Emergency help reviving a starter
Updates added here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/72767/emergency-help-reviving-starter#comment-524273 and here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/72767/emergency-help-reviving-starter#comment-524740
I grew a starter from scratch in Spring '20 (just like, I think, everyone else on the planet) and my Blob had been doing very well for a long time. I don't think I've posted on this forum since I made my first few loaves, but I've often checked in looking for new tips & other ideas.
However, a little over a year ago my life became busier and Blob was spending more & more time neglected in the fridge. There were several times he went a month (maybe more sometimes) without any attention at all. At first, he didn't seem to care and a couple of days of regular feedings at room temperature and he was back to his usual self. But by about 4 or 5 months ago, I had begun to notice he was no longer springing back to life so quickly. I was pretty sure the general answer was to just get him back on a regular feeding schedule and stop neglecting him, and I was working on that and seeing some improvements, but not as much as I expected. So, I was thinking of making a post here to get recommendations to help him get really vigorous again. I was hoping there might be some magic tips to really fine tune the process to make it go faster and/or, more importantly, get a better end result.
So Blob was already not a super vigorous starter any more. Then life happened. In a really big way. I left home on short notice on what I thought was going to be a 2 week trip, and got home 3 months later. One of my top priorities was feeding Blob, but when I opened up his jar, he was covered in mold. I was devastated. I would tell you there's no way you can understand how upset I was, but I guess as sourdough bakers, many of you can. None of my friends and family do, though.
Yesterday, I found some discard in the back of the fridge in a container that I thought was something else. It looks lifeless, and the hooch on the top was the darkest I've ever seen. The top layer of dough (if it can be called that) underneath the hooch was stained an unpleasant grey from the hooch. I have no real idea how long it has been sitting in the fridge since I didn't know it existed in the first place. But. No mold.
When I found it, I debated a bit about the best way to try to revive it. I decided I wanted to leave most of it undisturbed in case my first attempt was unsuccessful. There's not a lot of it, so I took about a teaspoon and mixed it with roughly equal volumes of fresh flour (King Arthur all purpose) and water. I went a little heavier on the water than I usually do unintentionally, so it's fairly liquidy. I put the rest back in the fridge and set my "fresh" starter on the counter. It's now approaching 24 hrs and altho I've checked several times I've seen zero bubbles. Perhaps because of the extra liquidy consistency, they are popping before I see them.
I'm thinking my next step should be to do basically the same thing again, minus the extra water, and mix that in with what I made yesterday. My thoughts are 1- to get it to a consistency that will help me see bubbles more easily, 2- keep any growth that has happened in the past 24 hrs, and 3- don't dilute it too much where I'll essentially be growing a new starter from scratch.
Really hoping some of you sourdough geniuses are able to offer some help to revive Blob from the dead.
Sorry to hear about Blob.
Really, I think you might as well start making a new starter from scratch. If you do manage to resurrect these old scrapings, you will never know if you really resurrected them or just created a new starter anyway.
There have just recently been a couple of long threads about someone else struggling to build a starter. To distill the collected wisdom, use some pineapple juice (or other mild acid) for the liquid (or part of it) for the first several days, make some of the flour whole grain (rye seems especially good but whole wheat is good too) until the starter has come to life, make the new mixture about 100% hydration - equal weights of flour and water - but the exact values aren't critical, it's more about that being a convenient value to work with), and have patience.
TomP
I appreciate you taking the time to comment. It is similar to what I would have posted if I were advising someone else. However, I would have added that if they are really set on trying to revive the particular starter in question, it doesn't hurt to try, and perhaps someone more expert than me would weigh in with tips.
In my case, I do want to try to revive THIS starter. Yes, I'll never be sure how many organisms are direct descendants of the ones I nurtured back in '20 and how many have been introduced since then. But no one knows that anyway. And, aside from the stubbornness or stupidity or whatever it is that makes me determined to give it a try, I also believe it has the potential to be a good learning experience about invigorating any weak starter. Information that I may need again someday or I may be able to pass on to others.
It *can* work. I did it once. I forget how old it was, but at least two months, maybe three. I just kept feeding it white flour and water. It was a long time ago, and back then I didn't realize that whole grain or bran would have been better.
Thanks! For now I'm going to try to nurse this guy back to life using the flour I have on hand. The WW flour I had when I was baking more often was all so old I figured it must be rancid (it smelled off) and threw it out months ago.
Hi!
Try prebiotics route. That is what I do when I neglect my refrigerated starter for too long.
My starter is also fed white bread or all purpose flour to preserve its own sourdough microorganisms, so to give it an emergency CPR I add fiber to it either in form of crushed all bran breakfast cereal or as a spoon of wheat bran that I mixed with boiling water to sterilize it from its own microflora and to extract nutrients from it. This method always works. You will certainly see immediately what, if anything, has survived in your SD discards.
Bacteria and yeasts thrive on fiber and all bran breakfast cereals are also fortified with vitamins and malt which helps boost microbial growth.
Thanks!
I hadn't thought of boiling or otherwise killing off any microbes in WW or bran, etc. I'm not sure it would make any difference when you have a thriving starter, as your pet microbes would so greatly outnumber anything new that was introduced. But with a nearly dead starter, I had concerns that adding a whole grain might totally change the make up of my starter. That plus I don't have any on hand anyway. But I totally would run out and buy some if it was clear that was the best path to my goal.
I'm going to follow Debra Wink's advise first, but if I can't get him going or he seems to want to remain sluggish, I think that's definitely worth a try. I have raisin bran on hand always, but wouldn't have thought of using it. So that's a good tip as well.
Whenever I start working with a starter that has been in the fridge so long I can't remember -- sometimes more than a year -- I usually don't see any action in the first 24 hours. That's not abnormal under the circumstances. But you're right in not wanting to dilute it too much when the yeast aren't active and increasing. And 1:1:1 is enough to buy time to wait and see.
