Recently I've broken a jar with my starter, it was a disaster for me, it was working hard for more than a year - active and strong starter😭 But at the same time I didn't want to start making a new one from scratch and decided to use my mature and really active Pasta Madre with 40% hydration.
So I took a piece of it and fed it as a usual 100% wheat starter. Within two days it was ready for bread making and was strong and bubbly👌🏻 And you know, it's even stronger and better than the previous one about which I was so upset.
For sure the starter needed more time to change its microbiome (the combination of yeast and lactic acid bacteria) even if we use the same flour for feedings. Some time should pass to establish the power of the dominant yeast and lactic acid bacteria that are more likely to appear in the starter with 100% hydration. Only these bacteria and yeast can survive in such a hydration.
But without a scientific lab ⚗️🔬 it's impossible to know for sure, what is going on in our starter's microbiome, how much time it needs. We can only judge by its activity, its power, smell and taste, and for sure by the final result - bread, whether it satisfies us or not.
📌The same works for other starters. Can we get a wheat starter from a rye one - yes, can we get a lievito madre from a wheat 100% starter - yes. Maybe it's not a tradition method, but every time what we do - we give a good yeast and bacteria start to any starter we want to make.
And after giving it a good start we create a special conditions: we choose a special hydration, use a special flour, the ratio of feedings, the temperature of maintenance. And all these points create special conditions in which certain yeast and bacteria become dominant, they become typical for a certain type of a starter.
📌For pasta madre which has no more than 50% hydration we also can use a usual 100% hydration wheat starter to give it a good start. It's also not a traditional Italian method, but I know that it works, and many bakers already proved it by their beautiful pastry made with such transformed pasta madre.
Again, we don't know for sure how the microbiome changes during such a transformation, but if we are glad with a baked panettone or brioche, it means that everything is good with our pasta madre and its microbiome has changed nicely and works great for such a stressful pastry.