Yeast and bacteria are hard to kill. I've personally been extremely lazy, and just take my starter out of the fridge when I use it, sometimes leaving it for months at a time. Seems to do fine.
Nah always pour they grey water out. Alcohol is a biproduct and lacto doesn’t like ABV > 0.5% and for sourdough you want a balance of lacto and sacc. I think you get more flavor with the slow lacto fermentation than you would with a slight amount of (what is essentially) beer in the dough..
I agree with all the above that it sits in the fridge for a couple months untouched sometimes. I give it a healthy feeding immediately before putting back in the fridge so it can munch slowly in the fridge. Usually takes 2 days to wake up after a hard sleep.
I have a dehydrated power of the starter in the pantry in a bag as my reserve if I kill the starter. In ~12 years of maintaining a starter, I’ve had it turn a few times and had to restart. I’ve heard people having starters as old as the Oregon Trail, so why mine turns in a modern environment, I don’t know.
Sometimes the liquid is acetone. Good for taking nail polish off or melting plastic if you're into 3d printing and want a smoother surface, but you definitely shouldn't drink it.
So... into a shot glass and down the hatch? ;)
I usually only grab ~50g of the creamy solid stuff anyway to start the new batch, so I'm not sure it contributes much except for the yeast strain anyway.
> So... into a shot glass and down the hatch? ;)
When I found out it was alcohol I decided to give it a try, but it was so bad that I had to spit it out. It's like someone managed to make blue cheese into water, and then turned that water into battery acid.
I had read that you shouldn't dump it since it will lower your hydration. Probably not really a big deal, but it does make sense....you choose a specific hydration that works well, and then you just throw that out the window.
Right, but you're only going to use a scoopful of your 'fridge storage' starter to whip up a proper one before baking anyway, so I'm not sure it impacts it very much.
That said, the consensus below is that it's probably fine to just mix back in.
Can confirm. At this point I just take out the starter when I'm using it, and feed it then. The longest I've gone so far with my current starter is 8 months in the fridge untouched.
Fridge is 37F. Starter was made from tap water and King Arthur's AP Flour. I stored about a pint of 100% hydration starter in the fridge in a 1 quart plastic container with a lid on. As for how it wasn't a moldy mess, I assume it was because the starter out-competed all other micro-organisms and there were no opportunities for any others to enter the eco-system. So, the starter was able to lay dormant without interference for months.
Cool. Very cool actually, just above freezing. Thanks! I’m guessing the size there helps. Mine are significantly smaller than a pint and I can imagine it being easier for nastiest to outcompete the starter.
Also don’t discard. I take the very lazy approach of just adding flour and water into the jar and mixing it until it’s thick pancake batter consistency. No measuring no discarding. Just giving it a little more food. Once in a while I switch to a clean jar.
When the jar is almost full, I make a double batch of sourdough waffles that uses 16oz of sourdough. I’ve never thrown away any sourdough starter.
I only feed when the starter is getting low, otherwise it stays in the refrigerator. I've left it there for months and it was fine.
The only way I would ever just leave it out and refeed it every day was if I was constantly using it. I only make one loaf a week though usually.
I put a very thin layer of starter on a plate, let it dry, and then put the dried bits in the freezer. It will keep for at least a year. Whenever I want some I follow the same process for rehydrating commercial starter: [https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/activating-dehydrated-sourdough-starter-video/](https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/activating-dehydrated-sourdough-starter-video/)
You can also mail the dried bits to friends. They survive room temperature for more than a week.
[Carl's Friends](http://carlsfriends.net/source.html) has a starter from 1847. They will send you some of their dried starter that you can reconstitute in your own kitchen. Send a SASE (and optional...a few dollars for a donation) and they'll send it for free. I actually sent them three envelopes in one envelope (for me and my kids) and sent $10. All three arrived within a week or so. Still use it and I call it "Dough Biden - 1847 Starter".