I've had some show the first signs of gas production on the second day, some not until the third. It's a good idea to give it a stir and scrape-down at 24 hours so that mold doesn't take off in the meantime. And if it's still quiet at 48 hours, you could give it a small refreshment, say, 2 starter : 1 flour and 1 water. No more than that. If you feed too much you will be throwing your dormant yeast away. The longer they have been dormant, the longer they take to wake up.
Very liquid sourdough | The Fresh Loaf
Thank you Debra. Your help was invaluable when I was trying to get Blob started and I still think of you and appreciate it pretty much every time I bake with him.
It's good to hear first hand from someone that has revived a starter a year old or more. I've heard about it, but never first hand.
Since he's sorta liquidy he gets "stirred" every time I take a look because I swirl it around a little to see if that makes any bubbles rise. So far no luck. But I'll keep doing that until 48 hrs and feed him then, or sooner if I see signs of life, as per your advice.
One advantage of having so little starter to try to revive is that I have started with such a small amount I'll be able to feed quite a bit before I need to start discarding. So no fear of throwing anything away. But diluting it too much is where I might run into trouble. I started so little I didn't think my scale would be accurate, and that's why he's so watery right now.
I vaguely think I've read somewhere that a higher hydration can help the microbes multiply faster, because they can move around more. So I guess I've got that going for me.
With the stirring, just make sure you're turning the top surface under and into the middle. Swirling may not accomplish that.
Stay aware of how much you're diluting with every feed and keep in mind that the objective is to retain as much of the acidity as well as the viable yeast and LAB from before as possible, while at the same time balancing the need to refresh (if and when that is necessary).
1:1:1 is effectively removing 2/3 of the acid and yeast and diluting it by 3x (even though you haven't actually removed anything). That should give you some confidence that there's enough food to last a few days in the absence of rise. Feeding it at 48 hours at 2:1:1 would effectively cut that in half, leaving you diluted by 6x. We could delay that to 72 hours if there's not much acid production either.
The way I usually revive these very long-dormant starters is a 2:1:1 feed to start (2x dilution). If no rise in the first 12-24 hours, I give another 2:1:1 (now at 4x). That will get rid of 3/4 of the waste built up in storage while keeping 1/4 of any viable microorganisms remaining from the original starter. If no rise in the next 24 hours, I may give another 2:1:1 feed (for 8x), but I would probably give it another day or two first. I don't dilute it more than that until it starts rising.
Of course you were correct about everything. I just needed more patience. And swirling even a very watery starter is not a thorough enough method of stirring. See my update here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/72767/emergency-help-reviving-starter#comment-524273
Good news! Of course Debra Wink's advice was correct and I just needed to wait longer for the dormant critters to wake up. I had forgotten they actually go into a dormant state, and not sure I ever knew what she said about a longer dormancy means it'll take longer for them to wake up. If I am ever unfortunate enough to get in this situation again, I'll know to have more patience.
I had a very small amount of bubbling in one corner of the jar just before I went to bed last night, I swirled it thoroughly (I thought) and by morning it had spread to maybe 3/4 of the culture. Still a small amount of bubbling, but definitely life. Hard to be sure how much gas may have escaped though due to the watery consistency, so maybe even more active than I realized. Interesting that even though I swirled it after seeing the few bubbles last night, the activity did not spread to the entire culture.
So I fed him this morning. I'm not sure why, brain fart I guess, but I went with my original plan of adding some of the old discard as well as some fresh flour & water when I fed him. I added (no discarding) roughly the same amounts as last time (except less water), which means roughly 3 parts fresh starter, 1 old discard, 1 each flour & water Or maybe only half of a part of water. For anyone who might be reading this cuz they are in the same boat: I don't recommend this. I just sorta did it cuz my brain was stuck on the plan I had before Debra weighed in. I definitely recommend following Debra's advice. One might question why I bothered to post if I'm not following the recommendations.
I'll post at least one more update, but I think it's safe to say Blob will survive.
The reports of Blob's death have been greatly exaggerated - Mark Twain (or something like that)
One might question why I bothered to post if I'm not following the recommendations.
But you actually have done what I recommend even if the fine details were a little different. Your instinct to not dilute too much was on the money, and you indulged me by giving it more time. That's the gist of it: don't feed too much; then wait for signs of life. Bubbling means it's time to feed, and you did that too -- I wasn't counting on it reviving so quickly :)
Oh, I wasn't counting on it either! Initially, when it had been nearly 24 hours and I hadn't seen any bubbles at all, I was very concerned that might mean there was no life at all. After reading your post I was like "oh yeah they go dormant" and knowing you considered 24 hrs with no signs of life to be normal under the circumstances, I was ready to sit back and wait a while, and then he surprised me!
I think it's way too early to tell, but I'm kind of feeling like he might go right back to the vigorous Blob I've known for most of the time since he was born. I can already see bubbles forming after this morning's feeding. Which has me thinking that maybe this discard was from before he started acting sluggish. And maybe that sluggishness was because he was already contaminated, either with mold or something else that was affecting him and made him vulnerable to the mold, even before I left on my disastrous trip and found him moldy upon my return. If that's the case, then the sequence of events that led to this was a blessing.
Just remember, before yeast don't feed too much; after yeast don't feed too little.
If you're seeing activity today, it needs bigger feeds than you gave it this morning going forward or you run the risk of it slipping into sluggishness or even back into dormancy. And we don't want that.
Life got a little busy, so I didn't post at the time, but Blob is doing very well. I made a loaf of bread exactly 1 week after I started feeding the old discard. Nothing fancy, but it was excellent.
so your starter must be doing fine :)
Happy baking!
dw