I am loving this soudough cooking AND this site! There is a whole world our there of sourdough bakers I didn't know about! I feel privleged to be part of the club :) it is coming close to Xmas and with that Xmas holidays. It only occured to me last night when I was feeding my starter...OMG... who is going to feed my starter when we are away camping in the hols? I couldnt possibly spare the space in the esky and the closest thing to bread I will be making is damper in the fire! Any suggestions as to what to do would be great!
Category:
Replies
Hello nicmacc,
I keep my starter at 100% hydration and I have been away from home for up to six weeks and just left it in the fridge and it probably only needed a couple of feeds to be back at full strength. After a recent four week stint, I was able to prepare a perfectly good levain immediately.
If you are concerned there are a couple fo other things that you can do. One is to just freeze some of the starter and preserve it that way. Another is to spread some out thinly onto baking paper and let it dry out. Package the flakes up into zip-lock bags and store (in the freezer if you wish). Another method that I have seen suggested is just to convert your starter to a stiff (dough) starter for the time being (if you aren't already) and this will apparently improve the keeping time while in the fridge.
Perhaps you could try all four and let us know which is most successful/easiest.
Enjoy your holiday and good luck with your projects.
Farinam
Thanks so much for those tips Farinam, I will definately try those! All is not lost!
You totally have to check your starter into the Sourdough Hotel ;-)
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/may/30/the-sour...
Wow, who knew? Maybe worth me setting up one in Canberra? Thanks sox
I just completed a three-week experiment to compare four different methods for storing dormant starter so that vacations would be possible and we could have fresh home-baked sourdough bread within the week after. Here are the results in order of performance. And the winner 65 percent hydration starter.