This is the best instructional video I have seen on this simple yet confusing subject. No time wasting theatrics and nonsense to distract and great visuals to back up the info. Brilliant. I fast forward other videos when the host starts babbling, then become worried I missed something important. I'm so glad to not waste an unnecessary excess of flour feeding my starter and great tip on mixing the rye with bread flour. I don't know why I didn't think of that. This answered many questions for me and I've been baking a long time.
I have wasted SO much flour, not clearly understanding starter maintenance and the difference between starter and levain, until today. This explains it all so clearly. Thank you!
Baked bread today with the levain I built with this plan. Best oven spring I've ever gotten. Really beautiful texture in the bread as well. Even pancakes made with the discard are the best I've ever made. This system WORKS and it's saving me flour!
Thank you for your clear and timely responses to questions. Your video presentations are exquisitely produced and perfectly paced. Every bit of their content is relevant and clear. Production value is masterful which makes the learning process a compelling delight. With a background in both videography and teaching I know, firsthand, what it takes to produce quality work such as your videos. Kudos, Kristen! Such a delight!
Wow thank you for this amazing feedback - I really appreciate you taking the time to write in. It takes a long time, as you know, to produce these videos and I'm still definitely learning how to make the videos better over time. I'm so thrilled they seem to be helpful to other bakers - the effort and time is all worth it! Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful comment :)
Other than the beating drum in the background ,in some of your videos , I not only have learned a great deal of information , your presentation is excellent. No nonsense or gimicry. Excellent graphics to help understand the timing and process. I have been trying for a long time to get the open crumb and oven rise that your breads have. I am going to try to up my hydration and extend my bulk fermentation. I have even purchased a couple of your recipes to hopefully help fund the continuation of your endeavors. Thanks so much.
Such a great video; excellent detail, camera work, etc. but your voice is so soothing I feel like I just finished a therapy session. I have always fed once on bake day and wondered why I wasn't getting a good open crumb. Now I know. Thanks
Thanks for this. One of the best guides I've ever seen. I've been wasting horrific amounts of flour to maintain my starter. This makes so much sense to just keep the quantity small until I need it and will save me a fortune. I now have a TINY jar with just 5 grams of starter, water and flour and it's doing very well.
Question: I decided to buy the Brod & Taylor proofer which will arrive tonight. With the cooler temperature, I want the accuracy. I completed my day 3 feed yesterday. Do I do a day 4? If yes, just repeat Day 3?
Quite a joy seeing everyone's different methods of process with their sourdough starter. I like how you use %90 unbleached bread flour and dark rye for the remaining %10. Seems like a nice ratio for a tasty bread. Great work and thanks for sharing.
Yours are the best instructions I have found, and I have been looking for a couple of months! Thank you so much for your videos! Now I feel confident to start baking!
Thank you! So well explained! Now I understand how important is to feed several times the starter before building the levain, if we don't make bread every day. I am making sourdough bread at home for 2 years now, and I think that my next breads will come out better, thanks to you!
Borderline scientific. Excellent... I tried making a starter before and it worked but I had no idea about levain building and the result was bittersweet brick bread. I hate failure so it's again time to give it another go. This has given me the incentive again. My interest in sourdough came from watching Dick Proenneke videos and his sourdough cooking alone in the wilderness. So greetings from Scandinavia where rye flour is readily available everywhere...
I just discovered the best sourdough youtube channel ever! thx so much for all this information, is two years since I started baking and I never found a video so well explained, thx again!
I just want to THANK YOU so much, I have been struggling this winter for how to get my starter active. It was just clearly weaker than the warmer months, even after feeding 1:2:2 every 12 hours. I tried this method and my starter was better than ever and most importantly my bread was better! I really appreciate your videos.
A bit of overkill though. As long as you keep the starter in the fridge, feed your starter around once a week, you only need 2 to 3 feeding the day before baking. I use 1.3.3 in the morning, 1.3.3 later in the day and 1.3.3, At night. The next morning I bake. Depending on the temperature my starter in the morning will be 2 to 3 times and height. Sometimes if it’s too warm it will rise and collapse. I still use it as is and I haven’t had a problem since using this method. .
Thank you for the great and very clear recommendations in each of your videos. Your background and attention to details truly show in your baking and your clips.
Unbeknownst to me, I had a sour alcoholic underfed starter. But I knew I had an issue. This tutorial saved my starter! You’re so talented and knowledgeable!
The clearest and informative video I've watched so far about levain. Now I know the difference between levain and starter :) This morning, I started feeding my starter from Day 1!
Thank you so much for helpful information, I was struggling to make Einkorn sourdogh starter ( Whole wheat ). Some reason my starter got so hard using other's Einkorn starter recipe. I'll try again and see how goes and later I'll put comment on. I feel so much better and confident knowing reasons why I should do this way than just guessing and making sourdough starter. Thanks again!!
Hi, thanking you for your lovely video. I have a starter that is 3 years old. I feed it once a week as I use it to make bread once a week. I have 300 grams in the jar that is kept in the fridge. The recipe that I use calls for 300grams of Sourdough starter. What I have been doing is taking the jar out from the fridge to come to room temp take out 100grams and feed it with 100 grams of bread flour T65 and 100grams of water and I let it rest in another bowl for about 5 hours which becomes the 300 grams needed for my bread recipe. The other 200grams of my chef starter I toss 100 grams and feed the remaining 100grams with 100grams flour and 100 grams of water which brings me back up to 300 grams that goes back into my jar washed every week let it come to room temp for about 2 hours and then put back into the fridge to sleep till the following bread bake and this i have been doing for 3 years with a lovely rise to my bread every time baked in the pot. I bake too with a cold oven at 260C for 30 minutes then drop to 240C for 15 minutes and then I just watch to see the color that I like sometimes takes 5 to 10 minutes at 200 or 220C just depends with the tapping on the bottom and color.
