May 17, 2014 - 10:21am
How to store your Starter in the fridge?
I read 2 ways on how to store a Sourdough Starter in the fridge e.g when.
One said to put it in the fridge as soon as it is fed.
The other said to let the sit on the counter until it has doubled and than put in the fridge.
Now of course I am confused as I do want to do it the right way.
Any help would be great.
Petra
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the starter is fed, and how long you plan to keep it chilled and when you want to use the chilled starter. Oh, and the temperature of the refrigerator, counter and starter.
Rule of thumb: Make sure it is active and fermenting before chilling and that there is enough food to survive the length of the chilling without reducing the yeast count dramatically.
Thank you Mini Oven.
Once a week I take my Starter out of the fridge to feed it and that is also my Baking day.
So far I have fed it, let it sit out for 1 or 2 hours and put it in the fridge.
I usually leave mine out an hour or so after feeding then put it to sleep in the fridge.
To me its more important to make sure you feed it a few times when you pull it out to use again. I also feed mine once a week. Some go longer between feeding but this seems to work for me.
I also keep my starter at 100% hydration and feed it on a 1:1:1 ratio.
Oh , that is how I do it, I leave mine out 1or 2 hours after feeding and put him back in the fridge.
Feed mine once a week also.
Also have my Wheat starter at 100% Hydration.
I must say that mine does much better on the Counter, it is just more expensive to feed 2 times a day.
I leave all my four starters to ferment at room temperature after feeding, whether the 100% hydrated ones (rye, white, mixed) or 75% (whole wheat). They go in the fridge, when they are lively, and left there until I bake with them.
The WW and rye ones I use every week, the white and mixed starters I feed (when not used) every two weeks, but two times before using.
Never had any problem, the breads taste great, and they survived all of my absences when I was gone for 2-3 weeks.
Karin
I follow the below feeding schedule when building my whole rye, home milled, rye starter back to full strength and 66% hydration for storage in the fridge for up to 6 weeks with no maintenance as we bake one or two loaves out of it each week.
Feeding
1st
1st
2nd
2nd
3rd
3rd
seed
flour
water
total
flour
water
total
flour
water
total
hyd
10
10
10
30
20
20
70
40
16
126
65.7%
8
8
8
24
16
16
56
32
13
101
66.1%
6
6
6
18
12
12
42
24
10
76
66.7%
Depending on how much storage starter I want to end up with I pick a row. In each case the 1st and 2nd feedings have the same amount of water and flour and last 4 hours throwing nothing away and are done at 76-82 F. If, for some reason, the starter cannot double in volume after the 2nd feeding then that amount is tossed and the 2nd feeding repeated again.
If it doubles after the 2nd feeding within 4 hours then the 3rd feeding is done where there is much more flo0ur than water to get the hydration down to 66%. When this starter rises 25%, it is refrigerated for storage.
I use this schedule to build levains from it over the 4-6 week period. If I want things to go faster or be more sour or both, I might double the seed amount. The bread gets sourer each week and the starter ‘ages’ in the fridge. If I am making a white bread I feed it white flour if it is a multigrain I feed it MG flour
If the bread has whole grains in it, I will soft out the hard bits of the flour to a 15% extraction or so and feed that to the seed to make the levain. The longer they are wet the less gluten strand cutting will take place as these hard bits soften in the levain over the -3 days before it is mixed into the autolyse.
First
First
2nd
2nd
3rd
3rd
Lcvain
Dough
Build
Build
Build
Build
Build
Build
% of
Amount
Seed
Flour
Water
Total
Flour
Water
Total
Flour
Water
Total
Total
800
3
6
6
14
11
11
36
22
22
80
10.0%
800
4
8
8
21
17
17
54
33
33
120
15.0%
800
6
11
11
28
22
22
72
44
44
160
20.0%
800
7
14
14
34
28
28
90
55
55
200
25.0%
800
8
17
17
41
33
33
108
66
66
240
30.0%
The same thing happens here too. If the levain can't double after the 2nd feeding in 4 hours, it is tossed and repeated. I refrigerate my levain for bakes from 1 - 2 days after it has risen 25% after the 3rd feeding to increase sour and flavor.
Hopes this helps.