Stop Wasting Time & Flour Maintaining A Sourdough Starter. This Strategy is Way Better

It's time to stop wasting so much time and money on the way we feed our sourdough starters. There is a cheaper, easier, and more effective way. No more discard! If you bake sourdough relatively often this method will slot into your baking schedule easily.

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A big thanks to Jack over on his channel where I first saw this method.

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#sourdoughbaking

[sharonbetmead]

I watched a YouTube from an old German lady who said she had a family starter that was over 50 years old and all the family did to keep this going was this, They rolled it in a ball and kneaded as much flour into it as she could and once a week or 2 or 3 she would take it out re knead it with more flour (no fluid) and keep the ball in a container in the fridge. then to reconstitute it for baking, cut a tablespoon off and leave it in some water for an hour or so till it froths then stir in more flour to the consistency needed and let it work over night then use it to bake the next loaf, re knead the ball that's left and put it back for another week or so. I do this and it works amazingly and my starters incredibly active. I have had it over 7 years so far I also keep a ball in the freezer and take it out once a year double it then use half and freeze the other half so no matter what happens I always have a ball of the original starter.

[sdm]

You can dry your sourdough to always have a back up. Take some 50g of active starter, spread it thinly in parchment paper, and let it dry at room temp until it becomes super dry, then crush it and store it in a tight sealed jar. It can last years.

[hackptui]

For occasional bakers, the absolute easiest thing to do: dry it out and freeze it. I just used some 27 month-old starter and it worked perfectly. Just make a batch of starter, let it rise until it's at its peak, then spread it out onto parchment paper, put another parchment on top, and roll it out until it's tissue-paper thin. Unpeel the two parchment papers, and let it completely dry. It should flake off in chunks. Crush that down into as fine a powder as you can get, bag it and freeze it. When you're ready to bake, just pull out however much you need to make a batch of new starter (5-10 grams starter powder + fresh flour + water) and you're off to the races. Your starter will never grow mold, you don't have to worry about feeding, and you'll have scads and scads of starter for the rest of your life.

[adamcauble]

Yes! I keep mine in the fridge, nearly empty, just "scrapings" as you say. Take it out a day before using it, and feed it exactly how much I plan to use for the bake. No extra feeding, just use it and back into the fridge. No discard ever, lasts for a month or more. Starter going strong now 7 years later.

[darylphuah]

I had a starter kept in the fridge unfed for 3 years. Took it out, fed it and it came back to life. Save your flour and just revive your starter before your next bake.

[eloutjenn]

I am a very old woman (85 yrs!) who is a very NEW sourdough wannabe! Your advice on maintaining my new starter is so helpful. I thought it was requiring a lot of flour to keep my starter going. Your advice about using small amounts of flour sounds good!

[telldpablo]

I had my starter in the back of my fridge for approximately 4 years. There was about a 1/2" in the jar. Turned into about 50/50 liquid and solid. When I fed it as an experiment before throwing it away it can right back to life. Doubled in size in a few hours. I was blown away!

[toddmussman]

Yes, I use this method for the last couple years and have let scrapings go for a couple months no problem. Worst case scenario you might have to feed twice if it sits too long. My starter is 27 years old and very strong though.

[KevinNicholasFleming]

This is exactly what I do. You barely need any starter in order to make a new batch. All you need is the live culture. I also never refrigerate mine. Sometimes I let my starter sit on the counter for days on end without feeding it, and let it ferment until it looks putrid, then I discard that and use the scrapings to start a new batch, and I swear it makes the starter tastier and stronger. My theory is that putting it under stress by almost killing it off actually makes it stronger and actually gives it more time for new cultures to develop. When my batch of starter is fully active, I play calming music for it, in hopes that the musical vibrations alter the crystalline structure of the water molecules in the starter, therefore making a more structured bond in the dough. All theories, but it's super fun to experiment. Thanks for the videos!

[cutabove]

For long periods of not baking simply freeze you starter in ice cube trays and pack the cubes in a plastic bag afterword.

[lewybowling]

This past year I didn't bake for over 7 months, I kept my starter on the fridge the whole time and did not feed it. I was afraid to take it out and feed it but I did and it was completely fine!

[Rosakru]

I've been using a modified version of Bake With Jack's system for about 3 years now. I often run experiments with my starter and have used as little as 3 grams of scraping to create four wonderful 850g loaves.

