How To: Revive Sourdough Starter
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Reviving sourdough starter doesn’t have to be scary! Don’t throw out that old sourdough starter just yet! Revive it with our simple step-by-step guide so you can get back to baking delicious breads and treats in no time at all.
Raise your hand if this sounds familiar…
You’re cleaning the fridge mid-September and you come across the sourdough starter you haven’t seen since May when the sunshine was calling and the shorts came out.
“Oh my god. FRED!”
Don’t worry, you can revive a sourdough starter that’s been long neglected in the fridge! Even if you neglected it as long as I did…
May 12, 2021 and September 15, 2021:
- 126 days
- … or 18 weeks
- … or 4 months & 3 days
This guide to reviving sourdough starter is dedicated to shorts season.
Master Your Sourdough Starter In 5 Days!
From Confused To Confident.
Find success with 5 simple, actionable secrets delivered to you. No more guessing games – just clear, proven steps to a thriving starter.
Tips
- Almost any sourdough starter can be revived! Don’t panic, your fermenty baby is gonna be ok, and you’ll be back to sourdough bread baking in no time!
- Take a critical look at your neglected starter, the section below details what to look for. If you have any questions about its status as a possibly healthy starter, scrap it and start fresh!
- Always try to feed your starter with the flour it was raised on. For example, if you’ve always fed it bread flour, keep feeding it bread flour. The same goes for whole wheat, whole grain, all purpose, rye flour, or gluten-free.
Moldy Sourdough Starter
While almost any starter can be revived, I don’t play with mold. Fermenting foods takes a little bit of intuition and a little bit of ruthlessness. If something looks, smells, feels, or just could be bad – it finds the garbage quickly.
Look: If your old starter has any kind of mold, toss that bad boy, start fresh with my 24-hour starter recipe, and you’ll be just fine! After the mold, look at the hooch – if it has grey or black-ish looking hooch, we’re in business! If the starter or hooch is pink-tinged, it’s gotta go!
Smell: If the starter smells tangy, like vinegar, alcohol or even nail polish remover, it’s safe to use. If it has a musty or moldy smell, toss and start over!
Feel: After a long fridge nap, your starter should be thin and liquid. If it’s thick or chunky, toss it and start over!
Reviving Sourdough Starter
- Remove the unfed sourdough starter from the fridge and allow it to rest at room temperature for 3-4 hours.
- Look closely at the starter, discard immediately if your starter has mold, a pink tinge, or smells musty. These are signs that bacteria have overtaken the yeasts.
- If the starter passes the test, stir in the hooch, or pour it off. I prefer to stir it back in to keep my hydration levels correct, but it can be poured off too.
- In a clean jar or container, mix 50g of the unfed starter with 50g warm water, stir until combined, then add in 50g flour.
- Set aside the fed starter for 12 hours, then feed it again using a fresh clean jar, combine 50g starter, 50g water and 50g flour. Mark the side of your jar with the height of the starter.
- Watch the starter for signs of activity. It may be a little bit sluggish, but you should start to see a few bubbles here and there.
- If the starter is close to doubling within 12 hours, wait 24 hours before feeding again. If the starter is not close to doubling by 12 hours later, feed it again – and repeat until the starter doubles within 12 hours, then reduce to a 24 hour feeding period.
- Once the starter is revived and doubling regularly, it should be maintained on the counter and fed every 24 hours for 4-5 days. This will help get your starter healthy again before it’s placed back in the fridge.
- Ensure to feed your starter weekly or bi-weekly once it’s in the fridge to keep it healthy and active and ready for sourdough baking!
What readers are saying:
Readers who have used this guide are raving about it! Here is what they had to say after saving their fermenty friends:
Sourdough Starter Feeding + Maintenance
There’s a lot to sourdough, but there’s also not a lot to sourdough! One of the things you’ll have to decide is how often you’ll be baking. For me, in the fall and winter months, I bake much much more frequently. So I actually use different sourdough feeding and maintenance methods depending on the time of year.
Daily to Bi-weekly Baker
- you’ll want to keep your starter at room temperature and feed it daily. This will keep it warm and active whenever you’re ready for it!
- feed it around every 24 hours. You can play with the feeding schedule a bit, once you get to know your starter and how hungry it is. The starter should be fed after the culture doubles in size and deflates.
Weekly or Less Frequent
- keep your sourdough in the fridge! This slows down the fermentation time considerably and allows you to feed your sourdough only once a week.
- simply remove it from the fridge, then stir and feed, and rest for 12-24 hours at room temperature before starting with your recipe. Once the fed starter doubles, it is ready to use!
