July 24, 2024 - 10:42am
Storing my 100% hydration SD starter
I am wondering if anyone has any good suggestions about storing my 100% hydration SD starter over 4 weeks while away for the holidays.
I have tried both freezing and drying in the past, but, even if it eventually comes back to life, I found the starter very sluggish upon revival and always losing a bit of the pre-freezing/drying character.
Any tips or suggestions most welcome.
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If stored - it will be slow to start - but should come back in a few. Enjoy!
I used to fill a small container partway with flour, plop a blob of starter on that, then fill on top with more flour. I kept in an ice chest in the car as I travelled. This was only for a week, though. I had to run the blob through a few refresh cycles but it worked fine.
A month is longer, of course. I'd suggest in addition
1. salting the starter with 2% salt. It will slow down activity without harming the starter;
2. using bread flour, to delay protein breakdown;
3. Storing in the refrigerator.
Or maybe 1 - 3 would be enough without the floured container.
TomP
when I have touring on my bicycle. All you have to do is add enough flour to make a firm playdough consistency. You can also add enough flour to take it to the dry crumbly stage. Both work. Place in the fridge and forget about it. It does perfectly I have never had a problem with refresh. I take it out break off a chunk and add enough fresh flour and water to get it back to 100 %. It doesn't usually even require two feedings but you can.
Let us know how it does but there shouldn't be any problem at all. c
I keep my starter in a plastic tub in the refrigerator. It is a "well exprienced starter" yet sometimes stays in the refrigerator unused for longer period of time. For me, 4 weeks is not unusual. Freezing and drying didn't work for me either. :) When I want to use it, I refresh it twice and it's ready for breadbaking. My ritual is 100g flour and 100g water, 20-25g starter, and watch to see how & when it doubles to decide when to bake some bread. Iv'e noticed that it's only sluggish on the first refresh... unless its been ignored for a long time and there is a lot of hooch. Starters seem to be quite tolerant.
My procedure before storing is to feed my starter (which I typically keep at 100% on a 1:2:2 basis) a little more flour than water, perhaps at an 80-90% hydration to make it a little thicker for the storage in the fridge. Then I wait a few hours to see some activity from that morning's feeding. It is then that I put the starter into the fridge.
Upon returning from vacation, I feed the starter on a 1:2:2 basis, but use rye flour for half of the flour and the AP/whole wheat blend for the other half. After encountering a sluggish starter a few times, I found the rye seems to create some energetic growth and vigor.
I usually feed my starter once a day, but after a vacation I sometimes do two-times-a-day for a couple of days. As has been noted, starters are pretty hardy and tolerant.
Happy baking.
Ted
Many thanks for all replies. Very useful suggestions. Reducing the hydration for storage in loose flour in the fridge makes a lot of sense to me, so going to give it a try and see how it works out. I will return and post about how it worked out after my return home.
If you want to be as protected as possible, you can dry out the starter. Spread it in a thin layer on parchment or baking paper, wait until it's dry, then break it into pieces and put it in an airtight container. When you come back, you just need to rehydrate it by adding water and flour, and give it time to "wake up" again.