Thank you soooooo much for all your help and video about how to boost a starter!! My levain for bread that I prepared today is thriving yahoo!!!! I’m very happy!!! Thank you for such a video! It really helped to boost my stubborn starter ❤️ ❤️
Thanks so much Kristen. This is exactly the video I was looking for. I have a really healthy starter, but I realize I need to manage it a bit better to help it reach it's max peak potential. I'm going to be a starter life coach!
My foray into sourdough began a couple of weeks ago when I was gifted some starter. I first followed my friend’s instructions on feeding, but your comprehensive video is above and beyond what I have been doing! Look forward to implementing these guidelines to improve my starter and bakes! (Btw, I’ve named my starter ’Fillimi’ meaning in Albanian the beginning or start: Fillimi i bukës ~ the beginning of bread ;)
Hi I just discover your videos ,I started to bake 2yrs ago on and off but because I had more failure than success and it was about how to really wake the starter after long refrigeration.and also I did not know the use of rye as base food for the Levant. So eather my bread won't rise or barely rise .But the taste always great.But the details about the need to know on the the temp and types of hydration I really behind on that.but truly thank you now let me go start waking my starter fresh out of the fridge. Again thank you.
Wow, great video/content. What I took from this is the higher % of breadflour is mainly responsible for the extended rise, followed by frequency of feeds per day
This video deserve over a million view in coming future. I kind of mess up my young starter 1:1:1 (14 days) and it was very active before it went into the fridge), to prepare for bake, I took 10g of cold starter from fridge today and feed with 1:1:1 but with different flour (a big mistake?), I feed with 10% protein bread flour French made, starter was formerly made by 13% protein Korean bread flour, it has been 8 hours now and no rise activity at all, I worry I have to build this like almost from scratch now (I have done the same to those remain in fridge at the same time). And yes, your voice is sweet.
Yes it takes several feedings with the new flour before the starter will jump start again. Give it time - keep it warm, feed at peak, and it'll turn around :) Thanks for your feedback!!
This was the first time I've met you here; many thanks for theese valuable additions for sourdough, from nowon to improve myself will be a MUST for me, thanks again:)
Well through your video I realized a lot of things I've been doing incorrectly with my sourdough starter that has probably been the cause of some inconsistency in my baking. Thank you so much!!! Love your channel.
Thank you so much for this video, your explanation is thorough and detailed I’ve learned much more than with others, I’m currently making your starter to bake one of your beautiful breads 🙏🏻
Thank you! Finally I can understand the behaviour of my starter versus learning about proportions, timings and schedules alone. The info about starter picking is especially helpful. I was quite successful in my first bread baking endeavour when using just newly cultivated starter. My second bake was rather disappointing. It appears I didn’t reactivate the starter from the fridge properly. I also felt disheartened by the waste as I couldn’t use all the discard the process was producing.
Hi I’m from UK & have two books on sourdough and one was purchased fairly recently, I have watched videos and tried sourdough recipes! ☹️😔I can honestly and I say this as an x Tutor of products right across the board, for what you call Home Depot, in UK it’s B&Q, I used to travel all around the south and have big sessions of staff and suppliers, to relate the what, when, where and how items for the home and professional worked etc. I have to say, your tube is excellent, I learnt more in the two short sessions than all the others, although of course it helped to know a little regarding terminology, but all the others are like camera manuals or some recipe books, they swap and change, refer one too a different page, that makes things disjointed, of course one has to have an amount of this, but continuity is key, well done! You did all this, with helpful visual aids to reaffirm the methods and reinforcing the procedure. The only aspect I would add, is possibly a PDF sequence of still photos with captions overlaid, like you had in the video, this could be printed and would be easy to laminate to form into a series of visual aids/ref, for each type of method and give a wipe clean surface for in the kitchen. This along with suggestions or mentions that the long procedure, (which I’m sure alienates some from attempting the process) can be incorporated into a day of baking, watching a film, studying, or general day to day at home, using timers for breaks and relieving those other chores. I congratulate you on making something that seems very complicated, into a rewarding improvement in both ones day and health. David. Lyndhurst.New Forest UK
Thanks for the excellent advice. I was having real challenges with my starter with 50/50 rye/bread flour feedings suggested by others. As well, I wasn't always regular with my feeding schedule and a nasty bacteria seemed to take hold that overtook the yeast and left me with no rise and eventually just a soupy messages the bacteria ate the food supply provided by the new feeding. It was only by using all purpose or bread flour that I was able to revive my starter.
Also, about the starter in your crock. Am I to understand that every couple of months you start the crock over after cleaning it out completely and putting a dump of fresh peak starter in it to keep it strong? I just love your videos. Your method has much more attention to detail and fine tuning that is extremely helpful. It isn’t difficult and of course your tips give the baker the greatest insurance to achieving that great oven spring. Keep them coming please😺
Thanks, Christine, for this wonderful feedback - you are very encouraging :) I usually replace the refrigerated stock every 3-4 weeks - just replace it entirely with the starter I always leave out, feeding regularly, at room temperature. It's a nice back-up in case I ever run into any issues with contamination (which so far, knock on wood, I never have) :)
Thank you so much Kristen. Your recipe was very good. I just have be sure to work the dough enough and get a windowpane and use flour only when doing the final shaping to go into the bannetons. Practice makes perfect! Awesome videos. Now I have to learn instagram to follow you there too😊
@@christinemayer3967 Haha, hope you make it onto Instagram - there is so much inspiration to be found under #sourdough! It's a booming, supportive, wonderful community of bakers :)
Thanks so much, this solved a problem that has been bugging me for many months. I started with the 9pm feed at 1:4:4. Morning 1, it was less than doubled. Morning 2, it was doubled. Morning 3, it was a bit more than doubled. Morning 4, it suddenly more than tripled. It's never been this active before, thank you for such clear instructions!
