Pasta madre is a type of stiff sourdough, maintained at low hydration, usually 40-50% water. It is widely used in Italy, and mainly known to leaven enriched doughs like pandoro and panettone.
I have been maintaining mine quite stiff at 39-40% water (just to see if there's any difference from feeding it, say, 43-45% water) and so I use my mixer instead of my hands. Please hydrate your pasta madre according to your flour. Some flours absorb more water while some don't. The PM should be stiff and non sticky. At the end of lamination, it should be smooth and firm, not too soft.
Here in this video is 100g ripe pasta madre fed with 100g flour and 40g water, maintained in the chiller at 16C for 21 hours. Should have gone for longer, to 24 hours. The lower hydration slows down fermentation slightly. I encourage you to play with your feeding schedule because each flour (performance, water absorption level) and pasta madre (bacteria and yeast activity) is different.
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How to make pasta madre from scratch
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