The Perfect Loaf

To take a break from baking for up to two weeks: To a clean jar with a lid, add 20g ripe starter along with 100g all-purpose flour. Add 80g room-temperature water (which will yield a slightly stiffer consistency) and mix until no dry flour remains. Cover and let sit on the counter for 1 to 2 hours to allow fermentation to get going. Place in the re

Saving and Using Discard Create a starter cache in the refrigerator: Once your starter is strong and consistent, each day you discard, add it to this jar instead of the trash, cover it, and return it to the refrigerator where it will keep for up to 7 days. Draw from this cache of saved starter when you want to make a discard recipe (see suggestions

Since there’s no single point when a starter is perfectly ripe, it’s often the case that you use your starter a little early or a little late—and this is okay. However, I find I make better bread (flavor, texture, and overall eating quality) if I err on the side of using my starter when it’s very ripe, rather than underripe. Using your starter when

Type-85 Flour Type-85 flour is flour that is somewhere between white (which has very little bran and germ) and whole wheat (which has all of its bran and germ). I love using Type-85 flour in my baking because it hits the sweet spot: There’s ample flavor and nutrition from the increased bran and germ, but it still retains many of the characteristics

In extreme cases, when your starter ripens too fast even with a very small inoculation percentage, it might help to reduce the hydration of your starter. too. In my experience, a stiff starter seems to cope better with warmer temperatures because it can hang out in a ripened state for longer (see Hydration, this page) without becoming overly acidic

and ripe

This point in the refreshment cycle is also referred to as a starter’s “peak,” but the concept is the same: The starter is at a strong stage with high populations of bacteria and yeasts. There’s no single point in time or clear-cut indicator letting you know when a starter is ready for use, but rather, it’s a collection of sights, smells, and consi

In my experience, the amount of rise in a starter isn’t as important as other signs of fermentation (such as aroma, presence of bubbles, and its consistency) when gauging its level of ripeness. Take, for example, a starter consisting of 100% high-protein white flour compared to a starter consisting of 100% rye flour; these two starters will display

A liquid or stiff starter will work for all the recipes in this book (in my experience, the levain has a larger impact on the final dough characteristics than the starter). Each recipe begins with making a levain, and they assume a 100% hydration starter to make this levain. If you maintain a stiff starter, you may need to add more water when makin