Sure glad I found your channel. I have watched dozens of youtubes on this and having problems. Your videos have more details and I can follow better. I will cut back my starter to recommended in this video and just be patient.
Really appreciate detailed video. I loved the fact that most work is done at 75F or so..Which amounts to roughly 37C. In this way u r able to choose a thermostable consortia and also tweak with time of fermentation. Being in India, your suggestions of temps are so welcome coz we routinely face such regular temps round the year unless the himalayan states😁. So thanks a lot for sharing the valuable info!
@@Kintsugi.tv1 yeah, I did realise that my conversions were wrong. Thanks for mentioning. But I would still love to experiment for selecting such an yeast+LAB consortia working at high temps😊
@@arunamahesh3794 your best best is to get a fermentation temperature control box or a small wine chiller that can adjust temperature, otherwise you need to stick to stiff levain to maintain throughout the day then turn it into liquid levain when you wanna mix the dough on that same day.
Wow! I've been wasting so much flour! This is such an excellent method! Thank you for such clear instructions. I am excited to see how mine behaves with a similar regimen.
This is great instruction! Thank you so much! One question I have that isn’t addressed in the video is in building the starter with such small amounts, how do you end up with a specific amount called for in a recipe? For example, say I need 100g starter. Do you just do the last feed before building your levain with more starter which increases the amount of flour and water?
A very good question. I imagine one could make too much starter and save the remainder. (I’ve done that.) But what’s the best way to generate an off-shoot starter in a separate jar? Do I just estimate the quantity? Thanks!
Wow! The time lapse comparsion at the end of the video was awesome! My starter is nowhere near as strong as yours after 6 hours. Mine pretty much doubles and then sinks back down
Really clear. Thanks. I've got two for comparison since I'm just learning. My refrigerated starter smells like apple pie liqueur. The branch i feed daily now smells like stinky cheese at maturity.
Thank you so much for this extremely well-done and detailed tutorial. I learned about you from Tim Chin over at Serious Eats. I had been struggling to get great results and now understand the rhythm of my starter. After a few weeks of practice, I finally got a beautiful loaf today, thanks to you!
Great video. I have been having problems with my bread raise and I am sure it is my starter. I will give your method a shot and hopefully get an improvement in my bread. Thanks for posting!
Full Proof Baking My only suggestion would be to make your flowcharts available in a PDF with a link in Description. Videos are very precise and to the point which I like.
Clear and concise! Thank you. So, is the final starter considered a 100% starter? What about the levain you made? What is it’s “percentage”? In this exampl, what would be considered percent of inoculation?
I used a 30% Rye and 70% Bread Flour starter that I hadn't fed for 2 days and added that to my Wholewheat and Bread Flour dough, combined well and did one stretch and fold after 45 minutes and into the fridge overnight. In the morning I did one stretch and fold and let the dough sit on the counter for 2 hours and then back into the fridge until bake time at 2:30 pm and then right into the oven on a pizza stone. The result was a fantastic pair of loaves with nice big holes and a fantastic chewy crust. I don't think you need to make baking sourdough into a science project, but I do appreciate the video here.
Thank you for this detailed video and for wonderful written instructions that I followed to a T. I am very new to this, but I managed to end up with a great looking starter after 14 days. I will use 15 grams to make the sourdough bread, but how do I keep the rest of the starter alive and kicking without having to feed it 3 times a day until the end of time?
Give it a feed, wait about an hour, and store in the fridge. I've actually forgotten about starter for a couple of months and revived it. There are also methods to spread out your starter, let it dry, and freeze it, but I haven't personally done it.
Hi 😀 first of all a great thank you for the video . What I have to do if I bake every day ? How I have to feed the starter bevor making the levain? Thank you very much ❤
Thanks for the useful videos. My crumb has improved a lot thanks to you! My main issue is shaping... if you could possibly cover that one day would be great! Many thanks
Thanks for this feedback! Have you seen my recent video titled Basic Open Crumb Sourdough? The link can be found in the description above. Check my shaping technique at timestamp 12:20 :)
Nikolai Jerrard I have been following the standard sourdough starter feeding of 100g of Flour and 100g of H2O and have been making a lot of fry bread, pretzels, pizzas as well as waffles and pancakes etc but there is a limit this method makes so much more sense
Hi! I love your channel. I've followed this recipe a bunch and get great results every time! :) The one thing I haven't figured out is how to feed the mother starter? I always end up with a dead mother starter and I really want to keep mine alive. Right now its in the fridge in a glass jar with the lid on and its about 1/3 cup starter. Thank you!
Excellent channel. Thanks for the great info. I was wondering if you could shed some light on maintaining a starter in the fridge? Ie when is a good time to put it in the fridge? When you want to feed/refresh the refrigerated starter how should that be done? I bake once a week so ideally I'd like to just feed my starter weekly. And use it to build a levain as outlined in this video. Thanks!
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and experience - incredibly helpful. Can you explain further your comment of replacing the refrigerated starter every few weeks (min 2:53)? What is the source for the new starter ?
