Working with two starters

dorisw

 I have gotten into using two different starters when baking, because each brings different qualities. 

Initially I used a starter with a long history that had been passed on to me. It was traditionally fed with white flour, but I converted it to Spelt/ kamut/ rye since these are the flours I bake with. It was doing a fine job, except that, no matter what tricks I tried,  the resultant bread kept turning out tooo sour for our taste buds.

So I made my own starter from scratch, using pure rye flour. It is extremely active, has a wonderful smell and produces an amazing rise, but the resultant spelt/kamut/rye bread has no sour taste whatsoever  ( which we could live with) and lacks in flavor ( this we wanted to change). Therefore I decided to use 50% of each starter. I now get flavorful bread with just the right bit of tang. It is extra work, since I have to feed two starters. I was initially thinking of just combining the two starters right away and then work from there onward with the mixed starter and keep only one jar in the fridge, which would be more convenient. However, I was wondering  if the rye starter itself, after a certain period of aging,  would perhaps produce more flovorful and tangy bread on its own? If this is the case, then it would be best to keep the two separate, since I don't want end up with bread that is too sour again....

Any thoughts on this would be highly appreciated,

 

Thanks!

Do

 

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