I've been having probs finding time to progress, so have often had a starter ramping up on the counter for several days. I constantly expect today I'll get it going.
This week I even had to break down and buy bread for the first time in years. That gave me the kick in the butt to get something going after breakfast.
The first of the bread experiments for today is finished. This is from the newly-evolved (as yet unnamed) starter, baked up in a pseudo-brioche concoction.
The second batch is from my starter 'Stewart' and will be a pair of pumpernickel loaves. They'll need a little longer prove before baking with all the extra components which slow down the fermentation a tad.
A few weeks ago a fraction of one of my starters ("Stewart") was rather neglected for a couple of weeks of irregular counter-top feedings due to schedule and I noticed it was behaving a bit differently. (You get to know your sourdough family over the years, and Stewart is about 10yrs old.)
I suspect this was a change, so I've saved that splinter faction, and am trying a loaf from it today.
You should feed your starter the same thing (ie same flour) each time, to preserve the makeup of that cocktail.
But you can turn that around too: If you have several starters, mix a bit of each together and feed that w something else. It's a good way to breed say a rye starter.
Fed w rye flour over several feedings the bacteria and yeasts will re-balance on the new feedstock and optimize. You've now got a sour-rye starter.
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