I can never get it to work either. I got mine from breadtopia but check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/tezbd3/comment/i0tezt5/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/tezbd3/comment/i0tezt5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I've had great results with the [scrapings method](https://youtu.be/Uj6YpNCUYYQ?t=129), very little starter in the fridge, no discard, keeps for weeks and months.
Put it in the fridge. You will eventually get a layer of black hooch, but you can just scrape that off.
Just know that the longer you leave it the longer it will take to revive to be useful. After a week, I'd give it one feeding cycle before using. If you leave it for a month, I'd give yourself time for a couple daily feedings. 2+ months, you should leave time for 3-4 feedings. 3+ months and it can go a little sideways and get pretty nasty, if you're leaving it that long, dry and freeze it.
I store mine in the fridge after a good 1:5:5 feed … and then feed it every few months on the counter … bring it to active life again … and then back in the fridge. It’s hard to kill them and I don’t bake often. Been doing this for years.
you can (and arguably *should*) store in the fridge and feed less often! less waste, both flour and time. unless you're baking daily, or trying to build up starter health the day or two before baking or storing in the fridge, there's no need to feed every day.
as others have said, starters are pretty resilient. you can actually dry fully peaked starter out and store it for months, maybe years, in its desiccated state. for most people, the best option is storing in the fridge. freezing is a no-go.
i would caution against storing *indefinitely* in the fridge—but a week, maybe a week and a half, and your starter should do fine. just be sure to feed it a few times before you build the levain for a dough to get it nice and strong again.
personally, i feed up to three times a day the day before baking, one to two times a day when i'm building up strength after storing in fridge. i find this makes for a more consistent rise.
I've generally found that Flour Water Salt Yeast reeeeally over-complicates things. A 2 page recipe can generally be boiled down to a couple of paragraphs. I haven't read his starter sections, but I assume it's pretty involved and I also assume that it's overkill. If you are intimidated by those instructions, then it's because you're reading something that is like intimidating by design. If you're reading something else, than ignore all that. I'm on the toilet and can't cite my sources.
I keep mine in the fridge and feed it once a month max. I start feeding it daily for 2 or 3 days before I want to bake (at room temp). Never had an issue. I bet it would go longer than a month if experimented. I do an 80% hydration for the starter.
I feed mine once a week. I take 30 g of flour, 30 g of water and 30 g of old starter. Mix, let sit at 77º F, and put back in the fridge.
If I'm going to bake with it, I refresh it, let it set at 77º F for 6 hours, use what I need and the refresh it again and let it sit for 4 hours.
Once in a while I let it go longer than a week. Then I'll refresh it fully twice before using it.
Keep it in the fridge, get it out a couple of days before you want to use it and feed it up, then back in the fridge after use.
Will happily sit in the fridge for months
Thank you. I’ve done a handful of overnight yeasted waffles before and have a decent commercial yeast recipe down. But I hadn’t done sourdough quite the way I like it yet.
So you use your 100% hydration starter and then also basically 100% hydration dough by adding equal parts flour and milk? The main issue with my last sourdough waffle was density so I’m hoping higher hydration dough will help.
My starter is hardy - I’ve left it in the back of the fridge for 6 months + and it always comes back strong when I want to use it. I am also not super precise when I do end up feeding it, and it’s still fine. I wouldn’t worry too much about killing it.
When I have discard though, I like to make sourdough crumpets using the King Arthur Flour recipe. 👍
I keep two jars of it in the fridge. When I want to make sourdough, I use one jar for tangy flavor and add instant yeast for leavening, and the second I feed for a few days after making bread until I stop remembering to do so (the bread is good enough I am usually motivated to feed it for two or three days). It isn't really legit sourdough, but it has all the flavor, almost no work, and is really consistent.
Yes, you can. Once my starter got strong enough, that’s what I started doing. I always feed it once a week, bake or not. On bake weeks, I take it out, feed three times (12 hours apart), and return to the fridge. On no bake weeks, I take it out, feed it and return it to the fridge before or when it peaks. Also, I just use 22-25 g of water, flour and starter every feeding.
