My 100 % starter is too active. I am using unbleached bread flour that is 16% protein content and I am not able to feed it the night before because it rises in just 2-3 hours and by morning it has already fallen down. I have tried to slow it down by using cool water and my room temp at night is about 67 degrees. I use filtered water as well. It also seems to be thicker than when I used regular bread flour with less protein content.
Is there anything that I can do to slow things down besides putting it in the fridge over night and then having to wait for a couple of hours to use it?
Try this: before you go to bed, take a small jar and put 3 or 4 tablespoons of flour in it and then mix in some filtered water a bit at a time until you get the consistency you want (I’m typically shooting at somewhere around 80-90 percent hydration, but it really doesn’t matter that much). Then thoroughly mix in about half a teaspoon of your existing active starter. Loosely cover the jar and leave it out over night.
For me, when I wake up the next morning I have a nicely risen, mature starter to use. You may need to vary the amount of starter you mix in depending on your ambient temperature and other conditions. If you get too fast a rise overnight, use less starter, if too slow use more.
Here’s a post with some pics of what it looks like when i do it:
Sounds fine but I use around 400 grams of starter, but a couple of tablespoons of flour, some(?) water (?) doesn’t let me maintain my 100% starter that I need. Can you be more specific on the amounts? I weigh all my ingredients in grams and can’t make this work for me.
Try removing 100 grams of your starter late at night and feeding it 150 grams of water in 150 grams of flour. If that doesn’t work then increase the food and decrease the starter. For example 50 grams of starter and 175 of water and 175 of flour.
Another option is to feed your starter the way you usually do and in the early evening and keep it in the refrigerator overnight. Chances are with such an active starter you’ll be able to use it straight out of the fridge. Do the float test. I’ve done this before and it works okay.
Edited to add: if you have enough starter I’d try a few strategies and see which comes out better. You can always make pancakes!
Also, my starter behaves like yours and I just pull it out very early in the a.m. Start to autolyze the dough at this point too. And mix up everything 3-4 hours later.