Pasta Madre

Pasta madre
Is the first natural ferment I did create myself. Here in Italy is the most well known sour ferment. Basically it's a stiff sourdough with 45% hydration which have a balance of yeasts and bacterias (lactobacillus) that tend to favor acetic acid production. Altough there are several ways to maintain this culture, we will see how to create it and store in the easiest way:

1 part of active starter
2 parts of water
2 parts of flour

So 1:2:2

Formula in baker' s math is:

100% flour
45% water
50% starter

About flour
Usually the flour for this ferment should be white and with a good protein content (<11%).
However different kinds of flours can be used, from high extractions to whole wheats and of course flours from different kind of cereals.
Mind that higher the ash content, faster the fermentation will be. Therefore ripen times will change accordingly.
Nowadays it s more and more used to make pasta madre from spelt (if baking spelt bread), barley, oat etc...


About time
When a healty starter is used to build this ferment, it will ripen in 3 hours at 25°c. Time may vary using different flours as I mentioned before, as higher extractions flours tend to speed up the fermentation and shorten the ripen time.
This recipe can be used as a stand alone pre-ferment as well as a proper culture that can be refreshed and stored.
In the first case, you will have a pre-ferment which is strong and will rise your breads with ease but will lack a bit of sourness because the bacterias don't have the time to set a new balance in the new substrate.
In the second case, after a period of refreshings (from 1 month it will be noticeable) you will have a proper pasta madre, with a strong acetic sourness which also lead to a more complex flavour and different textures in final products.
I don't think that very old pasta madre (many years old) are very different from a 3 months one. Infact, bacterias and yeasts balance quite quickly with proper refreshing and storage.

About storage
Ok, you have created your own pasta madre, it' s healty and strong. Now, how do you store it?
The most interesting way for home baking as well as little bakery is to keep it in a sealed jar.
Material can be glass or food grade plastic.
Basically I suggest to refresh the pasta madre, ripen it at 25°c for half the time (look for an increase of 50% volume) and then store sealed at 4°c

Considerations
If you want a good acetic sour flavour, very good keeping quality but little less volume, this sourdough is the one you want to use.