Make Great Bread Using A Starter

A starter will give your bread a deeper flavor and make it last longer. I will show you what I use and the way I learned how to do it. So first off there are about four to six kinds of starters out there. I only use two of them but will tell you about three of them. The first is Poolish. It is a 50 / 50 starter. Meaning it has 50 percent water to 50 percent white flour. It usually contains only one to five percent yeast and may or may not contain any of the mother or previous batch in it. I have used it in the past for Ciabatta but I don't use it any more. I use a Sponge and a Biga or also known as a sourdough starter.
So a Sponge is really easy because it contains 100 percent of the water you will use in the recipe so there is no guessing later on. It also contains about 30 to 35 percent of the total flour. And 20 to 40 percent of the yeast. And 30 to 100 percent of the total sugars. I use a Sponge for my white and wheat bread. Let me show you how it is done and I will explain more.
Get a container that will be at least twice or 2 to 3 times bigger than the volume you are going to add to it. Add all the water from your recipe.
Take the amount of yeast from your recipe and divide it by 5. For white bread I use 20 percent and for wheat I use 40 percent of the total yeast. Add the yeast.
Take the sugars (if any) and divide it by 3. For white I add all the molasses and for wheat I add 1/3 of the molasses. Add molasses.

Now take the flour and divide it by three. Use the white flour part of the recipe and add 1/3.

Mix.

It should look like this...

The next day or in about 12 to 16 hours it will look like this...

A starter of this type or a Sponge should be used within the 12 to 16 hour mark for best results. Now just add the rest of the ingredients from your recipe and you will have the best bread you have ever made. If you are using a sourdough starter you probably already know what to do with it or how to feed it. I made my own about six years ago and am still using it. I have made over ten thousand loaves of bread and am still learning. So if you have any questions just ask.
Have a great day and happy baking.