WRK wrote:
> Hi Will:
>
> Thank you for a helpful and informative reply. Unfortunately, in Florida we
> seldom have cellars <g>.

That was certainly true the last time I was there <g>. I did note a
prevalence of wine coolers though. That will work. The game plan is to
keep the dough ball starter at about 50-60 F.

> Yet, within your reply I am interested in the growth rates of the yeast and
> LB's. I have perused some of the information on the growth curves including
> the Michael G. Gänzle, Michaela Ehmann, and Walter P. Hammes' study
> (http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/article...i?artid=106434 -- not that I
> would pretend to understand most of it but I get the drift that 85F is a
> good compromise temperature to encourage growth for both the LB's and
> yeast.).

The Ganzle material takes some time. There's a lot there. Different
pieces become clearer as various baking issues present themselves. You
might also look at the Ganzle/Wing discussion that Samartha has copied
as well. It covers a lot of the same ground... but is less dense.

> While the Detmold 3-Stage Process is for use with rye breads, does
> hydration have any affect on either LB or yeast growth rates in wheat
> breads? That is, is there any difference in LB/ yeast growth rates in a
> 150% or 200% hydration culture versus a 50% to 60% hydration culture, or
> even less at the same ambient temperature?

In general the more water, the quicker the fermentation. The Detmold
process is also managing ionic balance. This affects pH and acid
loads.

> Are you storing your cultures in dough balls simply as an effort to level
> the growth rate playing field between the LB's and yeast, or is the
> extremely low hydration a factor? I have read anecdotally that bread made
> with a chef (meaning a lump of old dough, in case I am using the terminology
> wrong) are more ______ {choose one or mo sour, complex, assertive, tangy,
> etc.}. I have never tried it, but it seems that is close to what you are
> doing.

I started the dough-balls because I was tired of hooch. It simply
seemed like a cleaner way to go. And I kept them in the refrigerator.
At the time I was running 5 starters, using two a week. So the down
time for any particular starter was 2.5 weeks. By moving to dough-balls
I eliminated the water trap effect. I was also building and discarding
starters frequently and noticed that they would start "sharp" when new
but become mild over time. I knew that big bakeries like Acme in S.F.
did not refrigerate starter, they used it 24/7 and they maintained it
in expensive bio-reactor style fermenters. Since it seemed logical to
move from the refrigerator, I moved the dough-balls to the cellar. The
senescence stopped. They stayed sharp. It is not exactly like the old
dough technique. If you are interested in that, Jeffrey Hamelman uses
preferments extensively throughout his book. My starter dough balls are
very small, no bigger than a ping pong ball. Dick Adams alluded to
starter build size earlier in the thread. Staying very small, 20--40
grams, and building each time is key to healthy starter and balanced
microbe populations.

> So far, I did not find, except perhaps an indirect reference by Dick A in a
> post, where varying hydration during starter development has been discussed.
> I inferred from that post (Dick A's) that normal sourdough hydration
> percentages did not have any significant effect on growth rates. However,
> there was no mention of hydrations in the 150% to 200% range nor in
> extremely low hydration rates.

You will find hydration covered in the Ganzle/Wing material. I think
the most important single variable however is inoculation percentage.
That is an art. My practice now is to build small, thick sponges from
very small amounts of starter. So I'm using about half my total water
for the sponge. I complete the balance when I build the dough. That way
the acid never gets away from me, it's well buffered in the sponge and
it's well diluted going into the dough.