Hello, looking for some advice on how to keep my starter alive while I'm away for 6 weeks. My friend is happy to feed my starter once per week or two. Does she feed and just put straight in fridge or leave out go get a bit active? And I normally feed 30 gm of started, 120 gms of water and 120 gm of flour, keep the same ratio or can she do a smaller amount of flour and water since she will not be baking.thanks for all your advice!
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Hello Leelajoy,
Things don't stop in the fridge they just slow down a lot.
I quite often go away for four weeks and just leave the starter in the fridge and carry on as normal when I get back. Have even gone longer (out to six weeks) but felt that it possibly took a couple of cycles to really get back to full strength after that time.
My culture lives in the fridge full time. I take it out to start a leaven for a loaf or whatever, give the culture a feed to replace what I took out and put it straight back in the fridge. So, I would suggest that your friend could take out 100g and replace that with 50g flour and 50g water mix it in and put it back in the fridge.
Alternatively, you could give it a feed just before you leave and put it in the fridge and leave it to hibernate till you get back. It won't die, just enter a state of dormancy and then spring back to life when the new food supply arrives.
Good luck with your projects and happy holiday.
Farinam
I'd also suggest taking a small amount and freezing it as a back-up. This can then be thawed and fed if for some reason your refridgerated starter dies.
I read that freezing it kills it. I've never tried it though.
Recently, I went away for 1 week. Last thing I did before leaving was to feed it and put it in the fridge. When I got back, I fed it. It didn't smell very nice. So I put some in a clean jar and fed it. It's doing well, and the smell is gone, and the bread is delicious. I'm guessing the smell was from the stuff on the sides of the jar that probably went through its food quickly.
Also, just in case, I dehydrated a batch. But I didn't need to use this. Last time I tried this, it worked well. In fact, it worked so well that it left me wondering why the grocery stores don't sell dehydrated sourdough flakes. It only took 1 feeding to get a nice frothy starter going.
To dehydrate, I simply smeared about 1/2 cup across a piece of parchment paper, put it where flys wouldn't get to it, and let it dry out over night. In the morning, I simply put the dried-out flakes in a jar.
I have gone through different sages of baking, sometimes just sourdough for a while, other times I don't bake sourdough for months. I've never had a problem reviving my starter. I do keep some frozen but have never had to use it. Starter is very forgiving. After months of storage in back of refrigerator. I'll just scrap off top part, get a teaspoon of starter add 150g water 150g flour leave out on counter 12 hrs and start feeding every 12 hrs. 100 g starter 100g flour 100g water, Feed a couple of days and I'm back to my normal schedule. I never keep more than 300 grams. I've had " Audrey" ( from "Little shop of horrors") for several years now.