June 3, 2020 - 6:34am
Slowing starter in Fridge
Hello everyone, I just fed my starter for my upcoming bake and it is just starting to grow. However, I just found out that I cannot prepare my loaves until tomorrow. I would like to save my well fed but under-grown starter without having to do it again tomorrow. Is it okay if I put the starters in my refrigerator to let them warm tomorrow and continue their fermentation. Does overnight refrigeration of a starter that has not finished fermenting cause the starter to weaken? I am wondering if I have to declare this starter as a loss for today, and let it ferment on the counter and start over tomorrow.
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That's what I mostly do. Feed starter, let it sit for 3 hours at room temp, and the put in fridge before it starts to fall back. That way it still has food left to eat, slowly, in fridge.
I can then use my starter up to 2.5 days later without having to feed it again. Maybe warm it up, but sometimes I'll just put it cold into the dough.
Thanks for the info on parking the starter in the fridge. I had wondered about this as well and am glad to hear this option works for you. It will come in handy some times.
Both Lactobacillus and the yeasts slow their activity way down in the refrigerator. Yeast activity slows down more though, so the Lactobacillus gets a bit of an edge that becomes more of an advantage the longer (weeks, months...) you keep the starter at those temperatures.
Many people keep their starters in the refrigerator all the time so they don't have to feed so often. I don't recall any claims that doing so for any amount of time weakens the starter in any way, as long as you keep up with its feeding cycle, which would be about 5 days. If you allow it to remain in an exhausted state for more than a few days longer than that, then you would find it to be lethargic and would need a few feedings at room temperature to come back alive.
The way you describe it, you just want to use the fridge to slow it down this one time so that it better fits your schedule. I wouldn't expect that to cause any problems at all.
Thanks so much for your responses. They were very helpful. Just to let you know. I did slow down my starter in the fridge so it would be ready for my bake. It was just for a few hours rather than overnight in the refrigerator, as I was able to amend my schedule. I took it out of the fridge, and it rose a bit more and appeared to be very strong. I baked my two loaves, and they came out beautiful!
The fridge is our friend, and a starters friend, as well as a doughs friend. I've brought back to life starters left in the fridge for a year and a half, have been ready to bake when something came up and had to store the dough in the fridge for a couple days, and I've left pizza dough in the fridge for 4 days - all without issue. You really develope some good gluten after a couple days. Enjoy!