Sourdough Starter: Care & Feeding (Lazy Caretaker's Edition)

Sourdough Parenting 101: How to care for and feed Sourdough Starter; plus, how to revive a sad, neglected starter. (Don't worry - it happen's to the best of us!) 

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Over the years, I’ve had an on again, off again relationship with my Sourdough Starter. Sometimes I treat it like the Queen at High Tea, sticking to a precise schedule and attending to its every bubbling need. Other times, I completely ignore it: I once forgot it in the back of the fridge for almost six months. Still, it persists.

My sourdough use waxes and wanes in bouts that can last weeks, or even months. In waxing cycles, when I am baking bread nearly every day, a loaf rarely hits the cooling rack before someone slices off an end. We have homemade bread for our sandwiches and for our soup. We take it in our lunches and feast on it warm with slathers of peanut butter and sprinkles of sugar.

But then I lose interest, and months can go by before I even give it a second thought again. Then Oh, what great consternation arises among certain citizens of our household! I get this a lot: "Mom, that jar of sourdough looks disgusting! If you aren't going to use it, then just throw it away!"

Never! I know good sourdough parents don't have this problem. They feed their starter regularly, and they bake a loaf every three days like clockwork.

This post isn't for them.

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Sourdough Parenting 101

This post is for the rest of us. The negligent. The distracted. The throngs of home bakers who avoid sourdough altogether because they instinctively know that the waning times will come to them as well, and they just don't want to deal with the guilt. 

Guess what? No one needs to feel guilty. Because a good Sourdough Starter will stay alive in the fridge with very little maintenance for extremely long periods of time, and can easily be activated when you want to use it. (OK, not really "right when" you want to use it: you need to plan about a day or two in advance.) 

Why do I need to feed my Sourdough Starter? 

Sourdough starter can live forever – as long as you regularly give it a little attention. In other words, you need to clean their home occasionally and feed your sourdough starter regularly. 

Sourdough starter is actually full of living colonies of yeast and lactic acid bacteria. These beneficial microbes consume the carbohydrates and proteins in the Starter. During this process, they ferment and convert those starches into CO2. It is this CO2 gas that provides leavening in your sourdough bread. 

When these microbes run out of food, they get hungry and start to slow down. If you leave them alone too long, the whole colony will die (and take your neglected Sourdough Starter out with it). 

(NOTE: I have yet to completely kill a Sourdough Starter; and believe me, I've tried.)

What if I totally neglected my Sourdough Starter? What if it's all covered with grey ick? Can I save it? 

So, you just found your forgotten jar of Sourdough Starter in the back of the fridge, sad and neglected under a little puddle of hooch. Don't worry - it happen's to the best of us. 

Here's how to bring that sad, neglected Starter back to life. 

How to Wake a Sleeping Starter 

Before you can try to revive your Starter, you need to do some triage. Open your jar and look inside.

• A - If mold is aggressively growing, if it has a distinctly pink tinge, or if it smells rotten or putrid, toss it. There is no saving it. Then get a fresh, clean jar, and start making a brand new Sourdough Starter.
• B - If it looks gross but doesn't smell horrible, continue to Step 1. 

1. Drain off any hooch from your old Starter. (Hooch is the grey-black liquid that is probably sitting on top of your Starter. It's basically sourdough poop.)
2. Using a stainless steel spoon, carefully spoon off the top layers of Starter. You want to try to completely remove the top layer and get down to the cleaner, dormant layer without contaminating it too much with the gross stuff on top. 
3. Determine if your Starter has totally gone bad, or if it is salvageable. (90% of the time, if it gets past the initial triage, you can save it.) Smell the stuff at the bottom of the jar. It should smell decidedly sour, but not rancid or spoiled. You know the difference. If it smells putrid, chuck it. 
4. If at least a tablespoon of your Starter is salvageable, put as much "good starter" from the old jar as you can into a fresh, clean jar.
5. Stir in one half as much flour and water as you would normally feed a healthy Starter. For example, if you have a cup of salvageable starter, stir in 4 ounces of water and 4 ounces of flour. (I always use a kitchen scale when I feed my Starter.) If you have only a tablespoon of starter, it's going to take you a little longer to build it back up, but you can do it. (Wilbur, my 100-some year old starter, was revived from less than a half teaspoon of dried flakes!)
6. Allow fed Starter to sit at room temperature again for 8 hours. 
7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 one or more times, until your Starter is bubbly, percolating and ready to use.

The total "revival" process usually takes 24-48 hours hours. After that, you will should have an active, bubbly Starter that you can either put it back in the fridge and ignore it again until next time. Or, you can continue to wake it up by feeding it every 8 to 12 hours for a day and get ready to bake!

[Read more about how to revive old sourdough starter here.]

Once your Starter is vigorous and active, you can go back to feeding it once or twice a week. After every feeding, allow it to sit out for 12 hours before putting it back in the fridge. 

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