The Fresh Loaf

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Reviving a Starter

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Reviving a Starter

Hello!

I have been gifted a wonderful sourdough starter by a friend all the way from a bakery in France. However, I recently was traveling for a month and a half and failed to care for my starter. It has been sitting in the fridge, and has been given no love. It's a bit dense right now... 

Are there any tips and tricks to reviving an old, slightly inactive starter? I am going to try and take 1/3 starter from the mix and add 1/3 warm water and 1/3 white/rye flour and see if I get any activity. But other suggestions would be wonderful!

Thanks!

Bröterich's picture
Bröterich

I believe you're in the right track. Unless the starter smells totally awful which shouldn't be the case I would do exactly as you described. I would keep it at 100% hydration. That is: add equal amounts of flour and water. I use scales. If you want to leave it overnight I'd use something like 20g of starter, 60 g H2O and 60g flour. I only use rye flour as the base starter, the one I keep in my fridge. When you see some activity after the first period, take a small amount of that batch, i.e. 20g and repeat. You may have to do this 3 or 4 times and then you'll have beautiful, working starter again. If you prefer other flours it is still the same principle, or you can convert later to a starter of your liking.

A lot has been written on TFL about starter maintenance, reviving, etc.

Finally, the starter that you keep in your home and that you restore and maintain takes on the characteristics of your home, the flour that you use, the environment of your place. Although it may have come from a bakery in France after some time it's yours and the bakery in France is nothing but a nice memory.

 

mikedilger's picture
mikedilger

What every starter needs is (1) food, (2) removal of waste products, and (3) maintenance of the environment, especially pH.

When a starter gets this old, there are a lot of waste products, and the total acidity is high.  So heavy dilutions are very reasonable in this case.

Pour off any clear liquid on top.   I would go 1 part starter, 3 parts flour, 3 parts water (1/3/3) the first dilution, remembering that it will take longer to get active again, so don't panic.   Then work back to your normal feedings.

 

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

And wait! Only feed again when it wakes up and there is a flourish of activity. When it does so then it should go from strength to strength.

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thanks!

I noticed some bubbles on the top of the starter this morning. I think that is a good sign of activity. However, should I wait to feed it again once I noticed that it successfully doubled in rise?

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

Give it a stir then wait. You wish to see significant activity. See what happens within the next 12-24 hours. What feed did you go with in the end? 

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Great! I did 1/3 cup starter, 1/3 cup flour, and 1/3 cup warm water. But I think it sounds like I should have done 1:3:3 ratio so I may try that today and see how each one fairs up in terms of activity. 

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

It's starter:water:flour and all by weight!

An equal weight of water to flour will be 100% hydration. 

  • 1 cup water = 236g
  • 1 cup flour = 125g (ish)
  • Hydration = water/flour x 100
  • 236/125 x 100 = 189% hydration

Your starter is so hydrated you won't see much rise at all and only very small bubbles. You are also building a lot of starter. No need to build anymore than 100g - 150g or so and you use it to build levains. This way it's very manageable. 

If you have any if the original starter left then find a small jar and clean it thoroughly. Then take 20g starter and feed it 1:3:3 which is 20g starter + 60g water + 60g flour. Give it a good stir and don't feed it again till you see significant activity. 

With the very watery starter you have now the best way for forward is to wait till it's nice and bubbly (you'll see significant amount of bubbles in the surface but not much rise) then take 29g of the starter and feed it 31g water + 40g flour. This will now be 100g starter at 100% hydration. And again wait till it rises before feeding again. 

 

David R's picture
David R

Just a note about the numbers being by weight:

It's useful in a pinch to have approximate conversion factors from weight to volume, but if you care enough to spend time reading about how to make better bread, get a scale, and use it for every recipe - even for those recipes that are so sloppy & inaccurate that they use cups!

I know that cups were used in the majority of older North American recipes, and I know that they weren't being sloppy on purpose - but giving flour measurements by the cup is like being asked the size of your family and replying "My wife is about 25 square feet, our children combined are about 65 square feet, and you can see that I'm 32 square feet - so yeah, 122 square feet. Oh plus Horace the dog - he has round feet so I'm not sure". ?