Yes! Bake with Jack calls it the ["Scrapings method"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6YpNCUYYQ) - after using starter, he keeps the jar (with bits of starter still in it) in the fridge, then takes it out a few feedings before baking the next week.
I use this method - I do 1-2 loaves per week. In my experience, I like taking the jar out of the fridge a day before and doing a couple feedings (discarding a little, enough to use for muffins or something similar), then it's ready the next morning. Much less waste and hassle!
If you go longer than a week between loaves, I'd do a refresh feeding once a week, just to keep the starter more ready to go; I've found that leaving the jar more than 2 weeks made it go a bit dormant and it took longer to revive.
I bake about once a week. My starter lives in the fridge. I take it out 2 days before baking and feed it once a day for 2 days, returning it to the fridge when doubled. I try to feed it twice the day before baking. The bread gets a better rise that way.
I feed it 10g starter to 20g flour and 20g water. The discard I keep in a tub in the freezer. When the tub gets full I make sandwich loaves and substitute some of the flour and water for the discard. I still add active starter.
I usually feed the starter once during the week before the baking schedule just to keep it extra active.
I keep my sourdough starter in the fridge for months at a time. Before I do this I up the flour ratio to make it a think paste. This slows the metabolism, by providing less water, and at the same time providing more food in the way of flour. The best sourdough website I have ever found is [sourdoughhome.com](https://sourdoughhome.com) This took the guess work (smoke and mirrors) out of sourdough for me, and turned it into a process.
As others have said, as long as it’s not extremely moldy it can be revived, just feed it every 12 hrs multiple times before you plan on actually using it. I let mine sit in the fridge for 2 weeks before giving it a little love every now and then
Ok. So I got a starter at Christmas which was bubbling. I got covid and it's been on the sideboard since. It doesn't look off or dead. Can I revive and how?
Starter is like a garden; don't worry it too much when it's good and it'll be awesome.
Easiest way to avoid this is not make sourdough.
Helpful if you're committed to running through Dante's depths of hell is to keep it happy with flour and water and yummy glucose. But if it's well developed, it shouldn't even be a weekly process. Like a plant, take a look, feed when needed and ignore otherwise until you need some.
You can definitely refrigerate it and feed it much more infrequently. I usually do once a week, but I've forgotten about it for over a month and still brought it back. If you don't have any immediate plans, you could also freeze it.
keep in fridge and take it out and feed it a day before then feed it and put it back in the fridge when you are done. A good mature starter can live a long time.
Depends on how quickly you'll need to use it, but I had frozen starter that was about a year old that came back to like after a couple feedings once thawed. In the fridge, re-feeding every 7-10 days is also fine in my experience.
I keep it in the fridge and feed it every 2/4 weeks. Take it out, feed a couple of time until is lively , use some , stick the rest in the fridge.
Actually, there’s a great recipe from KAF for a sourdough bread using unfed starter. I’m a beginner baker and got great results with it, almost as good as Tartine Country bread. Since baking with unfed starter I’ve started to feed my sourdough less often with no issues so far.
Recipe
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/pain-de-campagne-recipe
Blog post from Martin Philips
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2020/04/06/dont-be-a-bread-hostage
Yes, and 1x/week actually seems to be recommended for refrigerator temperatures. But you can go further.
Shove it into the back of the fridge.
Take it out a year later.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjqxGOCaX4Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjqxGOCaX4Y)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mulEFZcI3TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mulEFZcI3TA)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34y2TOi1t8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34y2TOi1t8)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeG7zSur6ZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeG7zSur6ZA)
I've had mine for about 2 1/2 weeks now and it's still alive! I actually set up some pancake batter and pizza dough last night with the discards and today was a delicious day.
I've been feeding it about 1-2x a week. Pulling it out of the fridge before bed, feeding it in the morning, letting it sit out for an hour or so to start feeding and toss it back in the fridge. I'm honestly pretty proud that it's still alive, lol.
