It is the foundation of your sourdough – flour and water, mixed with a small amount of your starter culture and fermented to create an active colony of microorganisms of wild yeast and lactobacilli.
Before I start, I’ll describe a process in a bakery. First thing in the morning, the starter is refreshed. It iss then used about midday and refreshed as the bakers make the dough. Then about 6:30 pm they refresh the starter again. It totally rocks. It is alive. In fact it is so alive it could practically climb out of the bucket and make itself into a loaf. It also tastes sweet. If you stand back and watch the bakers they taste the starter, checking for acidity.
It is especially important to keep it young and fresh because too much acidity with not only overpower the delicate flavours of the flour, but it will also degrade the gluten in the dough and loose volume.
So, this how a starter in a bakery lives it’s life. Young, fresh and sweet, and tended to several times a day.