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

I love your sense of humour David :)

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thank you, David! Well said :) And a great way to put weight vs. cups in a different and funny context!

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Good news! The 1:3:3 starter doubled in rise from yesterday! Should I wait till it falls back to its original size to feed again or should I feed it while it is still on its rise? If continued activity, I hope to feed it once a day and most likely bake this weekend. 

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

Would be when it's peaked and just started to fall. Once your starter produces a nice loaf then think about keeping it in the fridge otherwise you'll find yourself forever feeding it. If your starter is peaking quickly and you wish to feed it every 12 hours then change it to a larger feed and perhaps lower the hydration.  

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thanks Abe! I think I'll try and keep to feeding every 24 hours (probably in the morning) a couple days before I want to bake. After the bake, I'll put the leftover starter back in the fridge for hopefully only a week or 2 before I pull it out again to bake. Does that seem like a reasonable schedule? Am I missing any big details? Thanks for all the help!

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

At room temperature is a difficult schedule as you'll need a large feed and if you aren't baking then before long you will have a lot of starter. 

How about every morning but come evening refrigerate it. Then next morning take it out to feed again?

Or feed in the evening and refrigerate to take out of the fridge in the morning allowing it to mature through the day? 

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Perfect, I'll give it a try! Just curious, what is the difference between keeping it out at room temperature vs. putting it in the fridge between feedings? 

Abe's picture
Abe (not verified)

 slowing it down. Either that or feeding it every 12 hours, or giving it bigger feeds or making a very stiff starter.

You wish to continue to feed it every day but only once in 24 hours. This way it'll peak within 12 hours and you'll refrigerate for the other 12 hours.

You can try a lower hydration starter with smaller inoculation and keeping it a room temperature.

Clover23's picture
Clover23

I've noticed that it hasn't fully fallen after I feed it. It gets a solid nice rise a couple hours after feeding, but then stays up there until the next feeding. I thought putting it in the fridge last night to slow down the process might result in a falling of the rise, but it's still pretty high. Any suggestions? Or maybe it's supposed to stay risen?

David R's picture
David R

As it rises, a sort of skin or shell of slightly dried material can form. That surface can sometimes stay up for quite a while, even after what's underneath has sunk back down. So give that shell a little poke to see if it's hollow.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Clover, after your starter is revived and active it is a good idea to dry some of it and store for a backup. The flakes will keep for years and years. If tragedy stricks you can always restore from your backup.

Dan

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

I didn't see it clearly stated in the good tips above, so I will add:  Be patient.  If you read that a starter should grow up in 5, 10, 24 or 48 hours, ignore it.  An extremely neglected starter will have a majority of dead cells, a high concentration of their waste products and high acidity that will inhibit growth of the survivors.  Visible recovery can take several days.  I've had to wait 24-48 hours for my starter to creep back to life after I've left it on the refrigerator door for 3-4 weeks while traveling (normally it doubles in 4.5 hrs after a feeding).  But it always comes back.  I don't bother drying it down before trips like that any more, though I do dry some down occasionally as a deep backup.

So be patient.

Tom

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thanks Tom!

I fed it last night and noticed some bubbles on the top this morning. I think that's a good sign of activity! However, should I wait until I notice a successful rise of the starter before feeding again? Or should I keep feeding it (if slight activity) and hope for a solid rise after a couple of feedings?

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

As others have said, give a larger than normal feed (1:3:3 or more) and just wait.

In reality it may be a moot point whether this sort of treatment actually revives the original starter, or just leverages the acidity of the dead one to begin a new starter from the microbes present in the new flour. However it matters very little either way, because although the starter originated in France its composition will have changed a very great deal since then, unless it’s been fed the same flour and kept in the same conditions...

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

imho, you should wait for it to rise, where interior bubbles push the upper surface up.  A few bubbles on the surface is a good sign, but don't get over-anxious.

