daily, you can just keep a very wet starter going on the counter. If not, it's harder to maintain healthily. Other recipes often call for just your kind of starter, half water half flour. For one of them, just feed up the starter to the correct volume. There are different ideas about the best time to use the starter. No matter what, the whole point is that the yeast will feed on the carbs and burp making the bread rise. Unless directed otherwise, I use it after it has doubled, but well before the next feeding time. Have fun!...See MoreSourdough starter - Can we talk?
Comments (46)Sooo....shortly before this current pandemic quarantine thing started, I started a starter. Just put equal volume of purified water and organic rye flakes and in about 36 hours I had bubbles.....so I began the discard feed routine and soon I had a starter going that doubled in about 8 hours.....but by then flour was very hard to get and I had committed to baking bread every day and giving it away, so I stashed the starter and the current jar of discard int he refrig and forgot about it for easily 3 weeks....likely longer, time flies during this quarantine and one day looks like another. Last Sunday My grand daughter came over to visit....through the door or outside at a respectable distance and asked if I could spare some starter as she had a friend who wanted to try some. So. I dug out the jar,. and poured some into another fed it, fed what I had left and sent her home with the starter and directions to feed it again before bed and again in the morning and again after work when she would give it to her friend.......and I did the same for my jar and both are up and running. I stirrred the hooch back into the starter along with any dark stuff on top....sites I have read say it's fine and I found it to be so. I have been using the discard as part of the volume in my "daily bread' and it adds to the flavor profile but I don't even think of asking it to provide leavening all by itself. but tomorrow morning, I will make myself a mix with just the starter and no yeast and leave it on the counter to rise for about 18 hours and hope it will give me some loft.....then I will bake in my Enamel cast iron Dutch oven. I'll report back. But what I have learned is that even a young and very neglected starter has live yeast if it doesn't smell rotten.....and if fed it will grow. And For L Pink the reason you don't just add flour and water to increase the volume is the food in the starter is then very quickly used up.....as there are more yeasty-beasties to eat the carbs. So either increase what you feed your starter or discard and refrigerate the discard and feed what is left....See MoreUsing sourdough discard
Comments (4)Consider discard as wet flour. You know how much water and how much flour you used. It might have evaporated a little, but not enough to make a huge difference. You can use discard in just about any recipe that wants that much flour and water together, and just do the sums to see how much more of each to add. If your discard is particularly sour tasting, add a pinch of sugar. It doesn't take a lot. Because of the differences in absorption and aeration, however, discard is difficult in cakes. Until you're really comfortable using it, I'd avoid anything you want to be light and fluffy. Here's my waffle recipe. My discard jar has white and whole wheat together. If your starter is wheat of any kind, it'll work. Rye needs a different recipe. The active starter can be new discard if it was fed recently. If the starter has been languishing in the fridge, feed it up including what you would discard, and discard after, taking your 3+ TBSP from that. The malt is for flavor and has some sweetness. You can sweeten to taste, maybe a half teaspoon of sugar instead, and add whatever flavoring you like. The buttermilk powder helps activate the soda and tenderizes the crumb. You could use a little liquid buttermilk, or milk and baking powder instead of soda, or just baking powder instead of soda. I've stopped using the butter for a fluffier waffle. Both ways are good. Sourdough Discard Waffles 1.5 c. discard, half white, half wheat 3 heaping TBSP active starter 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1 (2?) heaping TBSP buttermilk powder 2 heaping TBSP malt powder 2 eggs 1/4 c. melted butter (optional) Sprinkle dry over wet wheat (discard). Add eggs and butter. Stir. Slightly more than one waffle ladle for one waffle (round Belgian)....See Moreann_t
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9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
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9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
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9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
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9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
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9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agokitchendetective
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agokitchendetective
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCathy_in_PA
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
9 years agolast modified: 9 years agoplllog
9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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jerzeegirl (FL zone 9B)