Very welcome! I actually bake almost daily, so my starter is always kept out on the counter. So when I'm going out of town every so often, I'll just toss out the weeks-old starter in my fridge and replace with the starter I've been regularly feeding that's been out at warm room temp. Hope this clarifies!
@@FullProofBaking When you are feeding the starter daily would you just do a 1:2:2 every 12 hours and on the morning of the baking you do the 1:5:5? also what is the size of jar that you would use to keep the master levine for baking, is it in the fridge at all times? how much do starter do you keep at all times? thank you so much!
@@adamfrumkin8337 If I'm feeding just twice a day at room temp, my starter would need closer to a 1:10:10 feed every 12 hours. Yours might be over-diluted at this ratio, so it's best to test different ratios and see which one gets your starter to just peak at the 12-hour mark. But most of the time, I feed 3x per day according to the directions in this video (Day 2). On days when I'm baking, I'll feed my starter in the morning 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 to both build my levain and have a little left over to feed again mid-day to keep the starter going. When I'm not planning to bake any time soon, I'll feed 1:1:1, wait 2 hours, then put my jar in the fridge for up to a month. I keep dehydrated starter (see my tutorial here on TH-cam on how to make a dehydrated back-up), and some discard in the freezer, and a jar of starter in my fridge as well just in case my room temp starter becomes contaminated. Hope this clarifies...
Yes these instructions are very clear and easy to follow. BUT ... who has time to prep starter for 3 days before baking? Yes, I'm not in a hurry and I take the slow approach -- mixing with 4 sets of stretch & folds, bulk fermenting, then shaping, then resting loves in the fridge for 12-24 hours. That's as much time as I can squeeze out of my week to enjoy making some decent sourdough. I came here to learn how to improve my sourdough loaves which already seemed quite good. How many people making awesome comments here are ACTUALLY making bread this way by feeding an already active starter for 3 days before baking sourdough? I really don't understand this. I'm a home baker (2 years into sourdough). I know I wouldn't have started if I read that good sourdough requires 3 days of feeding to get a great open crumb. I came here to learn a bit more about sourdough and to up my game now that I know the lingo and have made lots of good loaves. I wan't expecting to learn that my once-fed starter that's doubled isn't actually ready to bake with yet. Thoughts anyone? I notice that Kristen doesn't respond to questions. Maybe some folks here who are really trying out these methods will offer some good-hearted feedback. I don't mean to sound like a bread curmudgeon, but time is an issue even in work-from-home-covid-times. Cheers!
Yes! It will go much faster. If you use the rubber band and keep an eye on when it peaks, you should be able to work out a feeding schedule. All your times will be faster with such a warm ambient temperature.
Hi, Thank you for your amazing video, it is wonderful ! Would you please show me that after the day 3 feeding at 7am, how do I know the levain peak at which point so that I can determine to use it just before peak or at peak ? Thank you !
This is the best instructional video I have seen on this simple yet confusing subject. No time wasting theatrics and nonsense to distract and great visuals to back up the info. Brilliant. I fast forward other videos when the host starts babbling, then become worried I missed something important. I'm so glad to not waste an unnecessary excess of flour feeding my starter and great tip on mixing the rye with bread flour. I don't know why I didn't think of that. This answered many questions for me and I've been baking a long time.
I have wasted SO much flour, not clearly understanding starter maintenance and the difference between starter and levain, until today. This explains it all so clearly. Thank you!
Baked bread today with the levain I built with this plan. Best oven spring I've ever gotten. Really beautiful texture in the bread as well. Even pancakes made with the discard are the best I've ever made. This system WORKS and it's saving me flour!
I am so glad I found this video after watching 1000 videos, very clear step by step instructions will answer all of my questions. Thank you
Thank you for your clear and timely responses to questions. Your video presentations are exquisitely produced and perfectly paced. Every bit of their content is relevant and clear. Production value is masterful which makes the learning process a compelling delight. With a background in both videography and teaching I know, firsthand, what it takes to produce quality work such as your videos. Kudos, Kristen! Such a delight!
Wow thank you for this amazing feedback - I really appreciate you taking the time to write in. It takes a long time, as you know, to produce these videos and I'm still definitely learning how to make the videos better over time. I'm so thrilled they seem to be helpful to other bakers - the effort and time is all worth it! Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful comment :)
Other than the beating drum in the background ,in some of your videos , I not only have learned a great deal of information , your presentation is excellent. No nonsense or gimicry. Excellent graphics to help understand the timing and process. I have been trying for a long time to get the open crumb and oven rise that your breads have. I am going to try to up my hydration and extend my bulk fermentation. I have even purchased a couple of your recipes to hopefully help fund the continuation of your endeavors. Thanks so much.
Such a great video; excellent detail, camera work, etc. but your voice is so soothing I feel like I just finished a therapy session. I have always fed once on bake day and wondered why I wasn't getting a good open crumb. Now I know. Thanks
Thanks for this. One of the best guides I've ever seen. I've been wasting horrific amounts of flour to maintain my starter. This makes so much sense to just keep the quantity small until I need it and will save me a fortune. I now have a TINY jar with just 5 grams of starter, water and flour and it's doing very well.
I've watched tons of videos on making sourdough starters. This one is by far the best. My starter has looked exactly like the video. Thanks!
Question: I decided to buy the Brod & Taylor proofer which will arrive tonight. With the cooler temperature, I want the accuracy. I completed my day 3 feed yesterday. Do I do a day 4? If yes, just repeat Day 3?