Here's a thought.  Your 1:1:1 inoculation proportions (33% starter : 33% flour : 33% water) might be a bit high on starter.  That you've chosen to make it (or keep it, if it already was) 100% hydration is pretty standard these days.  But introducing that much of the old starter, carrying as it is a heavy load of unwelcome metabolites (esp the acidic ones) accumulated over the past lonely weeks -- that could slow things. 

But not to fret.  It's a balance.  Given that your moribund starter has a higher than desired proportion of dead cells in it, any inoculation is going to have fewer viable cells than the same volume of a freshly maintained starter.  So reducing that metabolite load (see below) by cutting back that "1/3 starter" to 1/6 or 1/10 is destined set you back in the numbers game.

Yet no harm in this: Set up a second, separate culture from that old starter.  Instead of 1:1:1, as you've done, dilute the starter inoculum more, so that your culture's ratio is 1:3:3 or 1:4:4 or 1:5:5 (my weekly regimen is 1:4:5).  And this time, be especially patient, because you're starting with fewer viable bugs than in your original 1:1:1.  But this time, they're not struggling to reproduce in as acidic and toxic a soup as those in your first try.

Tom

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thanks Tom! Good news, the 1:3:3 starter doubled in size overnight! Should I give it another feed on the rise or should I wait till it falls back down to normal size again? And is it safe to say that I can continue feeding, if activity, on a daily basis until a weekend bake?

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

Well that is good news.  As I suspected, you'd have had to neglect that starter for several months, not several weeks, to truly kill it off.

From my experience, it doesn't make much difference whether you re-feed a starter that is well-domed and recently doubled versus waiting a bit longer until it collapses.  Whatever's more convenient.  Pros probably make those distinctions, but not us home bakers.

My and others' practice (I originally adopted this from one of David Snyder's posts) is to do three successive 1:4:5 (1:5:5 for you if you want to maintain it at 100% hydration) 78˚F feedings of my starter in the 24-36 hours prior to using it to inoculate a levain for a bake.  After the first or second of those feedings, it shows no evidence of proteolytic activity, manifested as the soupy-ness and pourability of a week-old refrigerator stock -- a condition out of which you want to grow your starter before using it for a bake.  Stick a fork into a thrice-fed starter and pull up stiff gluten-mediated strands that don't want to leave the fork or shear apart.  Always reassuring.  And if the timing of those three successive feedings necessitates a pause between the end of one grow-up and inoculating the next, just store it in the fridge. 

A typical pre-baking schedule for me would be: 
1. Feed it first thing in the morning -- matures around mid-day. 
2. Inoculate a second grow-up from it in afternoon
3. Inoculate a third grow-up from the 2nd just before bed. 
By morning, it's grown up and collapsed.  I then put it in the fridge and use it to inoculate a levain around mid-day.

Hope that helps.

Tom

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thanks Tom! So just so I understand correctly...you feed your starter 3 times in a 24-36 hour period before creating a levain for the next day? And a good indication is the fork test where you want the gluten strands to stay sticking to the fork vs. soupy and drippy. After the day of feeding and the bake, it's safe to put back in the fridge until next bake! Let me know if I'm missing anything in there. Just trying to get as many details down before I start my own process and schedule. Thanks!

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

Yes, as detailed above, I serially feed my starter three times on the day before it's needed to inoculate a levain for a bake:  Two during the day and one overnight.  Then I refrigerate it until mid-day, when I use it to inoculate the levain.

The "fork test" is just an observation every baker makes over time.  Old grown up and stored starter is liquidy owing to depolymerization of gluten and probably other polymers during storage.  Refreshing your starter dilutes out (and possibly inactivates) the enzymes responsible for the liquidity.  Think of a growing starter like an autolysing mix:  Just flour, water and the bugs.  No salt.  In it, gluten forms in a slow, stately, no-knead fashion and you can see it at maturity when you stick in a fork and pull up:  Stretchy strands, no longer the dripping goop of a weeklong-stored starter.

And yes, I take what I need to inoculate the levain for a bake from that third refreshment and return what's left (= a few grams more than what's required to inoculate the first of the three refreshments next week) to the fridge.

