The Fresh Loaf

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How to store lievito madre in the fridge?

brassicaoleracea1985's picture
brassicaoleracea1985

How to store lievito madre in the fridge?

Hi guys! I'm new here, I just made my account minutes ago. I apologize in advance if this question has been asked/answered before but I did a little bit of research here and didn't really find anything.

I've been reading up a lot on Italian-style stiff starter (lievito madre/pasta madre) to make panettone and pandoro (and more generally any sort of brioche-like concoction) but I feel like in every single article, blogpost, forum discussion, YouTube video, etc. I come across, there's always one single key piece of information missing that I really would like to know and it is this: how do you properly store lievito madre in the fridge?

Everything I've been reading gives an excruciatingly painful amount of details (I'm talking like Ph. D. thesis level amount of details) about every little minutiae that I feel sometimes doesn't really matter but when it comes to the one piece of information I'm after--storage in the fridge--the only thing everybody always says is "put it in the fridge" without any other kind of details.

So my question is this: how do you properly store lievito madre in the fridge for weekly feedings? I know there are two methods to keep it at room temperature: dry, wrapped in cloth or submerged in water but what about when you wanna keep it in the fridge? Do I put the tub of water in the fridge with or without a lid? Do I put the starter wrapped in cloth in the fridge?

Please help me.