The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Starter

plevee's picture
plevee

Starter

My 10-15 yo starter just turned to slime. This was after producing beautiful, airy bread 2 weeks ago and after being fed 3 times and put in the fridge as usual. I'm trying to revive it by feeding small amounts with fresh ground kamut in one pot, mixed kamut and rye in a second and a similar mixture in the unwashed bowl I mix my bread in. It'll be interesting to see which one works, if any. I'm in mourning and having to bake a commercial yeast loaf.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I wholeheartedly sympathize with you.  

Got any backups hiding in the back of the cupboard or freezer?  

The bowl trick should work, just don't get in a rush to discard in the first three days, just give small amounts of flour until it wakes up and demands more food.  You may want to transfer to a jar to protect from drying out.  

plevee's picture
plevee

So, the dried residue on the mixing bowl never revived which makes me leary about having this as a backup. Do you have any experience on dried vs frozen starter revival? Two other samples are active and bubbling. I haven't tried baking yet but they look promising. Thank you for your input.

Patsy

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

experience with many revivals.  Freezing starters revived best when a mature starter was dried first or at least firmed up first with no water and some flour.  Reducing the hydration reduced the risk of cells breaking when frozen.  If done slowly, the organisms get a chance to prepare for it.   A nice plump wet yeast cell is more apt to burst when frozen quickly.

The dried dough in the bowl could revive a starter with time. Chances improve if the dried dough was concentrated with yeast cells.  But I can imagine it taking longer if the dough was only mixed (not fermented) or starter diluted with dough and quickly dried as compared to a still moist dough or moist starter jar.   I treat dried starter delicately, letting the dried hydrate with just enough water to make a paste first then with a bit of a pause add just enough flour food equal to the dried starter amount.  Let them stand until small bubbles form and then carefully feed again flour and water, small amounts and watch the culture.  No discarding or risk throwing out my still sleeping yeast cells.

 Important not to overfeed until yeast show themselves, just like starting a new starter except the concentration of desired bacteria should be higher than when starting from "scratch."  Even dead yeast cells will feed live ones. Not all yeast cells go dormant so the small addition of fresh flour will also introduce more yeast cells as well as a big variety of bacteria but hopefully the selected bacteria in the dried culture will have the overhand and soon gain control suppressing undesired bacteria and increase the total acid.  The time to get a viable starter tends to be shorter, skipping over the slow starting phase as the acidity increases quickly upon hydrating.  Trick is not to overfeed and use a flour that contains less varieties of bacteria and yeast, one with less whole flour.  

One could argue that going thru the process would be the same as starting up a new starter.  How would I know if it was the old starter or a new one with different characteristics? I don't.  I just hope to come close.  Sometimes I start up a new starter at the same time and compare them or who knows, come out with a better starter?  

plevee's picture
plevee

Thank you for your reply. My starter lasted about 15 years before its unexpected demise. I shall save your answer as long as needed. Interesting question as to whether I have revived the starter or created a new one. I joined Rob Dunn's Sourdough Project when he was identifying starter bacteria and yeast from samples worldwide so I know what organisms were in the starter then. I doubt I'd be able to get another analysis so I'll just have to see how the reincarnated one behaves. Of course the bugs in the starter might also evolved since the culture in 2017.

Patsy

plevee's picture
plevee

I thought the dried bowl bits would be best but in fact that is so far totally inactive. The spoonful I took from a solitary bubble, inoculated with rye and fed with unbleached bread flour looks very promising - loads of bubbles but no sourdough aroma. I hope it's not leuconostoc. But it smells bland not stinky. So.....

Patsy