This is the best explanation I ever seen for making sourdough bread ,very dedicated in details Thank You !!!
Absolutely agree! Wonderful
Quite a joy seeing everyone's different methods of process with their sourdough starter. I like how you use %90 unbleached bread flour and dark rye for the remaining %10. Seems like a nice ratio for a tasty bread. Great work and thanks for sharing.
Checking the extensibility of the levain is an important tip!
Yours are the best instructions I have found, and I have been looking for a couple of months! Thank you so much for your videos! Now I feel confident to start baking!
Thank you! So well explained! Now I understand how important is to feed several times the starter before building the levain, if we don't make bread every day. I am making sourdough bread at home for 2 years now, and I think that my next breads will come out better, thanks to you!
Borderline scientific. Excellent... I tried making a starter before and it worked but I had no idea about levain building and the result was bittersweet brick bread. I hate failure so it's again time to give it another go. This has given me the incentive again. My interest in sourdough came from watching Dick Proenneke videos and his sourdough cooking alone in the wilderness. So greetings from Scandinavia where rye flour is readily available everywhere...
I just discovered the best sourdough youtube channel ever! thx so much for all this information, is two years since I started baking and I never found a video so well explained, thx again!
Finally a channel that is actually understandable and full of patience!
I just want to THANK YOU so much, I have been struggling this winter for how to get my starter active. It was just clearly weaker than the warmer months, even after feeding 1:2:2 every 12 hours. I tried this method and my starter was better than ever and most importantly my bread was better! I really appreciate your videos.
Makes sense, you went from 2 a day feedings to 3 a day with this plan. That is a significant difference.
Wow, best lesson on perfecting a sourdough starter. Thank you so much.
I’ve been messing up my recipes because my starter wasn’t active enough. I’m super glad I found this guide! Very well explained and easy to follow.
A bit of overkill though. As long as you keep the starter in the fridge, feed your starter around once a week, you only need 2 to 3 feeding the day before baking. I use 1.3.3 in the morning, 1.3.3 later in the day and 1.3.3, At night. The next morning I bake. Depending on the temperature my starter in the morning will be 2 to 3 times and height. Sometimes if it’s too warm it will rise and collapse. I still use it as is and I haven’t had a problem since using this method. .
This woman is a genius
Thank you for the great and very clear recommendations in each of your videos. Your background and attention to details truly show in your baking and your clips.
Unbeknownst to me, I had a sour alcoholic underfed starter. But I knew I had an issue. This tutorial saved my starter! You’re so talented and knowledgeable!
The clearest and informative video I've watched so far about levain. Now I know the difference between levain and starter :) This morning, I started feeding my starter from Day 1!
Thank u for the vid omgggg i felt like i wasted a whole set of flour AND discard when i was feeding .5-1 cups of flour ugh so helpful !!
Thank you so much for helpful information, I was struggling to make Einkorn sourdogh starter ( Whole wheat ). Some reason my starter got so hard using other's Einkorn starter recipe. I'll try again and see how goes and later I'll put comment on. I feel so much better and confident knowing reasons why I should do this way than just guessing and making sourdough starter. Thanks again!!
Your explanation of each step is awesome! You're my sourdough saving grace!
Hi, thanking you for your lovely video. I have a starter that is 3 years old. I feed it once a week as I use it to make bread once a week. I have 300 grams in the jar that is kept in the fridge. The recipe that I use calls for 300grams of Sourdough starter. What I have been doing is taking the jar out from the fridge to come to room temp take out 100grams and feed it with 100 grams of bread flour T65 and 100grams of water and I let it rest in another bowl for about 5 hours which becomes the 300 grams needed for my bread recipe. The other 200grams of my chef starter I toss 100 grams and feed the remaining 100grams with 100grams flour and 100 grams of water which brings me back up to 300 grams that goes back into my jar washed every week let it come to room temp for about 2 hours and then put back into the fridge to sleep till the following bread bake and this i have been doing for 3 years with a lovely rise to my bread every time baked in the pot. I bake too with a cold oven at 260C for 30 minutes then drop to 240C for 15 minutes and then I just watch to see the color that I like sometimes takes 5 to 10 minutes at 200 or 220C just depends with the tapping on the bottom and color.
Love this simplicity - if it works, stick with it :) Happy baking!
You are a gem! clear, detailed and so very helpful at getting to improve my starter/levain quality. Thank You!
Thank you soooooo much for all your help and video about how to boost a starter!! My levain for bread that I prepared today is thriving yahoo!!!! I’m very happy!!! Thank you for such a video! It really helped to boost my stubborn starter ❤️ ❤️
Thanks so much Kristen. This is exactly the video I was looking for. I have a really healthy starter, but I realize I need to manage it a bit better to help it reach it's max peak potential. I'm going to be a starter life coach!
Finally a good explanation about the ratios (and how to make them work in our favor). Lovely!
My foray into sourdough began a couple of weeks ago when I was gifted some starter. I first followed my friend’s instructions on feeding, but your comprehensive video is above and beyond what I have been doing! Look forward to implementing these guidelines to improve my starter and bakes! (Btw, I’ve named my starter ’Fillimi’ meaning in Albanian the beginning or start: Fillimi i bukës ~ the beginning of bread ;)
Hi I just discover your videos ,I started to bake 2yrs ago on and off but because I had more failure than success and it was about how to really wake the starter after long refrigeration.and also I did not know the use of rye as base food for the Levant. So eather my bread won't rise or barely rise .But the taste always great.But the details about the need to know on the the temp and types of hydration I really behind on that.but truly thank you now let me go start waking my starter fresh out of the fridge. Again thank you.
