Experimenting with my Starter's Flavor

[PeterJM]

Regarding the flavor a starter gives to your final loaf, how much of this depends on the starter itself and how much depends on the most recent flour you used to feed the starter?

I wonder how much I can experiment with my starter by playing around with feeding it different flours right before baking, e.g. only all-purpose vs. only whole wheat vs. a 50/50 mix. Is my experiment limited because I'm technically using "the same starter," at least the same "base" starter? I've seen some people experiment with stuff like this online, but they usually do it by creating 3 or 4 or 5 different starters. I'm interested in experimenting with the same starter, but just feeding it differently right before baking.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Regarding the flavor a starter gives to your final loaf, how much of this depends on the starter itself and how much depends on the most recent flour you used to feed the starter?

I wonder how much I can experiment with my starter by playing around with feeding it different flours right before baking, e.g. only all-purpose vs. only whole wheat vs. a 50/50 mix. Is my experiment limited because I'm technically using "the same starter," at least the same "base" starter? I've seen some people experiment with stuff like this online, but they usually do it by creating 3 or 4 or 5 different starters. I'm interested in experimenting with the same starter, but just feeding it differently right before baking.

nobody knows if it is the grains, the wild yeast, the water, the weather, a combination of everything.

In San Francisco, where the sourdough is unique from other sourdoughs, they swear it is a unique yeast only found in San Francisco. San Francisco sourdough is so unique Boudin sends fresh starter from the mother dough to their stores every 3 weeks to ensure they’re stores producing genuine San Francisco sourdough bread.

Yet, scientist identified the species of yeast, then looked for the strain of yeast in other parts of the world, and found it existed in 90% of the bread producing world. It’s an absolute mystery as to how the unique flavors are developed in the various sourdough starters.

it is so poorly understood, a team of scientists at NC State University started the Sourdough Project to study sourdough starter. They surveyed over 1000 starters, from commercial and amateur bakers globally. They’re in the process of analyzing the data now.

The website The Perfect Loaf is a great resource on sourdough baking. Maurizio Leo just wrote a book on sourdough also called The Perfect Loaf. I don’t buy many baking books but I purchased one for my library and have given this book as a gift.