Getting Started

My story sounds familiar. Make some New Years resolutions with good intentions, then forget about them, or, allow them to nag in the back of your mind as you push it off to the “next day”.

I needed to create a personal website. I’ve thought about doing it since November. I had no problem finding excuses not to work on it.

I could say the same about baking bread. I enjoy doing it, but had found excuses not to.

I’ve started today, with a simple site, and a new starter.

Started, Day 2

In the past, I’ve followed Chad Robertson’s starter process from his Country Bread recipe. This time, I’ve used a recipe from @apieceofbread. He has also put his bread formulae up on Dropbox.

Bread Formulae

I find bread so interesting because at its simplest, it consists of flour, water, time, and heat. A starter makes use of those ingredients. In the beginning, you “feed” or replenish a starter each day. During that day, you want to keep you starter between 86°F and 104°F. My house does not get that warm, so my starter hangs out on top of my Mac Pro. The exhaust of my computer hovers around 100°F.

Keep warm little starter

Bread recipes represent all other ingredients as percentages of the total flour weight.

With this starter, you begin with 100% Flour, and 200% Water. That means, if you began with 30g flour, you would use 60g water.

Levain Starter Formulae

Get Recipe

Starter formulae from @apieceofbread on Instagram

Refreshment 0

100% Flour (whole grain)
200% Water

Time: 24h
Goal Temp: 40°C, or 104°F

Refreshment 1

100% Flour (whole grain)
300% Starter

Time: 24h
Goal Temp: 35°C, or 95°F

Future Refreshments
```
100% Flour (whole grain)
50% — 300% Water
20% Starter
```
Some people like wet starters, and some people like dry starters. That’s why the variation in water percentages.
Keep track of your starter’s hydration level. If you have 100% water and 100% flour, that’s 100% hydration. When determining the amount of flour to use for refreshment, you start with the amount of flour in your starter, and multiply by a factor of 5-20. Lower values are better for cold environment, and higher values better for warmer environments.
For Example
If your house is 66°, and you have 50g of 100% hydrated starter, you’d multiply 25 times 5, for 125g of flour. You could then add the appropriate amount of water for the hydration level you prefer.

Example Schedule

I’ve followed this schedule for the past couple of weeks. I keep my house’s temperature around 68°. I start my dough Friday afternoon, let it bulk rise through the evening, shape before bed, and proof overnight in the fridge.

Day 1 (Refreshment 0)

100% Flour:     100g
200% Water:     200g

Day 2 (Refreshment 1)

100% Flour:     50g
300% Starter:   150g

Day 3–7 (Refreshment 2)

100% Flour:     100g
100% Water:     100g
20% Starter:    20g

Morning of mixing

100% Flour: 250g
100% Water: 250g
20% Starter: 50g;