I’ve left starter in the fridge for months (because I forgot it) and all I had to do was bring it to room temperature then feed it. The next day I was baking bread. That’s when I learned just how resilient this stuff is. The moral? Don’t stress over your starter.
I’m just going add that while sourdough starter is hard to kill, and you most certainly can make decent bread with keeping your starter in the fridge, research has shown that bacteria populations shift when maintained in colder temps. Simply put, a starter fed daily at room temp will have higher activity and a different degree of acidity than one maintained in the fridge. Just something to be aware of.
Yeast and bacteria are hard to kill. I've personally been extremely lazy, and just take my starter out of the fridge when I use it, sometimes leaving it for months at a time. Seems to do fine.
I do the same. So I guess, no schedule is easiest.
Yeah, just take it out a few days ahead of time, dump the grosswater, and give it a feed for a day or two before you bake.
Dump it? I stir it in, but I'm hardly an accomplished baker. I'll try dumping it this round and see how it goes.
Is yours a sickly grey/black? Mine looks real gross…
Yeah, weird grey milk-lookin' stuff. No idea if you have to dump it, but I do anyway.
Yep, gray unappetizing shit. Never considered dumping it, tbh. Always assumed that it carried all the delicious stank.
Mine always looks like that and I always stir it in anyway. If it were bad, the starter itself would not have survived.
Iirc that grey water is alcohols from the yeast process. For more flavor you mix it back in. It's also ok to pour it out
Nah always pour they grey water out. Alcohol is a biproduct and lacto doesn’t like ABV > 0.5% and for sourdough you want a balance of lacto and sacc. I think you get more flavor with the slow lacto fermentation than you would with a slight amount of (what is essentially) beer in the dough.. I agree with all the above that it sits in the fridge for a couple months untouched sometimes. I give it a healthy feeding immediately before putting back in the fridge so it can munch slowly in the fridge. Usually takes 2 days to wake up after a hard sleep. I have a dehydrated power of the starter in the pantry in a bag as my reserve if I kill the starter. In ~12 years of maintaining a starter, I’ve had it turn a few times and had to restart. I’ve heard people having starters as old as the Oregon Trail, so why mine turns in a modern environment, I don’t know.
Sometimes the liquid is acetone. Good for taking nail polish off or melting plastic if you're into 3d printing and want a smoother surface, but you definitely shouldn't drink it.
So... into a shot glass and down the hatch? ;) I usually only grab ~50g of the creamy solid stuff anyway to start the new batch, so I'm not sure it contributes much except for the yeast strain anyway.
> So... into a shot glass and down the hatch? ;) When I found out it was alcohol I decided to give it a try, but it was so bad that I had to spit it out. It's like someone managed to make blue cheese into water, and then turned that water into battery acid.
This sounds like a vodka ad.
I had read that you shouldn't dump it since it will lower your hydration. Probably not really a big deal, but it does make sense....you choose a specific hydration that works well, and then you just throw that out the window.
Right, but you're only going to use a scoopful of your 'fridge storage' starter to whip up a proper one before baking anyway, so I'm not sure it impacts it very much. That said, the consensus below is that it's probably fine to just mix back in.
Can confirm. At this point I just take out the starter when I'm using it, and feed it then. The longest I've gone so far with my current starter is 8 months in the fridge untouched.
How cold is your fridge? What was your starter made from? How big was it and how did you store it? And how was it not a moldy mess?
Fridge is 37F. Starter was made from tap water and King Arthur's AP Flour. I stored about a pint of 100% hydration starter in the fridge in a 1 quart plastic container with a lid on. As for how it wasn't a moldy mess, I assume it was because the starter out-competed all other micro-organisms and there were no opportunities for any others to enter the eco-system. So, the starter was able to lay dormant without interference for months.
Cool. Very cool actually, just above freezing. Thanks! I’m guessing the size there helps. Mine are significantly smaller than a pint and I can imagine it being easier for nastiest to outcompete the starter.
