Keeping your sourdough starter healthy and happy

Here's a picture of a good healthy starter in action. This starter is vigorous and robust, bubbling and expanding with exhuberance. Often the dough I make from it raises in half the time suggested by recipes. It's beginning to take on a good tangy aroma, although the flavor is still a bit tentative. Since the starter is only about five months old, I have faith the taste will sour as it ages.

Caring for mature sourdough starter is pretty simple, but it takes some committment to keep your starter happy.* Each week, you need to use a cup or two (you could also give some away or--sacrilege!--toss some out) and replace it with 1 cup flour and 3/4 c water. Stir it up, allow it to percolate at room temperature all day or overnight, and then store it in the fridge until the next week when you repeat the use-and-increase. That isn't too hard now, is it?

Infant starter, just like a human baby, is a bit more demanding in its early days. It needs to be fed small amounts often until it is strong, at which point it can be stored in the refrigerator and fed once a week. Refer to my post on developing new starter.

There are some tips...you want to store it in glass, ideally, with a loose-fitting lid. Avoid metal containers. Base the size of your crock on the amount of starter you want to keep on hand. Since I use about 3 c of starter a week (and add more than 1 c flour and 3/4 c water to replinish it), I want at least a 2-quart crock to be able to have room for 6 c starter plus 2 c headroom. Did I mention that it bubbles a lot? It needs that room to keep from spilling over the rim. Some folks avoid metal spoons but my starter has never seemed bothered by them. Sometimes a clear gold liquid will separate out and settle on the top; this alcohol layer would be the old gold miners' "hootch." You can pour it off or stir it in. I stirred it in with my first starter but now I pour it down the drain. Since my new starter behaves more joyfully than the old, my recommendation would be to pour it off. Perhaps the wild yeasties in my are a teetotalling strain? If your hootch rises up with a grayish color, it should be discarded.

If anyone stumbles across a great 2-quart crock in your shopping, please let me know where you find it. I'd love to get back some room in my fridge. My refrigerator and I thank you.

*If you can't keep up with the schedule, or if you want to take a summer vacation from baking, you can freeze or dry your starter. I'll talk about that in another post.