Wow, great video/content. What I took from this is the higher % of breadflour is mainly responsible for the extended rise, followed by frequency of feeds per day
Perfect video! Thanks! I'm saving my starter after keeping it tooo long in the fridge. I'll probably see it alive after the next 2 days
This video deserve over a million view in coming future. I kind of mess up my young starter 1:1:1 (14 days) and it was very active before it went into the fridge), to prepare for bake, I took 10g of cold starter from fridge today and feed with 1:1:1 but with different flour (a big mistake?), I feed with 10% protein bread flour French made, starter was formerly made by 13% protein Korean bread flour, it has been 8 hours now and no rise activity at all, I worry I have to build this like almost from scratch now (I have done the same to those remain in fridge at the same time). And yes, your voice is sweet.
Yes it takes several feedings with the new flour before the starter will jump start again. Give it time - keep it warm, feed at peak, and it'll turn around :) Thanks for your feedback!!
This was the first time I've met you here; many thanks for theese valuable additions for sourdough, from nowon to improve myself will be a MUST for me, thanks again:)
That's the best starter I've seen on TH-cam by far
The absolute best starter video I've ever seen!
Well through your video I realized a lot of things I've been doing incorrectly with my sourdough starter that has probably been the cause of some inconsistency in my baking. Thank you so much!!! Love your channel.
Thank you very much! Love to hear they can be useful to other bakers ❤️
Thank you so much for this video, your explanation is thorough and detailed I’ve learned much more than with others, I’m currently making your starter to bake one of your beautiful breads 🙏🏻
So wonderful to hear this! Thanks for the feedback and for the support, I'm truly grateful :)
This is and your other sourdough videos are the best ever and I have watched a lot.
Thank you! Finally I can understand the behaviour of my starter versus learning about proportions, timings and schedules alone. The info about starter picking is especially helpful.
I was quite successful in my first bread baking endeavour when using just newly cultivated starter. My second bake was rather disappointing. It appears I didn’t reactivate the starter from the fridge properly. I also felt disheartened by the waste as I couldn’t use all the discard the process was producing.
Hi I’m from UK & have two books on sourdough and one was purchased fairly recently, I have watched videos and tried sourdough recipes! ☹️😔I can honestly and I say this as an x Tutor of products right across the board, for what you call Home Depot, in UK it’s B&Q, I used to travel all around the south and have big sessions of staff and suppliers, to relate the what, when, where and how items for the home and professional worked etc.
I have to say, your tube is excellent, I learnt more in the two short sessions than all the others, although of course it helped to know a little regarding terminology, but all the others are like camera manuals or some recipe books, they swap and change, refer one too a different page, that makes things disjointed, of course one has to have an amount of this, but continuity is key, well done! You did all this, with helpful visual aids to reaffirm the methods and reinforcing the procedure. The only aspect I would add, is possibly a PDF sequence of still photos with captions overlaid, like you had in the video, this could be printed and would be easy to laminate to form into a series of visual aids/ref, for each type of method and give a wipe clean surface for in the kitchen.
This along with suggestions or mentions that the long procedure, (which I’m sure alienates some from attempting the process) can be incorporated into a day of baking, watching a film, studying, or general day to day at home, using timers for breaks and relieving those other chores.
I congratulate you on making something that seems very complicated, into a rewarding improvement in both ones day and health. David. Lyndhurst.New Forest UK
Very informative and I am pleased to see my method is very similar. The big difference is my bread because I do not like an open crumb.
Thanks for the excellent advice. I was having real challenges with my starter with 50/50 rye/bread flour feedings suggested by others. As well, I wasn't always regular with my feeding schedule and a nasty bacteria seemed to take hold that overtook the yeast and left me with no rise and eventually just a soupy messages the bacteria ate the food supply provided by the new feeding. It was only by using all purpose or bread flour that I was able to revive my starter.
Wow. What a tremendous instructional video. Thank you so much for such concise, succinct, and clear minded instruction
Thank you for the suggestion of reducing the water content. I live in one of those warmer climes and your advice should help.
This is exactly what i needed! my starter is active but not as active as yours.... now i know why :D Thankyou for the video!
Great to hear it could be useful to you! :)
Also, about the starter in your crock. Am I to understand that every couple of months you start the crock over after cleaning it out completely and putting a dump of fresh peak starter in it to keep it strong? I just love your videos. Your method has much more attention to detail and fine tuning that is extremely helpful. It isn’t difficult and of course your tips give the baker the greatest insurance to achieving that great oven spring. Keep them coming please😺
Thanks, Christine, for this wonderful feedback - you are very encouraging :) I usually replace the refrigerated stock every 3-4 weeks - just replace it entirely with the starter I always leave out, feeding regularly, at room temperature. It's a nice back-up in case I ever run into any issues with contamination (which so far, knock on wood, I never have) :)
Thank you so much Kristen. Your recipe was very good. I just have be sure to work the dough enough and get a windowpane and use flour only when doing the final shaping to go into the bannetons. Practice makes perfect! Awesome videos. Now I have to learn instagram to follow you there too😊
@@christinemayer3967 Haha, hope you make it onto Instagram - there is so much inspiration to be found under #sourdough! It's a booming, supportive, wonderful community of bakers :)
Thanks so much, this solved a problem that has been bugging me for many months. I started with the 9pm feed at 1:4:4. Morning 1, it was less than doubled. Morning 2, it was doubled. Morning 3, it was a bit more than doubled. Morning 4, it suddenly more than tripled. It's never been this active before, thank you for such clear instructions!
