Biography of a Starter (day 10)
Today began my starter's regular feeding. Nancy Silverton's "recipe" in Breads from the La Brea Bakery really wants you to be feeding the thing thrice daily. While not a problem for me to do at the moment, I've adjusted things and put mine on a twice daily feeding, in anticipation of having a full-time job again.
Her feedings go through a lot of bread flour. I think I'll have to buy some in bulk to properly maintain it. And I guess herein lies my only problem with the book so far. It's not really a problem per se, it's just that Silverton is imagining the home chef as full-time baker. So she tells us what really works well for good bread, and that's incredible. However, cooking is something I do on the side, so I don't have access to lots of free time (well, normally, anyway) or large quantities of bread flour. I buy my flour at the supermarket in 5-lb. bags, not giant sacks from a distributor. Perhaps I will scout out Berkeley Bowl and see how its price compares in bulk. It won't be the same flour (I'm using King Arthur unbleached bread flour), but it'll probably be a lot cheaper.
Anyway, I finally got to remove the grapes from the starter. That's right, those grapes I put in on day 1 were still in there, submerged in a primeval goop of flour and water. Then you pour off all but 1 lb. 2 oz. (which is to say I measured that out first and discarded the rest). It seems like a lot of waste, but Silverton's reasoning is that it's easier to get fermentation going with a larger amount of flour and water. Okay, I'm willing to buy that.
The feeding schedule (my schedule, anyway) looks like this:
8:30am. Pour off all but 1 lb. 2 oz. of the starter. Add 12 oz. flour and 1 cup and some change
of water at 78 degrees. Stir well.
8:30pm Add 24 oz. flour, 2 cups of water at 78 degrees, stir well to combine.
Repeat, as Silverton says, for the rest of your baking life.
Wednesday (well, actually Thursday because it's a two-day process) is bread day!
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