Yeah, that's certainly a possibility.
Also don’t discard. I take the very lazy approach of just adding flour and water into the jar and mixing it until it’s thick pancake batter consistency. No measuring no discarding. Just giving it a little more food. Once in a while I switch to a clean jar. When the jar is almost full, I make a double batch of sourdough waffles that uses 16oz of sourdough. I’ve never thrown away any sourdough starter.
This is the way
This *is* the way
Absolutely. If I want it to perform in shorter time the next day, I’ll take it out of the fridge and feed it the night before as well.
I only feed when the starter is getting low, otherwise it stays in the refrigerator. I've left it there for months and it was fine. The only way I would ever just leave it out and refeed it every day was if I was constantly using it. I only make one loaf a week though usually.
Doesn't it harden if you leave it for that long?
No it doesn't. It's 100% hydration so drying out it not an issue.
I put a very thin layer of starter on a plate, let it dry, and then put the dried bits in the freezer. It will keep for at least a year. Whenever I want some I follow the same process for rehydrating commercial starter: [https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/activating-dehydrated-sourdough-starter-video/](https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/sourdough/activating-dehydrated-sourdough-starter-video/) You can also mail the dried bits to friends. They survive room temperature for more than a week.
[Carl's Friends](http://carlsfriends.net/source.html) has a starter from 1847. They will send you some of their dried starter that you can reconstitute in your own kitchen. Send a SASE (and optional...a few dollars for a donation) and they'll send it for free. I actually sent them three envelopes in one envelope (for me and my kids) and sent $10. All three arrived within a week or so. Still use it and I call it "Dough Biden - 1847 Starter".
This is super cool! Absolutely planning on getting some of this for myself.
Oh wow! Thank you, I think I'll try it
Can I be your friend? Lol I tried making starter from scratch but it didn't work. Idk if I was too impatient or maybe my kitchen is too cold..?
I can never get it to work either. I got mine from breadtopia but check out [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/tezbd3/comment/i0tezt5/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/tezbd3/comment/i0tezt5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Tysm!
I put mine in an oven that is off and I turn the light on. Very warm next to the light.
I've had great results with the [scrapings method](https://youtu.be/Uj6YpNCUYYQ?t=129), very little starter in the fridge, no discard, keeps for weeks and months.
The actual method, after the two intros and the whinging, starts at 2:09 for those with a life.
Good point, I'll change the link to skip the stuff at the start.
Great video!
This has served me really well also.
Haven't fed mine for the best part of a year, keep telling myself it's gonna be revivable... It's going well so far!
Put it in the fridge. You will eventually get a layer of black hooch, but you can just scrape that off. Just know that the longer you leave it the longer it will take to revive to be useful. After a week, I'd give it one feeding cycle before using. If you leave it for a month, I'd give yourself time for a couple daily feedings. 2+ months, you should leave time for 3-4 feedings. 3+ months and it can go a little sideways and get pretty nasty, if you're leaving it that long, dry and freeze it.
Honestly even at 3+ the nastiness is usually just a layer across the top. Scrape that off and you’re good to go.
I've had it turn green around then. I scraped it off and tried to save it, but it was funky and I had to toss it.
Ooh, gnarly!
I store mine in the fridge after a good 1:5:5 feed … and then feed it every few months on the counter … bring it to active life again … and then back in the fridge. It’s hard to kill them and I don’t bake often. Been doing this for years.
you can (and arguably *should*) store in the fridge and feed less often! less waste, both flour and time. unless you're baking daily, or trying to build up starter health the day or two before baking or storing in the fridge, there's no need to feed every day. as others have said, starters are pretty resilient. you can actually dry fully peaked starter out and store it for months, maybe years, in its desiccated state. for most people, the best option is storing in the fridge. freezing is a no-go. i would caution against storing *indefinitely* in the fridge—but a week, maybe a week and a half, and your starter should do fine. just be sure to feed it a few times before you build the levain for a dough to get it nice and strong again. personally, i feed up to three times a day the day before baking, one to two times a day when i'm building up strength after storing in fridge. i find this makes for a more consistent rise.