Wow - so great to hear you've found your starter's max peak potential! What a great success story!
Hi, I have a question. Were you feeding it just once a day in the morning following the above ratio?
This is such an excellent video. No nonsense, well presented and gave evidence for the suggestions given. Thank you!
Best sourdough videos on the internet. You are very. good. at this.
Sure glad I found your channel. I have watched dozens of youtubes on this and having problems. Your videos have more details and I can follow better. I will cut back my starter to recommended in this video and just be patient.
Really appreciate detailed video. I loved the fact that most work is done at 75F or so..Which amounts to roughly 37C. In this way u r able to choose a thermostable consortia and also tweak with time of fermentation. Being in India, your suggestions of temps are so welcome coz we routinely face such regular temps round the year unless the himalayan states😁. So thanks a lot for sharing the valuable info!
You are wrong 75F=24C
@@Kintsugi.tv1 yeah, I did realise that my conversions were wrong. Thanks for mentioning. But I would still love to experiment for selecting such an yeast+LAB consortia working at high temps😊
@@arunamahesh3794 your best best is to get a fermentation temperature control box or a small wine chiller that can adjust temperature, otherwise you need to stick to stiff levain to maintain throughout the day then turn it into liquid levain when you wanna mix the dough on that same day.
@@eddyed8135 yeah, an incubator of sorts whereby one can select a particular temp to expt. Thanks.
Wow! I've been wasting so much flour! This is such an excellent method! Thank you for such clear instructions. I am excited to see how mine behaves with a similar regimen.
Great to hear!! ❤️
This is great instruction! Thank you so much! One question I have that isn’t addressed in the video is in building the starter with such small amounts, how do you end up with a specific amount called for in a recipe? For example, say I need 100g starter. Do you just do the last feed before building your levain with more starter which increases the amount of flour and water?
A very good question. I imagine one could make too much starter and save the remainder. (I’ve done that.) But what’s the best way to generate an off-shoot starter in a separate jar? Do I just estimate the quantity? Thanks!
Wow! The time lapse comparsion at the end of the video was awesome! My starter is nowhere near as strong as yours after 6 hours. Mine pretty much doubles and then sinks back down
Really clear. Thanks. I've got two for comparison since I'm just learning. My refrigerated starter smells like apple pie liqueur. The branch i feed daily now smells like stinky cheese at maturity.
Amazing! SO helpful. Thank you! The science and methodology is so cool.
Thank you so much for this extremely well-done and detailed tutorial. I learned about you from Tim Chin over at Serious Eats. I had been struggling to get great results and now understand the rhythm of my starter. After a few weeks of practice, I finally got a beautiful loaf today, thanks to you!
Great video. I have been having problems with my bread raise and I am sure it is my starter. I will give your method a shot and hopefully get an improvement in my bread. Thanks for posting!
Very welcome! Thank you very much for the feedback - hope to hear your rise improves! :)
Full Proof Baking My only suggestion would be to make your flowcharts available in a PDF with a link in Description. Videos are very precise and to the point which I like.
@@richbolton7422 Love it! Will figure out how to do this...
@@richbolton7422 OK I think I figured it out! Thanks for the feedback and tip :)
@Full Proof Baking Thanks so much!!
Best video ever ! Thank you.. now I can strengthen my starter ! To get best results !
Thank you very much Rana, for your kind feedback. I hope this can be useful! :)
Clear and concise! Thank you. So, is the final starter considered a 100% starter? What about the levain you made? What is it’s “percentage”? In this exampl, what would be considered percent of inoculation?
Your videos are so clear and informative, they are brilliant (fan of yours from Instagram)
Thank you, great feedback - I'm very appreciative!
incredible starter can't wait to try it thank you so much.
Thank you, I learned so much about exactly what I needed to know.
Thanks for your sincerity explanation
Wow I just learned so MUCH about my starter and feeding for bake. Ty!
I used a 30% Rye and 70% Bread Flour starter that I hadn't fed for 2 days and added that to my Wholewheat and Bread Flour dough, combined well and did one stretch and fold after 45 minutes and into the fridge overnight. In the morning I did one stretch and fold and let the dough sit on the counter for 2 hours and then back into the fridge until bake time at 2:30 pm and then right into the oven on a pizza stone. The result was a fantastic pair of loaves with nice big holes and a fantastic chewy crust. I don't think you need to make baking sourdough into a science project, but I do appreciate the video here.
Thank you for this detailed video and for wonderful written instructions that I followed to a T. I am very new to this, but I managed to end up with a great looking starter after 14 days. I will use 15 grams to make the sourdough bread, but how do I keep the rest of the starter alive and kicking without having to feed it 3 times a day until the end of time?
Give it a feed, wait about an hour, and store in the fridge. I've actually forgotten about starter for a couple of months and revived it. There are also methods to spread out your starter, let it dry, and freeze it, but I haven't personally done it.
Hi 😀 first of all a great thank you for the video . What I have to do if I bake every day ? How I have to feed the starter bevor making the levain? Thank you very much ❤
Absolutely concise and helpful!!
Great work ! Thank you so much!
Nice work friend, thank you very much!
Thank you so much for the clear information, Even my english is very poor but the video help me to build patience and passion！
thank you sosososos much or all this knowledge and video shots... ugh a life saver for a beginner like me. found you from instagram xoxo
Great starter instructions! Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback! Happy baking :)
I loooove your videos!! Please keep feeding US with all your knowledge! Thank you very much!!