Tom

Edit:  The above applies to liquid starters (80-100% hydration).  Stiff starters (50-60% hydration) are managed and behave differently. 

Doc.Dough's picture
Doc.Dough

My data shows that a starter that is fed and refrigerated in accordance with Tom's guidance (refrigerator temp=4°C) will continue to replicate for about a month before it has exhausted the available nutrients. After that, there is another period during which both the yeast and LAB slowly die off so that after 6 or 8 weeks it will take more time and more cycles to fully recover it.  However, you do run the risk that yeast/bacteria (not necessarily LAB but acid tolerant) begin to have population densities that are high enough to shift the point of stability away from where you started.  So a week - no problem at all. Don't even need to double refresh before putting it back in the refrigerator. Two to 4 weeks, probably need two and perhaps three refresh cycles to get it ready to store again.  After that I am not sure that you still have the same culture.

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

“After that I am not sure that you still have the same culture“ - yup. +1 for that.

It’s great how we all bake in different ways. Personally I don’t really have the patience to treat my starter like a pampered princess - it comes out of the fridge, gets fed [1:1:1], then once it’s peaked most of it goes into the dough and the tiny bit that’s left left goes back in the fridge for next week. That way my starter is always being fully refreshed, I get no buildup of acidity and I have no discard. Bread seems good, too ;)

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Thanks Martin! Sounds like you have a much more manageable schedule :) So you pull your starter out of the fridge, feed 1:1:1, bake, and back in the fridge the leftover starter goes? I was advised to keep a 1:3:3 ratio, so curious how yours works with a high hydration at 1:1:1?

Also, could you explain a bit further that statement "after that I'm not sure you still have the same culture." What is necessarily changing with the culture? Sorry, many details to capture!

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

heh - well, it works for me ;). So yes, to be precise, I keep about 170g of fully hydrated starter in the fridge. Then the night before I’m going to bake at about 10:30pm, I take it out, feed it 1:1:1 with cold tap water and leave it out overnight. When I come down first thing next morning at about 6:30am it has more than doubled and is close to reaching max volume so I give it a good stir to re-invigorate it. I mix a good stiff autolyse from 250g hot water and 417g flour (65% hydration) and let that run for 30-40 mins with a 5 min knead halfway through, then thoroughly mix in 8g table salt and allow the gluten to relax for a final 10 mins. By that time the levain is getting perky again, so I mix in 333g of it giving a final dough weight of 1kg at 70% hydration. This leaves me with 167g of unused starter, which just goes straight back into the fridge. Eh vwallah!

Mixing the loose starter into the stiff autolyse is a bit of a bear, so these days I’m super lazy and autolyse in the basin for the KitchenAid, then I just let the dough hook do the job for me ;)

Oh yes, what I meant about ‘not the same culture’ is that by that point the number of viable ‘original’ microbes in the starter are probably going to be swamped out by the fresh (different) ones that you add in the flour you’re feeding with (esp if it’s stoneground whole wheat). In fact, unless you’re keeping the starter in the same conditions, with the same feeding regime, water and flour etc; then no matter how hard you try, the proportions and dominant species of yeast and LAB will quite quickly ‘drift’ to a new balance that will be quite radically different from the original culture - it’s just a matter of evolution...

 

Clover23's picture
Clover23

Hi DocDough - Thanks for your input! You lost me a little bit...First off, what is LAB? Secondly, it sounds like you are saying that with Tom's cycle of feeding 3 times in a 24-36 hour period, the nutrients and culture will dry off after 6 or 8 weeks? Sorry, just want to make sure I'm getting all the details and don't end up killing off my culture and starter!

Martin Crossley's picture
Martin Crossley

The whole rationale of a SD starter, and the reason it’s sour, is the symbiotic relationship between the yeasts and the LAB, with each playing it’s part to optimise the environment and amount of the available food sources for the other :)

A really good introduction to this topic can be found in the postings of our very own microbiologist expert Debra Wink - for example here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1