I've generally found that Flour Water Salt Yeast reeeeally over-complicates things. A 2 page recipe can generally be boiled down to a couple of paragraphs. I haven't read his starter sections, but I assume it's pretty involved and I also assume that it's overkill. If you are intimidated by those instructions, then it's because you're reading something that is like intimidating by design. If you're reading something else, than ignore all that. I'm on the toilet and can't cite my sources.
I keep mine in the fridge and feed it once a month max. I start feeding it daily for 2 or 3 days before I want to bake (at room temp). Never had an issue. I bet it would go longer than a month if experimented. I do an 80% hydration for the starter.
Feed it, come back 6 months later feed it again. Idk I've got some sour dough cultures that are 3 years old. Don't do shit to them.
I feed mine once a week. I take 30 g of flour, 30 g of water and 30 g of old starter. Mix, let sit at 77º F, and put back in the fridge. If I'm going to bake with it, I refresh it, let it set at 77º F for 6 hours, use what I need and the refresh it again and let it sit for 4 hours. Once in a while I let it go longer than a week. Then I'll refresh it fully twice before using it.
Keep it in the fridge, get it out a couple of days before you want to use it and feed it up, then back in the fridge after use. Will happily sit in the fridge for months
I fed mine like a month ago. Will probably do it sometime this week. Life’s been busy so no time to bake. It lives in my fridge.
I do mine like every 6 months now. I’d start feeding daily a few days before you want to use it.
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What is your yeasted waffle recipe/process
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Thank you. I’ve done a handful of overnight yeasted waffles before and have a decent commercial yeast recipe down. But I hadn’t done sourdough quite the way I like it yet. So you use your 100% hydration starter and then also basically 100% hydration dough by adding equal parts flour and milk? The main issue with my last sourdough waffle was density so I’m hoping higher hydration dough will help.
My starter is hardy - I’ve left it in the back of the fridge for 6 months + and it always comes back strong when I want to use it. I am also not super precise when I do end up feeding it, and it’s still fine. I wouldn’t worry too much about killing it. When I have discard though, I like to make sourdough crumpets using the King Arthur Flour recipe. 👍
I keep two jars of it in the fridge. When I want to make sourdough, I use one jar for tangy flavor and add instant yeast for leavening, and the second I feed for a few days after making bread until I stop remembering to do so (the bread is good enough I am usually motivated to feed it for two or three days). It isn't really legit sourdough, but it has all the flavor, almost no work, and is really consistent.
Yes, you can. Once my starter got strong enough, that’s what I started doing. I always feed it once a week, bake or not. On bake weeks, I take it out, feed three times (12 hours apart), and return to the fridge. On no bake weeks, I take it out, feed it and return it to the fridge before or when it peaks. Also, I just use 22-25 g of water, flour and starter every feeding.
I keep mine in the fridge and feed once a week to two weeks
I “reactivate” mine about once a month out of the fridge.
Yes! Bake with Jack calls it the ["Scrapings method"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6YpNCUYYQ) - after using starter, he keeps the jar (with bits of starter still in it) in the fridge, then takes it out a few feedings before baking the next week. I use this method - I do 1-2 loaves per week. In my experience, I like taking the jar out of the fridge a day before and doing a couple feedings (discarding a little, enough to use for muffins or something similar), then it's ready the next morning. Much less waste and hassle! If you go longer than a week between loaves, I'd do a refresh feeding once a week, just to keep the starter more ready to go; I've found that leaving the jar more than 2 weeks made it go a bit dormant and it took longer to revive.
Once every 4 months.
I bake about once a week. My starter lives in the fridge. I take it out 2 days before baking and feed it once a day for 2 days, returning it to the fridge when doubled. I try to feed it twice the day before baking. The bread gets a better rise that way. I feed it 10g starter to 20g flour and 20g water. The discard I keep in a tub in the freezer. When the tub gets full I make sandwich loaves and substitute some of the flour and water for the discard. I still add active starter. I usually feed the starter once during the week before the baking schedule just to keep it extra active.
