How to control your sourdough starter

 

The headline is a bit misleading. You can’t control your sourdough starter or your leaven. At least not completely.
But you can manipulate it, and that’s what I’m going to talk about in this post.

Perhaps I might explain why you should know how to control your preferment.
For example, let’s say you are planning to bake a delicious sourdough bread for tomorrow’s dinner. You know that if you mix the leaven before you go to bed and let it sit at room temperature overnight, it will be ready in the morning.
You have done that many times before.
However, this time, there is a small problem.

It’s in the summer, and it’s hot. Really hot.

You are afraid that the starter will peak and start to degrade before you wake up in the morning.
You have been there before.
So what to do?

You can’t place it in the fridge because that will almost bring the fermentation to a halt.
If you have a basement or an air-conditioned room where it is a few degrees colder, the problem is solved.

But not everybody has that.

But don’t fret. There are other solutions. But before we continue, I think I have to sort out one thing.

 

 

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SOURDOUGH STARTER AND A LEVAIN?

Well, technically, there is no difference. Both are preferments consisting of flour and water.
However, there are sometimes different opinions about the difference between a sourdough starter and a leaven, or levain as it called in french.
Some only use the name sourdough starter, and some only use levain or leaven.
Others, like myself, call the preferment that is kept in the fridge and used to mix a levain before baking for sourdough starter.
Even if I use the sourdough starter directly now and then.
Does that make sense?
It’s not that important. To understand what I’m talking about in this post, you only need to know that I use a small part of my sourdough starter to mix a levain before baking. The rest goes back into the fridge.

 

 

SLOW DOWN YOUR STARTER

Use cold water and flour.

When you refresh your starter or mixing a leaven, you can use ice-cold water. It will, of course, not prevent your starter from reaching room temperature, but it will delay the process. Perhaps you can get an extra hour or two before it peaks.
You can also combine cold water with cold flour to delay the process even more. That requires some planning, though. You have to remember to place the flour in the freezer.

Use a cooler bag.

Place your starter or leaven in a cooler bag with some ice clamps. You don’t want it to be too cold, so don’t go overboard with the number of ice clamps.
Your starter will eventually peak, but it may take longer than you wanted. It’s advisable to do some testing before you use this method.

Add more flour and water when refreshing.

A popular ratio of refreshment is 1:2:2. That means one part mature sourdough starter mixed with two parts water and two parts flour.
But you can use a 1:3:3 or even 1:4:4. The more flour and water you add, the more time it will take until the starter or leaven reaches its peak activity.

Decrease hydration

A stiff starter is slower than a more liquid one. Let’s say your starter has a hydration of 100%. That means equal amounts of water and flour by weight. If you reduce the hydration to 80%, you will slow it down. The more you reduce the hydration, the longer it will take for the starter.

Add salt

Salt slows down the fermentation process quite a bit. Personally, I never add salt to my sourdough starter, the one I keep in the fridge and use for mixing a leaven. I want that clean from everything except flour and water. But when I mix a leaven, I sometimes add some salt.
The more salt you add, the more you will slow down the fermentation process.
However, it’s advisable not to add more than 2% of the amount of flour (bakers percentage). That’s the amount of salt you will find in most recipes.
Just don’t forget to adjust the amount of salt in the final recipe.

 

 

SPEED UP YOUR STARTER

Place it in a warm place

Speeding up a starter is, in my opinion, a bit easier.
You can place your starter or leaven at the warmest place in the kitchen.
On top of the refrigerator, it uses to be a bit warmer than in the rest of the kitchen. A sunny window is another great place.

Use your oven

You can also place it in the oven with the lamp lit only. But be careful. That small lamp generates more heat than you might think.
It’s advisable to check the temperature now and then as it can be too hot.

Use warm water

If you can use cold water to slow the stater dow, you can, of course, use warm water to speed it up. Be careful, though. Your starter will die if the water is too hot. Personally, I never use water with a higher temperature of 85ºF/30ºC.

 

TIME TO CONTROL YOUR SOURDOUGH STARTER

The above instructions may require some practice, but after a while, you will get the hang of it.
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, you can’t control your sourdough starter to 100%. Your starter is a living thing, filled with microorganisms that live their own life and multiply at a rate they find appropriate. And they couldn’t care less if you have opinions about it.
But now you have some tools to lead them in the right direction.