today we're going to be making a 60%
hydration mother dough pre-ferment. I'll be
mixing it up and then storing it in the
refrigerator so I can use it in a few
days. So we are going to be starting with
100 grams of 100% hydration sourdough
starter - was fed just last night and it's
real nice and vigorous. Two hundred and
twenty grams of water. Let me stir that...
and 400 grams of flour. I'm using bread
flour because I want the mother dough to
stand (hold up) up really well while it's fermenting
 in the refrigerator. Bread flour
allows the mother dough to last longer.
So we're adding 400 grams of bread flour
(400 grams of bread flour) and will stir
that up.
Now if you were planning to use this motherdough tomorrow then you could either leave it out
24 hours at room temperature and use it.
Or you could let it ferment for a couple
of hours today, put it in the refrigerator
and then take it and use it tomorrow. I'm
planning to mix up my dough on Monday (it was Saturday) and
bake on Tuesday so I will allow this
mother dough to go directly into the
refrigerator because I'm not going to be
using it for two days. Now the mother
dough is good for two to three days if
you're going to be using it as the
source of your leaven to rise your bread but
if you're just going to be using it for
added flavor and you have an additional
source of yeast, like a another starter or
commercial yeast, then it will last as
long as it has strength or stretch. Once
it breaks down into a gluey substance
it's no longer good, it will make your
dough slack. So get your hand in there and
work it really well it's a real low hydration.
Low hydration pre-ferments have more
strength than the wet pre-ferment they
have a higher concentration of yeast and
bacteria and they also absorb co2 into
into the dough and that's brought into
your final dough. You get a really good oven
spring when you use a dry starter
a very common starter is is is a 50
percent - Lievto Madre- or a Biga at
50% and sometimes they're made with
commercial yeast and they're even stiffer
than this. But I like working with the
60% mother dough, especially for people that
are learning to bake, it's just a little
easier to to work with, a little easier to
pull apart and to add to their dough. If
you don't use bread flour if you use an
all-purpose flour for a weak flour, your
dough ball is going to be a little more
slack than this. The more protein in the flour, the
more it will absorb the water. Ok now I'm
going to put that in the refrigerator
and I'm going to let it ferment for two
days, in which time I'm going to use it.
This mother dough is seven hundred and
twenty grams at 60% hydration and it
will be enough for one to three
different types of formulas, depending
upon what formulas you're using. So I'm going to put that
into the refrigerator and let it ferment.
To feed a mother dough starter, you would take
the mother dough that's left over
after you've used it for your formula
and you would make up a corresponding
amount of mother dough at 60% hydration
which would be every 100 grams of flour
you add 60 grams of water and then you
had just taken knead that into your
remaining mother dough. End. Music.
