I'm a telecommuter who works from home, and I bake bread for my family two to three times a week. Occasionally, I'll make a loaf with commercial yeast, but typically, I make sourdoughs. Also, on the weekend, I like to make sourdough English muffins and sourdough waffles.

Keeping my starter in the fridge meant I was constantly trying to remember when I needed to take the stuff out to rev it up for bread, and I'd often realize too late that I didn't have enough starter for the muffins or waffles.

After some tinkering, I finally decided to keep the starter on the counter and feed it once or twice a day, which means I've always got at least enough active starter for my overnight whole grain sourdough, and, if I'll need more for a daytime sourdough, I've got enough to seed a bigger amount that can ripen while I sleep. The regimen that I now follow also has the advantage of not wasting anything, because I use all the extra starter stored in the fridge to make all the waffles and English muffins I want. Since both of these recipes derive most of their rise from the interaction of acids and baking soda, using week-old starter from the fridge has enough oomph for leavening and flavor, given that it's gotten pretty acidic already.

Anyway, I'm not saying this is the way to maintain a starter - it's just what works for me at this time in my life, at least for my primary whole wheat starter. (I also keep a rye starter and some white Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail starter in the fridge that I only take out when I want to bake special breads.)

I usually feed it twice a day, once in the morning and once again before bed. Sometimes I forget, though, and only feed it once a day, but it doesn't seem to mind much. I keep it at 60% hydration, which is pretty stiff, but I find it's less messy and stands up a bit better that the wet stuff would to a missed feeding here and there, due to my forgetful nature. Here's how I feed it (it's a 1-3-5 ratio for starter-water-flour).

In the morning, it looks like this.



It hasn't risen much, but it feels puffy, and when I break it open, it's clearly aerated inside.

It weighs about 45 grams, so I take 5 grams of it (about the size of a small marble) ...



... and put the rest in my fridge bowl. These leftovers will find their way into waffles or English muffins later in the week.



Then I add 15 grams of water and mush it up until it's soft and the water has turned somewhat milky in color.



Then I add 25 grams of whole wheat flour.



Finally, I mix it all up with a spoon, take it out and knead it a bit in my hands, which consists of folding it over on itself four or five times. I then roll it into a ball, snap on the lid and let it work.



That's it. I've found it's not that much of a hassle to feed it twice a day and is much less annoying than realizing I can't make a sourdough because I forgot to take my starter out of the fridge and feed it. Since the overnight sourdough I make requires just 40 grams of stiff starter, I'm pretty much always set.

Anyway, it works for me.

One note: for what it's worth, I haven't detected any difference in flavor or performance for the starter on the counter vs starter rev'd up from the fridge.

Second note: Since I'm working with stiff starter, I increase the liquid in both the sourdough muffins and waffles by about 1/4 cup or so.

Last year, before graduating and moving away from Berkeley, I collected two sourdough starters from bakeries that I loved and had special significance for me during my years there. I abided by the instructions for feeding and kept them alive for a few months, but after moving again, I had all but abandoned them in the back of the fridge (I believe they were last fed in late May 07). As expected, both seem to have the greyish appearance and a pool of liquid. I have read in a few places that it is possible to revive a starter after long periods of inactivity, but before I do that, I have two questions:

1. What would be the best procedure to bring them back to a healthy vibrant state? Should I just follow the instructions from each bakery for normal feeding until it appears back to normal, or is there a special treatment for neglected starters?

2. Once I have revived them, would they return back to their original states, or somehow be morphed into something different? Has anyone else had similar experience with reviving starters and remembers the qualities it had before and after?

Arthur the whole wheat starter smells like rotting vegetables. I don't know if it's the flour, the container, or ... something else, but the bread seems to be doing OK. We'll see if it tastes funky.

Anyone else had their starter suddenly smell ... yucky?

I think I've got a plan that will work, but wanted to run it by the gurus here before I act on it. I've come to love my 3 home-brewed starters very much (a whole wheat, a whole rye and a whole spelt), and would be really put out if I lost them in a cross-country move.

Here's the situation: I'm moving from Watertown, MA to Corvallis, OR on July 28. My wife will be flying out with our 3-year-old, but she'll be staying in a hotel until my father and I arrive sometime on Aug. 1 (probably very late) with the beds and the rest of our earthly belongings.

The plan:

Hi all,

Browndog; I loved your blog entry of lilacs etc! We must be about 2 weeks behind everyone else; the lilacs are still just the tiniest buds here.

On a bread-ier note, some one wrote in a while ago asking if using the water from a Britta filter would be ok for a sourdough starter. I don't remember who it was, but if you're reading this, NO!

Floyd, I looked for your message but can't find it now so herewith in anycase. I asked my wife who was a lab technician about your experiment and she says yes to your experiment.  The air we breathe is not pure oxygen but a soup which is a mixture of a whole lot of different stuff including bacteria and chemicals, etc..  That soup is what helps make big redwoods out there in CA and other types of trees here in NYS with me and mountaindog.

I tend to keep my starters in the same jars for around 4 - 6 weeks or so (refreshingly weekly, and living in the fridge). I transplant them to nice clean, sterilised jars when things start to look a bit unhealthy - but I find that they take a little while to get over the shock of moving home and aren't as lively the first week or two. Has anyone else found this? Should I be using a clean jar every time I refresh?