The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

The Resilience of a Starter

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

The Resilience of a Starter

Don’t know much about Facebook. I hope you can see THIS LINK.

A starter was left untouched in the fridge for 2 years. It was fed 4 times and produced this bread.

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

way more than a year untouched in the fridge.  It sat there on the heating pad at 76 F overnight after being refreshed once and did absolutely nothing.  Then I stirred it and 12 hours later it was ready to be divided and fed again.  After the 2nd feeding I had a new NMNF rye starter back in the fridge and the other half I converted half of it to a Whole Wheat starter for a 20% whole wheat white bread and the other half to a rye starter for a 50% whole rye/ 20% whole wheat rye bread that I made in Yippee's Oriental Pullman she sent me.  The rye bread was made in remembrance of Lucy who passed away and crossed over the rainbow bridge on 11/11/2021. She was 17 years and 7 months old.   She loved rye bread, especially pumpernickel.  I still miss her every day.  I will post the breads sometime today.

Glad to see you are still hanging around.  Yippee sent me the best rye bread I have ever had last year.  It was magnificent.  She made it in a Bundt pan.  Here is a picture or two of her bread.  I have to post this and then add the pictures from my phone.

Sorry all my pictures on my iPhone are all larger than 2 MB so I can't upload them.  I have to figure out how to upload them.

I can't even describe how great this bread is....it is out of this world

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Absolutely great to see you on the forum. I am not near as active as I had been, but still baking bread on an as-need basis. My favorite remains Hamelman’s Five-Grain Levain. 

Starters are definitely more tolerant that we give them credit for. 

So, so sorry to hear about Lucy. A few years back we lost our girl. Even though she can never be replaced, my heart and home was empty w/o her.  Our hearts and home are once again full. Her name is “Dixie”. 
2 years old and weighs in at a whopping 4 pounds. 

I hope all is well with you and yours…

Merry Christmas
Danny

pmccool's picture
pmccool

What I’ve taken to doing lately with photos from my iPhone is emailing them to myself.  It allows me to specify the photo size, so I pick something under the 2Mb limit for TFL.  Download the photo from the email and then it’s available for uploading here. 

Sorry that you don’t have Lucy with you anymore, though your ankles are probably in better condition than they’ve been in recent years. 

Paul

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

That is exactly what I did to get the pictures into my computer.  Sadly, APPLE will not let you set the file size before you take the picture for some reason and then this email step could be eliminated.  No upchucking on the toes after Lucy's passing either.  Ankles and toes were a small price to pay for my little baking apprentice. I do miss her terribly.  Sadly, she never made it to Chief Master Baker.  

The Roadside Pie King's picture
The Roadside Pi...

I doubt you remember me. However, you played a role in my development as a hobbyist baker. I share the sentiments of the others. Great to see you! I understand we are going to be neighbors! I make the jump to San Tan Valley in a short couple of weeks! 

 Back to the photo resizing conundrum. My workaround is very similar to Paul's. I text the photos to myself, then I get them onto my laptop quickly by way of blue tooth. 

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Need I say more?  

Except - so sad about the little girl, And as I've said about our little beast - first they make you love them and then they break your heart.

gavinc's picture
gavinc

I optimize photos from my iPhone by using JPEGmini software on my windows laptop.. The photos are put on a diet and are reduced in size for posting. Really good as you don't discern any drop in quality. Free trial and cheap to purchase. 

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

…of Fresh Loaves past!

Unexpected but always welcome stocking stuffer to hear from you dab!  Glad to see you and your renowned NFNM kids are going strong in spite of your precious assistant’s passing. Deepest condolences.  We know those rainbow bridge feelings only too well. As Alan said, they break our hearts. I’d say “always too soon” but 17 is absolutely phenomenal,  What a gift.

All the best dab!

Tom

Abe's picture
Abe

On breadtopia's site photos are automatically resized when uploaded into the comment section. 

MTloaf's picture
MTloaf

On an IPhone right before you choose upload if you press where it says Actual Size it will give you an option of small, medium, large. Now if I could only choose right side up rather than upside down or sideways. 
Nice to see you around again DABROWNMAN! Your input is surely missed Feliz Navidad    
Don

clazar123's picture
clazar123

Dabrownman! So happy to see your post! Lucy was such a great apprentice, and I am so glad to have "known" her. She had great baking instincts! :)

As for starters, I'm pretty sure they are much more resilient than we give them credit for. One of my starters was from a co-worker. She told me her family took this starter cross country in a covered wagon 100 yrs ago (at the time). When I asked her how she fed/maintained it, she looked horrified! When she wanted to make a loaf, she just took the half pint jar out of the refrigerator, poured about half into a bowl with flour,water,salt and made bread from there. The leftover in the jar then had a little flour and water added so the jar was full enough and put back in the refrig! Wow! That was 12 yrs ago. It currently lives in my refrigerator and since I don't bake very often anymore, it is fed every month (maybe) a few times and put back in the refrigerator. If I bake, I do a build over 2-3 feeds to use. It becomes active very quickly.

My other starter lived as a dried powder for 40 yrs in a cellophane bag and in a bailed jar. I found it at a flea market, added flour & water and that starter almost jumped out of the jar! My sourdough Jack needed several "baths" to get rid of the rancid flour it was asleep in but is a great starter.

Once you have a good,balanced starter, it simply goes dormant if left to dry out or sleep in the refrig. 

Have fun!