Grow your Roccella Sourdough Starter
Hey there, at Roccella we have been spreading the love for sourdough starters lately and I've noticed many of you have been curious about how to keep them feeling good and well-fed. Don't worry, Francesco has got your back!
He will be sharing his personal tips and tricks on how to keep your starter happy and healthy, so you can keep making those delicious pizza doughs, loaves of bread and baked goods.
Once you've given it a go, be sure to snap some pics of your creations and share them on Instagram or Facebook. Don't forget to tag us @roccella.melbourne, and if you have any burning questions, shoot us a message on social media - we're here to help!
What You’ll Need
Starter 100 gr
Water 100 gr
Organic flour 100 gr
What You Do
Mix together the water and the starter
Feed the starter by adding organic flour and keep mix until you see it’s smooth and creamy. Ideal would be using a small planetary mixer or your favourite household mixer
Repeat Step 2 (feeding) once every 24 hours if you keep it at room temperature or, once every 5 days max if you keep the starter in the fridge.
Tips:
Keep in mind that every time you have finished this step you will have 300 gr of final product, it is up to you what is the total quantity you want to keep, you might keep only 100 gr and waste or use the other 200 gr.
Before you use for a recipe you need to think how much you will need for the pizza or bread recipe, as you will need to make enough quantity to both use into the recipe and keep the ‘mother’. Into a final recipe you can swap completely the yeast with sourdough starter using 30% for pizza or up to 50% for bread.
Let’s make an example:
Use Roccella Sourdough Starter to Make Pizza Dough
What You’ll Need
1kg flour 00 (protein 11-13)
Water 580-650 gr
Roccella Sourdough Starter 300 gr
Fine Salt 30 gr
If you want to keep 100gr of ‘mother’, you will need to have 400gr of starter - 300gr for the recipe and 100gr for the mother.
To get to that you have two options:
A day before mixing the dough, I will keep 150gr of starter so the day after I will have 150gr + 150gr + 150gr = 450gr - 300gr/350gr for the pizza recipe and 100 for the mother
I can mix the starter as usual and have 300gr of final, which I will keep 100 for the mother and 100 on the side to feed again after 3 hours - 100gr + 100gr + 100gr. After the second feed, wait another 3 hours before you use into your recipe
Tips:
After any feed, first or second (in case of option 2), wait always 3-5 hours before you use into your recipe.
If you use any type of mixer, use a fast speed for the last minute of mixing. This will mix more air into the dough to make it grow more and be more elastic.
Grazie,
Chef Ciccio