Maybe you can place a video of baking a focaccia ☺️
Thanks for the useful videos. My crumb has improved a lot thanks to you! My main issue is shaping... if you could possibly cover that one day would be great! Many thanks
Thanks for this feedback! Have you seen my recent video titled Basic Open Crumb Sourdough? The link can be found in the description above. Check my shaping technique at timestamp 12:20 :)
THANK YOU! I am useless with math and numbers, this explains "how to" that I can understand!
Excelent vídeo! I learned a lot with it! Thanks from Brazil!
I should really cut down my feed amounts, i realize i'm using too much flour. Thanks for the vid!
Very welcome! It really does end up saving a lot of flour cost in the end :)
SAMEE, I followed Joshua Weissman's guide and i have been wasting all of this flour!
Nikolai Jerrard I have been following the standard sourdough starter feeding of 100g of Flour and 100g of H2O and have been making a lot of fry bread, pretzels, pizzas as well as waffles and pancakes etc but there is a limit this method makes so much more sense
Thanks for describing the ratios!
Very helpful
Very concise and thorough! A joy! Thank you
Thanks for this feedback!
@@FullProofBaking it's well deserved, A fine channel.
Hi! I love your channel. I've followed this recipe a bunch and get great results every time! :) The one thing I haven't figured out is how to feed the mother starter? I always end up with a dead mother starter and I really want to keep mine alive. Right now its in the fridge in a glass jar with the lid on and its about 1/3 cup starter. Thank you!
Great video and info!! Thank you!!
Very good video. Clear and understandable. Thanks
Best informationVideo on the web. thanks for the information you are a true professional. My best wishes and success on all your endeavors. Gracias.
that is such an amazing video, I am hooked to all your videos. could you please also guide us on how to maintain the mother starter?
Excellent expiation! Thanks for doing this!
Excellent channel. Thanks for the great info.
I was wondering if you could shed some light on maintaining a starter in the fridge? Ie when is a good time to put it in the fridge? When you want to feed/refresh the refrigerated starter how should that be done?
I bake once a week so ideally I'd like to just feed my starter weekly. And use it to build a levain as outlined in this video.
Thanks!
Thankyou! I now see my starter was weak which explains my recent fails.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and experience - incredibly helpful.
Can you explain further your comment of replacing the refrigerated starter every few weeks (min 2:53)? What is the source for the new starter ?
Very welcome! I actually bake almost daily, so my starter is always kept out on the counter. So when I'm going out of town every so often, I'll just toss out the weeks-old starter in my fridge and replace with the starter I've been regularly feeding that's been out at warm room temp. Hope this clarifies!
@@FullProofBaking When you are feeding the starter daily would you just do a 1:2:2 every 12 hours and on the morning of the baking you do the 1:5:5? also what is the size of jar that you would use to keep the master levine for baking, is it in the fridge at all times? how much do starter do you keep at all times? thank you so much!
@@adamfrumkin8337 If I'm feeding just twice a day at room temp, my starter would need closer to a 1:10:10 feed every 12 hours. Yours might be over-diluted at this ratio, so it's best to test different ratios and see which one gets your starter to just peak at the 12-hour mark. But most of the time, I feed 3x per day according to the directions in this video (Day 2). On days when I'm baking, I'll feed my starter in the morning 1:1:1 or 1:2:2 to both build my levain and have a little left over to feed again mid-day to keep the starter going. When I'm not planning to bake any time soon, I'll feed 1:1:1, wait 2 hours, then put my jar in the fridge for up to a month. I keep dehydrated starter (see my tutorial here on TH-cam on how to make a dehydrated back-up), and some discard in the freezer, and a jar of starter in my fridge as well just in case my room temp starter becomes contaminated. Hope this clarifies...
Yes these instructions are very clear and easy to follow. BUT ... who has time to prep starter for 3 days before baking? Yes, I'm not in a hurry and I take the slow approach -- mixing with 4 sets of stretch & folds, bulk fermenting, then shaping, then resting loves in the fridge for 12-24 hours. That's as much time as I can squeeze out of my week to enjoy making some decent sourdough.
I came here to learn how to improve my sourdough loaves which already seemed quite good.
How many people making awesome comments here are ACTUALLY making bread this way by feeding an already active starter for 3 days before baking sourdough? I really don't understand this. I'm a home baker (2 years into sourdough). I know I wouldn't have started if I read that good sourdough requires 3 days of feeding to get a great open crumb. I came here to learn a bit more about sourdough and to up my game now that I know the lingo and have made lots of good loaves. I wan't expecting to learn that my once-fed starter that's doubled isn't actually ready to bake with yet.
Thoughts anyone? I notice that Kristen doesn't respond to questions. Maybe some folks here who are really trying out these methods will offer some good-hearted feedback. I don't mean to sound like a bread curmudgeon, but time is an issue even in work-from-home-covid-times.
Cheers!
You are a great teacher! Thanks 👏🏼💓
Thank you need to try this one.
This is very helpful. Im from Indonesia, normal temperatur here is 96degree, will it be same treatment or may be faster than 7 hours? Thanks
Yes! It will go much faster. If you use the rubber band and keep an eye on when it peaks, you should be able to work out a feeding schedule. All your times will be faster with such a warm ambient temperature.
Thank you so much. My starter is finally breathing life!
Some great ideas here. I appreciate your hard work, and I predict you are contributing to a lot of tasty bread being made :)
Thanks for this very kind feedback :)
Hi, Thank you for your amazing video, it is wonderful ! Would you please show me that after the day 3 feeding at 7am, how do I know the levain peak at which point so that I can determine to use it just before peak or at peak ? Thank you !