I've also recently brought back to life 65g of a neglected uncovered, and dried out starter that was left in the back of my fridge for 5 months following a motorcycle accident that left me unable to bake for a time.

My approach is always of minimalist ways and I'm never precise in my measure of ingredients. I'm relying on the feel of the dough when I mix it. My results are always fine.

Simple is best, is my motto.

[walkingrighthere]

I've maintained the same starter for a couple years now. I don't even measure. Like you, I leave a couple tablespoons in the jar after making bread, throw in some water and flour, stir it up and throw it in the fridge. When I'm ready to bake, I pull it out of the fridge, (it doesn't even look very active) make up a batch and bake. I've had very consistent beautiful and delicious loaves every time. I credit Elly's everyday sourdough channel! I think we make it too hard and fussy when it's really not.

[MrArthoz]

Have you tried the "old dough" or levain technique? Townsends channel spoke about how people used to keep old dough in dried form that keeps for years like a piece of thick cookie. Just crumble and mix with water to reactivate it. Could be a good experiment for long term storage.

Also Towsends spoke how in ancient times people use unwashed dough bowl continuously as it cause the bread to rise but they can't explain it. Like how in the book of Exodus in Bible they spoke of how they had to eat unleavened bread because they have no access to the dough bowl. It is in a way, the scraping method.

[barbaraconnolly]

My starter is now 2 years old. I don't feed it regularly, I often run it down to almost nothing and then pull it back up. I often bake with unfed starter if there is enough in the jar and then just feed the leftovers. I have found the starter has got stronger by doing this. I love having some starter in case I want quick flatbreads, or to use in a cake. Starter is about so much more than bread. Crumpets, english style muffins made quickly amongst other things. I love having a sourdough starter, one of the best things I did in lockdown.

[ChocolateTampon]

I've done the scrapings method for a while now since seeing Jack do it. I'd left a jar of scrapings in the fridge and forgot about it for over a month. It had dried out but I added a little water and shook the jar, left it for an hour to rehydrate it. I then fed it and it had almost doubled in size in 24 hours. After one more feed it was healthy and ready to use again. I was amazed and the bread was just as good as previous loaves.

[bradfordjeff]

You can freeze a blob of it and revive it when you're in a baking mood. It takes about two days to get a good batch going from frozen.

[lunasmama]

I leave the "scrapings" in a ball on the bottom of a jar and just put a lot of flour on top of it, and stick it in the fridge. I can leave it in there for months. When I want to use it, I feed it the day before I plan to use it, and feed it again a few hours before use. Then when I've prepared my dough, I stick another tablespoon ball in the jar and cover it with flour, back in the fridge for next time.

[DANVIIL]

I've left my scrapings that I fed with 10 grams of flour and 10 grams of water, mixed it up and sprinkled a tiny bit of flour on top and left it in my frige unfed for 4 months. I then feed it 2xs at room temperature and it's ready to bake again. A German lady told me about the "sprinkle a little flour on top" method. The starter will start to smell like cinnammon & works great & no waste.

[MagdaFoldi]

Love your info here. Over the years I have learned that a good starter needs little to no maintenance. Just two days ago I took out a jar of starter from the back of my fridge that i have neglected for almost one year. It had an inch of brown hooch at the top. I smelled it and it was good, no mold or anything funny on it. I poured off the brown hooch, mixed it up and gave it a quarter cup flour and same amount of water. After a while it had some more hooch rise to the top, I poured that off and fed it again. It developed hooch again but very little so again I poured it off and fed it. I left it on my counter over night and it was beautiful and bubbly in the morning. Basically under the hooch the yeast had gone dormant having nothing to eat. Yeast is pretty hard to kill. The only problem you can run into, is if some how mold spores get into it, but that becomes pretty obvious not only by the obnoxious smell but dark brown or black patches. Then you discard the whole thing. So I have learned that if you have a good strong starter to begin with, it will not fail you in the long run. I am not suggesting leaving it unattended for a year of course, but I am trying to let people know that this new idea of constantly feeding and discarding is unrealistic. You should not be discarding any of it. I come from an eastern European background. In the villages women made bread in large wood basins. After shaping the five or six loves of bread, they would scrape the left over scraps from the bottom of the basin and keep that for the next batch of bread. Some women left it in the basin and pored warm water to dissolve for the next batch. There is no need whatsoever to discard so much good flour. The only time it is acceptable is when you first make your sourdough starter.