30 Comments

What about using whole grain flour in place of white?

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I’ve been using panettone 3x refreshed lievitati for croissants and brioche, how different is that process from the sweet starter?

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I'm confused ... how do I get this: 15g active 100%-hydration starter (100%)

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Wow. A dough that can hold in the fridge for four days and then the bread stays soft for a week! Thanks for sussing this out. I've got to try this.

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Feb 26·edited Feb 26

When making the sweet starter by hand or mixer, should I just mix it adequately until no flour bits left? Also just mix the water, sugar, flour and starter at once?

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What a great write up. I can't wait to see how this all shakes out in your book.

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Thanks Andrew and thanks Ian! Following your advice and proportions I tried to adapt Kozunak recipe by Breadstalker. That recipe although calls for a first dough (featuring SSS, more sugar, milk and flour) to proof between SSS and main dough. Brioche turned cottony soft and not acid at all, the whole process took 48 hours )without considering cold retard). Do you believe the first dough could be avoided by mixing the mature SSS (of course prepared according to the proportions explained above) into the final dough? For reference this is the recipe I have used several times now: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqvYPZbgXpM/?igsh=MmRhYjZ6dXJiMGZu

Thanks for your time and your consideration! Vittoria

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Hi Andrew,

In the beginning of the article you say 20% of starter in the sweet starter build and at the end it's 40% starter in the same formula. Is that a typo or did I miss a point here?

Thanks for this article! Been following Ian and practising his ideas for a while now and it's nice to have such a nice summary of the sweet starter.

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Hi Andrew, I am slighlty confused. In the article I had understood that the sweet starter needs to have 15% of prefermented flour accounting for the flour that comes from the liquid starter but in the excel sheet it gives 15% of flour + 40% liquid starter which equals to 18%. Is it a mistake or did I misunderstand ?

Thanks in advance.

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