Going on vacation: How to keep starter alive?
To those of you who've successfully been maintaining starters for years now:
I'm a newbie bread baker. I've grown two starters from scratch, both using Reinhart's methods. The first one is a white starter made using the pineapple juice method. The second one is a wholewheat starter made using the mash method. I've been keeping them both in the basement at about 70-72F. The first one I'm feeding daily, at 80% hydration. The second one is very new, I'm just on day 7 and have mixed it into the mother starter at 75% hydration. So far they both seem to be behaving well, the first one is rising after each feed and winding down by the next one, and the second one seems to be working just as Reinhart describes in his method. The starters are pretty new, and I've only baked a couple of loaves with th first one which were clearly not perfect - somewhat dense crumb and over-sour flavor - but that may be for a host of other reasons as I discovered while browsing this forum.
Which brings me to my question, which is, what is the best way to keep them alive when I'm on vacation? I will be going away soon for 18 days. Do I stick them in the fridge and just feed them when I come back, or should I get my neighbor to come in to feed them from time to time when I'm gone? If the answer is the latter, how often should I request the feedings?
Thanks in advance.
Maya