Elevating Your Sourdough Starter- Experimenting With Different Starters

 Starter life cycle:

This graphic depicts the sourdough starter lifecycle, from activation to decline. Refer back to this graphic for terms used throughout the article. 

Elevating your starter: 

I’ve looked all over the internet; over mountain tops and down in the deep valleys of the web and never got any of my buttermilk sourdough starter questions answered. I hoped that my idols, the Pantry Mama and Homestead and Chill, had ventured into these waters, but I was completely lost! So I set out to experiment on my own and figure this out so I could make the most amazing soft bread there was. One of the best ways to make your bread softer is by using buttermilk instead. Today I will teach you how to make a buttermilk starter for use in your bread-making recipes. 

One of my favorite starters is my buttermilk cultured starter. If you're following this recipe and doing so with your mature sourdough starter, remember to do so in a separate jar. I switch out the water for buttermilk each time I feed it and mix up the flour to have a little rye at times. It is delicious, especially with buttermilk bread recipes. It bubbles up like any other starter and falls, as well as it will have “discard”. Changing up flavors by changing the base flours and liquid used is fun to try. You can get my mature buttermilk starter here. I got the base of mine from a famous pancake house called Smittys that’s been serving deliciousness in my area since 1966!

For a thicker buttermilk starter, you’ll use a two-part buttermilk and one-part starter. If you prefer a more hydrated starter, 3 parts buttermilk is ideal. Using a more hydrated starter will give you a more elastic dough, but over-hydrating it will dilute the existing yeast so I’ve found that going over the 3 part buttermilk ratio will not make a good start. To make your own, simply take 25g of your mature starter, add 75g of buttermilk, and 25g of preferred flour. I recommend Rye or wheat flour. 

After feeding, watch your starter throughout the day. If your starter is mature it should still bubble up. I leave my starter on the counter to keep a close eye on it and see how it’s developing. You’ll continue this process for three more days, then you can use this starter with your regular recipes or with buttermilk bread recipes.

You can continue to feed your buttermilk starter for future use or start feeding it equal parts flour and water again. If you are keeping your buttermilk starter going, store it in the fridge when not in use. 

Here’s your feeding schedule:

Day 1- in a clean jar, mix 25g of your mature starter, add 50g of buttermilk and 25g of preferred flour. Your starter will rise, peak, and fall within 6-10 hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen. You’ll put it in your fridge once it falls. 

Day 2- Take your starter out of your fridge. You’ll be discarding over half of your starter, or gifting to a friend, enough so you still have 25g left. You’ll repeat by adding 50g of buttermilk, and 25g of your preferred flour. 

Day 3- This is your last day maintaining this process, you’ll discard about 75g of starter so you still have 25g left, add your 50g of buttermilk and 25g of preferred flour. Place on the counter and if you are making sourdough bread, I would start the “autolyze (or autolyse)” process at this time (I’ve found that the best sourdough bread recipes use a process called autolyse, where you mix the flour you're baking with water and let it develop gluten before you bake with it).

Once your starter reaches the peak, which depending on the temperature could be 2-4 hours in. After watching the process of your starter for three days, you’ll know when it peaks. Between the time it has peaked, to mid-decline, this starter can be used in all your baking recipes. 

 

To keep your starter going:

Store in the fridge to feed weekly. In your weekly feedings, you’ll discard half and feed it 3 parts buttermilk and one part Rye or preferred flour.