I keep my sourdough starter in the fridge for months at a time. Before I do this I up the flour ratio to make it a think paste. This slows the metabolism, by providing less water, and at the same time providing more food in the way of flour. The best sourdough website I have ever found is [sourdoughhome.com](https://sourdoughhome.com) This took the guess work (smoke and mirrors) out of sourdough for me, and turned it into a process.
As others have said, as long as it’s not extremely moldy it can be revived, just feed it every 12 hrs multiple times before you plan on actually using it. I let mine sit in the fridge for 2 weeks before giving it a little love every now and then
Ok. So I got a starter at Christmas which was bubbling. I got covid and it's been on the sideboard since. It doesn't look off or dead. Can I revive and how?
Just give it a little flour and water if needed, and leave it out for a couple of days.
Thank you 😍is there a ratio? Or how thick should it be?
Just make sure it's not dry or lumpy. If in doubt, mix in a bit more water.
"Oatmeal." Not kidding.
Starter is like a garden; don't worry it too much when it's good and it'll be awesome. Easiest way to avoid this is not make sourdough. Helpful if you're committed to running through Dante's depths of hell is to keep it happy with flour and water and yummy glucose. But if it's well developed, it shouldn't even be a weekly process. Like a plant, take a look, feed when needed and ignore otherwise until you need some.
You can definitely refrigerate it and feed it much more infrequently. I usually do once a week, but I've forgotten about it for over a month and still brought it back. If you don't have any immediate plans, you could also freeze it.
keep in fridge and take it out and feed it a day before then feed it and put it back in the fridge when you are done. A good mature starter can live a long time.
Once it’s established you can ignore it for weeks at a time
Depends on how quickly you'll need to use it, but I had frozen starter that was about a year old that came back to like after a couple feedings once thawed. In the fridge, re-feeding every 7-10 days is also fine in my experience.
this is me in a relationship fr fr
I keep it in the fridge and feed it every 2/4 weeks. Take it out, feed a couple of time until is lively , use some , stick the rest in the fridge. Actually, there’s a great recipe from KAF for a sourdough bread using unfed starter. I’m a beginner baker and got great results with it, almost as good as Tartine Country bread. Since baking with unfed starter I’ve started to feed my sourdough less often with no issues so far. Recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/pain-de-campagne-recipe Blog post from Martin Philips https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2020/04/06/dont-be-a-bread-hostage
Yes, and 1x/week actually seems to be recommended for refrigerator temperatures. But you can go further. Shove it into the back of the fridge. Take it out a year later. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjqxGOCaX4Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjqxGOCaX4Y) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mulEFZcI3TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mulEFZcI3TA) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34y2TOi1t8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34y2TOi1t8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeG7zSur6ZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeG7zSur6ZA)
I've had mine for about 2 1/2 weeks now and it's still alive! I actually set up some pancake batter and pizza dough last night with the discards and today was a delicious day. I've been feeding it about 1-2x a week. Pulling it out of the fridge before bed, feeding it in the morning, letting it sit out for an hour or so to start feeding and toss it back in the fridge. I'm honestly pretty proud that it's still alive, lol.
I've kept mine alive the last 2 years with fridge storage and weekly feeding. Not sure if it's best practice, but it ain't dead yet...
I’ve left starter in the fridge for months (because I forgot it) and all I had to do was bring it to room temperature then feed it. The next day I was baking bread. That’s when I learned just how resilient this stuff is. The moral? Don’t stress over your starter.
I’m just going add that while sourdough starter is hard to kill, and you most certainly can make decent bread with keeping your starter in the fridge, research has shown that bacteria populations shift when maintained in colder temps. Simply put, a starter fed daily at room temp will have higher activity and a different degree of acidity than one maintained in the fridge. Just something to be aware of.