Storing Sourdough Starter
Commiting to a sourdough starter is not like commiting to a pet. Pets can't be frozen, for a start!
More importantly, it's easy to maintain a sourdough starter, even when you don't plan to use it for a while.
Have a look at some of the ways here, and decide which best suits you.
Frequent Use (daily or weekly). Best method is to use the
You can kick start your starter with dried sourdough starter, too.
Moderate Use (monthly, now and again)
Occasional Use (when I feel like going to the effort)
- Old dough Technique,
- Dry Dough (desem) technique,
- Frozen Starter.
Long Term Storage (I need to keep a backup copy)
- Dry Dough (desem, cowboy starter)
- Frozen Starter.
- Dried Sourdough Starter
SourdoughBaker Shop has both powdered and desem sourdough starter available for shipping to you with complete instructions and support, so you can start making very classy sourdough bread straight away!
General rules for starter storage and management.
 The thicker the mix, the longer it will keep without refreshment. If you can keep adding flour each day to your starter, it'll soon become a very long term and short term useable starter. This process is not easy to do, as you really have to work the flour into the starter, but the effect on your breadmaking will be pronounced. One of the big changes you'll experience when moving to a dry starter is that your bread will become more flavoursome. I won't say 'sour', because it's equally more sweet to balance it out. Because of the different enzymes produced and required in thicker starter, the sourdough culture takes on a different flavour. I keep both types, liquid and dry, for different purposes.
A more liquid starter will require more frequent feeds, but is easily kept useable with minimal attention weekly if required. Again, the thinner the mix, the more often it must be fed. If your starter is of a thin batter consistency, it will need to be fed as often as twice a day, and thus a useage cycle will need to reflect this - if you're baking twice a day, this may suit. If not, work it progressively to become thicker, until the cycle of leavening exactly matches your cycle of use.
What you feed your starter makes a huge difference. It's not often mentioned, but most of the 'airborne yeasts' supposedly attracted to sourdough starter are actually yeasts which live in the outer layers of grain. Thus, wholegrains produce more yeast in starter. I often use them exclusively in the early phases of a starter's life, just to establish a strong colony. But wholegrains also take longer to ferment, so this needs to be taken into consideration when choosing how you want to run your starter. And of course, if you need it to go into 'dry dock' for a period, you can always thicken it right up with wholegrain flours.
Over time, the starter will be established, and can, if you choose, feed on lighter flours. Using lighter flours has, for me, the added advantage of allowing me to make quite light breads using sourdough technique. You might prefer a more grainy effect. That's the beauty of sourdough - everybody gets to do their own thing.
Frozen Starter works really well as a backup. I just take a couple of centimeters from my liquid starter and pour it into a small sealed plastic container and freeze. It comes back virtually within the first use, even after serious long term storage (I'm talking YEARS). After the day the starter died incident, I got all my key people (bank manager, step mother in law, bakery manager and interstate friends) all to keep a portion of the sourdough starter in their freezers. It was expressly not for use. It was for rebuilding the starter from scratch again. Thankfully, ten years later and mine is still going strong!
An Old Dough Starter can be made even drier over weeks by simply adding flour every few days - just spray it with a little water and work the flour through it each time. When it softens each few days, repeat the procedure until it's really nuggetty. This 'dry dough' will keep for months.
The addition of salt to starter in very small volumes, effectively slows down fermentation by more than half. Salt is also a preservative. Some old dough techniques reserve the dough after the salt is added, therefore having salt in the starter all the time.
Most of the methods here in the SourdoughBaker site reserve the dough before the salt is added, so effectively no salt lives in the starter. I do recommend adding a bit of salt to the old dough starter from time to time, if only for the mineral content. I have not, however, put salt in my liquid starters for about 20 years.
Other Articles about Sourdough Starter you might like to have a look at include:
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The 7 Day Sourdough Starter method - Where you learn how to establish a starter from scratch in only seven days. There are also great beginners recipes on the site. Especially good for newly established starter is the SemiLeaven section, where I explain a method which utilises small amounts of yeast in the final dough to make sensationally light and flavoursome bread, even with baby starter.
- Maintaining a Sourdough Starter
 - Sourdough Starter, particularly the liquid variety, needs feeding, or it will need healing. This can be kept to a minimum, or wound up to produce more bread more quickly. This section shows you the basics.
- Old Dough Sourdough Starter -
 This is as simple as it gets. Recipes specially designed to reserve the old dough as you go, never needing to feed or maintain the starter again. Old dough will keep in the fridge for months and still be ready for use!
- Healing your Starter
 - You forgot to look after the starter? Went overseas, got back, and then there is this thing is in my fridge where the starter used to be? It isn't dead. You have not failed. It can be the best it's ever been now. You just need to tend to it!
- Powdered Sourdough Starter - You can now buy powdered sourdough starter online. There are many different kinds, and I will also have one here very soon. Mine is enzyme enriched, meaning that you can have a working sourdough starter in only 3 days. This article goes into the basics of revitalising starter, for those who just can't manage it, or those who want to add a bit of culture to theirs.
Check out the SourdoughBaker Bookshop while you're here, and pick up more information about the art and craft of artisan baking. There are currently over 50 great bread books some of which are in stock right now through my Amazon store. By buying books through this site you'll be helping me to grow SourdoughBaker beyond its current labour of love. I mention that this site is a free sourdough breadmaking resource, just as the internet originally promised.
And don't forget to check out the SourdoughBaker Shop for Ingredients, Equipment, Utensils and Books, all available, or soon to be, right here for your convenience.
For more information about Sourdough Starters, follow the links below by title:
Happy Sourdough Baking!
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