You may (but probably don’t) recall this blog post I did over a year ago about saving sourdough starter.
Sourdough Starter Dried
Back at the end of 2013 when we decided to give up all gluten and eat healthier, I stopped baking bread. For a while I kept the starter alive and then decided it was too much trouble if I wasn’t going to bake the bread so I dumped it. That was a hard decision but I knew I had the dried starter in the freezer.
Fast forward five months later and I’m wanting to experiment with some of the whole grain sourdough breads so I needed to re-activate my starter.
Dried Starter
Some of the dried chips were sprinkled into a bowl.
Reviving Starter
A bit of water was added and I stirred them every few minutes til dissolved.
It’s Alive!
After the dried chips were dissolved, equal amounts (by volume) of flour and water were added. Every few hours, I stirred the starter and before long, I began to see life! Bubbles! That’s a good sign.
Starter is Ready
The next day, the starter was transferred to a jar. Equal amounts (by weight) of flour and water were added.
Starter is Ready
Bubbling and active! Ready to be made into bread!
I’m so glad it worked. I would not have wanted to start completely over with a new starter. I will always keep dried chips in my freezer and if you have a sourdough starter that you like, I would suggested you do the same . . now that we know how easily those chips can be re-activated.
Judy S says
Interesting! I had no idea you could dry some of the starter and that would work. One of the hardest parts of being GF for me at least was going without sourdough bread! I lasted about 3 years…….
Dottie N. says
Good to know, Judy! Thanks. I’ve wanted to “start” a sourdough starter but know that I won’t want to feed it constantly. This seems like the perfect scenario!
Karin Vail says
I must have missed the ‘sourdough chips’ post – did you just dehydrate your starter to get them???
Carolyn says
Now i need a post on how to dry the starter and How to make it from scratch!