What would be the ideal Temprature to store souredough starters?

Absolutely magnificent oven spring on my two totally-commercial-yeast-free panned white loaves still in the oven!  I know "oven spring" can be overrated, but I never expected any and I've got it anyway.  Also my experiment with the buttermilk plant was successful and I have a good supply of buttermilk, though it's a little thin; I'm going to try some scones with it tonight.  I refreshed that with some reconstituted skim milk powder and it's sitting in the warmest place in the house, on top of the fridge.  I never would have tried the buttermilk plant if I hadn't got into sourdough, and it was the people here who inspired me, so a big thank you to TheFreshLoaf!

I fed my white starter this morning, after throwing half of it out, put it on top of the fridge, and by this evening it had pushed the top off the container and was beginning to drip down onto the fridge.  I've never had a starter do that before.  Anyway, I took a cup of it for the primary batter which is sitting and bubbling away in the kitchen, the rest I put back in the fridge, and I'll be making sandwich bread with it tomorrow.  These babies are powerful!

From my reading of people posting here, my sense is there are a lot of very experienced, intelligent, and practical people making bread.  That being the case maybe someone can tell me what to do with my left over wild yeast starter from a recipe.

My recipe is:

Stiff Sourdough Starter

 Dough

 When I go for 4 times the size I end up with two good size loaves but a very large amount of left over sponge or starter.

How long does it last in the fridge?  Or if I freeze it?

Since flour is already quite expensive hopefully someone can tell me what intelligent, and practical people do in this situation.

Thanks.

I am in the proccess of starting 2 dried starters. In the first 12 hours I got a lot of activity. liquid on the bottom. I think they may be contaminated. I have followed the instructions from sourdough international. Has anyone had this problem? Am I doing somthing wrong? Can the starter be rehabilitated?

I am just starting to experiment with making bread and made my own yeast by mixing AP flour and water together and feeding it daily (twice daily at the beginning) per the Joy of Cooking instructions.  It's been 2 weeks and I have what I think is a nice looking bowl of wild yeast - it's pretty fluid (not runny) and has lots of holes on the surface and it smells pretty "yeasty" I think.  Whenever I feed it, it deflates and puffs right back up about 12 hours later. 

 I continue to feed it daily, but I'm not sure if

a) this is considered my "sponge" or "starter" (is this a poolish or a biga?

b) do i have to add commercial yeast when making a loaf if i use this yeast?

c) if i don't have to add more yeast, what is the typical ratio for substitution i.e., if a recipe calls for 1 tbsp of dry yeast, do i add 1 cup of my "wild yeast"?

Thanks for any advice you can provide.  This site has been a tremendous help!

I am not giving up on this...I have a lot of luck making loaves using the No-Knead method and a clouche (from Bitman's NY Times article/blog). I also seem to have a little luck making a starter. My problem is I cannot make a good loaf of sourdough with my starter, it always turns our "flat" with really no rise. I used a bread machine for my last sourdough loaf to do the kneading and got a nice elastic dough with a nice rise, I did not bake it in time and it deflated on me and got a "crust" on top of it before I baked it. I will try this method again, however, I wanted to know if anyone could tell me how to alter the No-Knead recipe to incorporate the starter I make, its a very simple recipe.

3 cups of bread flour

1 5/8 cups of water

1/4 tsp yeast

salt

Mix together let sit for 12 - 16 hours, take out shape (knead) and let it rise for another 2 hours, and bake.

Is there anyway I can subsitute my starter or use my starter in this recipe to make a sour dough loaf?

Thanks

a

I made Floyd's Pain sur Poolish with all-white Harvest King bread flour, because that's all I had (I'm broke). I added a tablespoon or so of my rescued sourdough starter to the poolish (flour, water, regular yeast) when I made it. It was bubbly in the morning. Then mixed in more flour, the salt, and some regular yeast. Four risings total (one after kneading in the Kitchenaid, two after folding, one after shaping into boules). It took all day, but the dough turned wonderfully soft, stretchy, and glossy, and baked up perfectly. Crisp but filled out grigne, big holes, tender, lovely sour taste.

I wish I had a digital camera. I'd love to show off my bread. 

I'm curious since I've not seen a whole lot of sourdough recipes that use ingredients such as milk, eggs, butter etc. Having recently experimented with these ingredients in sourdough I've had results which are less than satisfactory flavour-wise - the sour flavour always seems to dominate even more so than lean sourdough breads which have been proofed for a similar time. I thought one explanation might be the lactose in dairy products feeding the lactobacillus...but I'm not so sure that the typical sourdough lactobacillus (eg sanfranciscensis) can metabolise such sugars...it makes no sense, having evolved around grains/starches to prefer a lactose food source.

That said, would oil or shortening be a more appropriate fat to use with sourdough?

Also, I've followed the procedure for making so-called italian 'sweet starter' for use in an all-wild-yeast panettone but with little success - the same uber-sour issue crops up again. Using the same starter in a lean sourdough recipe gives me a mild flavoured bread...so I can only assume that there is something going on with regards to added sweeteners / fats etc. that increases the sour (favouring the lactobacillus).

Thoughts most welcome...

Thanks,

FP

I recieved an Amish Friendship Bread starter from a friend of mine.  I live on the East Coast of the USA and would like to send some starters to my family on the West Coast.  What is the best way to ship the starter to them?  I am thinking in tupperware using a 2 day method like Priority Mail.  Has anyone shipped starters to friends or family in the past?

Thanks,

Jonathan