HOW TO SWITCH FLOUR FOR YOUR SOURDOUGH STARTER

In a previous post, I claimed that I never mess with my sourdough starter. What I mean by that is I don’t add anything except flour and water. And I always use flour that I know works.
I have kept that promise for many years now. Don’t switch flour for your sourdough starter.
But two weeks ago, it happened.

I had to use another type of flour, one that I had never tried before.

My kids had used the last amount of my precious flour to make pancakes. Apparently, It was not enough, because they had gone to the grocery store and bought some extra.
Not the kind I use for bread baking, of course.
I’m not surprised, though.
We live out in the countryside, and the range of flour you can find here is somewhat limited.

Under normal circumstances, I would have jumped into the car and driven to the nearest grocery store, where I know I can find the flour I want.
But this time, there was no time for that.

My daughter was graduating, and we were preparing for a party. There were a thousand things that had to be done.
One of them was that I had promised to bake sourdough bread.

So I crossed my fingers and used the flour my kids had brought home and refreshed my starter.

Here are some related articles you may want to read:

How to control your sourdough starter

Flour guide for sourdough beginners

After six hours, nothing had happened.
Well, there were some tiny bubbles on the surface, But we all know that is not enough.
I refreshed it again with the same depressing result
My starter had been very active until that refreshment, so I knew that the flour was the issue.

But how can this happen? Is the type of flour you use for your starter that important?

Why is not all flour good for your sourdough starter?

When you mix flour and water, an enzyme called amylase starts to break down the starch in the flour into sugars.
That’s a good thing because sugar is what the yeast microbes in your starter need to thrive. And that is a prerequisite for your starter to thrive.
But hey, there is starch in all flour, so therefore all flour should be suitable for feeding a starter, yes?

In theory, yes. But the reality in a sourdough starter is a bit more complicated than that.
The microbes in a sourdough starter don’t necessarily follow any given rules. Especially not the ones we humans set up.
If you change their living conditions and they don’t like it, they will let you know.
And it’s impossible to know for sure if they will feel comfortable with the new diet you are offering them.

It doesn’t mean they can’t adapt to the new conditions. Many times they do, but it can take some time.
And in the meantime, you will have a grumpy starter with low or almost nonexistent activity.

Even with organic flour, you are not safe. Trust me, I have tried with very mixed results. At least when it comes to wheat flour.
The only type of flour that has never failed for me is whole rye.
It seems like whole rye is more packed with nutritions than most other flour types.
That’s why it’s a good idea to add a small amount of whole rye when your sourdough starter feels a bit sluggish.

Don’t switch flour for your sourdough starter if you don’t have a backup plan.

Sourdough starters are mysterious creatures. We just have to accept that.
The best we can do is to minimize the risks. That means we shall always test a new flour with a small part of our starter and see how it works.
Now, due to the circumstances, that was not an option for me. But even if my starter seemed to be ruined, at least temporarily, I had some backup.

I had an extra starter in my refrigerator. The problem was, it had not been fed for a couple of weeks, so I knew it would take at least 2-3 days to get it in shape again. I could not bake bread that day, but I did not have to create a starter from scratch if everything went completely wrong with my other starter.

So, the best advice I can give to you is, always have a plan B. Try to have an extra starter in your refrigerator. Then it’s not the end of the world if you happen to mess up your active starter. And always test new flour as a side project while maintaining your starter according to normal procedures. Testing new types of flour is something I encourage everybody to do. Who knows? You may find something that works better than what you are using today.

But never switch flour for your sourdough starter without a plan B.

But what about the bread I promised to bake for my daughter’s graduation party? Well, as you may have guessed by now, I could not keep that promise.
But I found some bread in the freezer. All bread that has been frozen becomes a bit stale, but there are ways to revive it.

Preheat the oven together with a baking sheet to 300°F/150°C.
Place the bottom of the loaf under running water from your faucet. Some prefer to let the water flush all over the crust, but I use to keep it to the bottom.
Place the loaf on the hot baking sheet and let it stay in the oven for 7-10 minutes.
You will have a good-as-new loaf.
It was good enough for me to get away with it because most of the attention was on the graduate.

And that’s just the way it should be on a day like this.