On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 16:21:38 -0500, "Dee Randall"
Hi Dee,
There is little need to ever have a gallon of "active starter" to dump.
Many printed instructions (most emblematic, the Nancy Silverton version) encourages people to keep doubling the amount of starter they have.
Of course, doing that, one soon would have to move to a larger dwelling.
With the method I suggest, there is very little, if any, waste because we simply generate enough active starter for the things we want to bake, and no more.
So, suppose I want to make a bread that uses 500g of active starter.
I would do the pinch off half the ball thing. In a few hours, that would, as I have described, give me about 200g of active starter. To that, I would add 150g water, and 150g flour.
When that gets active, I would have the 500g that I needed for the bread I was about to bake.
Then, I sneak out a teaspoon or so to make a new storage starter.
Also note that I suggest tossing out the old storage starter ball only after making a new one.
That is to prevent "disaster."
So, suppose I toss out the old storage starter first (telling myself that I am about to make a new ball for storage) and just then, I get that important phone call telling me that the folks from Publisher's Clearing House would soon be in my driveway with their TV cameras and all those balloons...
In all the ensuing fuss, I might forget to make my new storage starter, and find that the next time I want to bake, I have none to "start" with.
And finally, I have experimented with the very firm starter ball approach for quite a while now and find that after three months in the refrigerator, using the procedure that I have described for you, it starts to ferment actively in just a few hours. The method works far better for me than any other I have found.
All the best, -- Kenneth
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