Recipes To Put That Starter To Work!
Long-Term Sourdough Storage
If I had been smart, I would have used the remainder of my sourdough from the fridge and revived a backup I saved much earlier last year. But I’m always up for a challenge, so I decided to revive my starter. If that’s not for you, check read my post about long-term sourdough starter storage.
Freeze it:
- Freezing a sourdough starter is a quick and easy way to take a break from your starter.
- It’s quick and easy to do.
- Requires no feeding until thawed.
To revive the frozen starter simply allow it to thaw at room temperature before feeding it with equal parts of starter, flour, and water.
Dry it:
- A bit more involved than freezing, but kinder to the yeast in the starter.
- Requires no special tools.
- May take a bit longer to revive than a frozen starter.
To revive the dried sourdough starter, mix equal parts, by weight, of the dried starter and warm water. Allow it to completely re-hydrate the starter and then feed it with equal parts of starter, flour, and water.
Master Your Sourdough Starter In 5 Days!
From Confused To Confident.
Find success with 5 simple, actionable secrets delivered to you. No more guessing games – just clear, proven steps to a thriving starter.
📖 Printable Recipe
How To: Revive Sourdough Starter
Ingredients
- 50 g unfed sourdough starter
- 500 g flour divided
- 500 g water divided
Instructions
- Remove the unfed sourdough starter from the fridge and allow it to rest at room temperature for 3-4 hours.
- Look closely at the starter, discard immediately if your starter has mold, a pink tinge, or smells musty. These are signs that bacteria have overtaken the yeasts.
- If the starter passes the test, stir in the hooch, or pour it off. I prefer to stir it back in to keep my hydration levels correct, but it can be poured off too.
- In a clean jar or container, mix 50g of the unfed starter with 50g warm water, stir until combined, then add in 50g flour.
- Set aside the fed starter for 12 hours, then feed it again using a fresh clean jar, combine 50g starter, 50g water and 50g flour. Mark the side of your jar with the height of the starter.
- Watch the starter for signs of activity. It may be a little bit sluggish, but you should start to see a few bubbles here and there.
- If the starter is close to doubling within 12 hours, wait 24 hours before feeding again. If the starter is not close to doubling within 12 hours, feed it again 12 hours after the initial feed- and repeat until the starter doubles within 12 hours, then reduce to a 24 hour feeding period. When the starter has reached the 24 hour feeding cycle, it is ready to bake with.
- Once the starter is revived and doubling regularly, it should be maintained on the counter and fed every 24 hours for 4-5 days. This will help get your starter healthy again before it's placed back in the fridge.
- Ensure to feed your starter weekly or bi-weekly once it's in the fridge to keep it healthy and active.
Video
Notes
moldy sourdough starter
While almost any starter can be revived, I don't play with mold. Fermenting foods takes a little bit of intuition and a little bit of ruthlessness. If something looks, smells, feels, or just could be bad – it finds the garbage quickly. Look: If your starter has any kind of mold, toss that bad boy, start fresh with my 24-HOUR STARTER RECIPE, and you'll be just fine! After the mold, look at the hooch – if it has grey or black-ish looking hooch, we're in business! If the starter or hooch is pink-tinged, it's gotta go! Smell: If the starter smells tangy, like vinegar, alcohol or even nail polish remover, it's safe to use. If it has a musty or moldy smell, toss and start over! Feel: After a long fridge nap, your starter should be thin and liquid. If it's thick or chunky, toss it and start over!Recommended Equipment + Ingredients
Nutrition
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Thank you for this informative and detailed explanation. I am on my way to reviving my starter at this moment!
Good luck! Let me know how it goes!
Hello!
What do you do with the original starter that you took the 50g from? Toss it?
Yup just toss it out!
@Audra, there are also great tossout recipes for the unused starter. I usually make overnight pancakes with mine
Your recipe calls for 500g of flour and water. That number seems way too high.
Hey Kelsie, the ingredients calls our 500g to ensure you have enough flour on hand to reactivate the starter – as some can be sluggish after a long famine. The directions within the recipe explain that you’ll only be feeding it 50g flour and 50g water at each feeding. Having 500g on hand means that you’ll have enough for 5 twice a day feeds or 10 daily feeds, but more likely a combination of both.
Hope that helps!
@Ally, definitely only saw 500g of flour and water under Ingredients, so that’s what I did (the whole time thinking, this just doesn’t seem right). However, my dormant starter loved it and doubled in 24 hrs! When I returned to the instructions to see what’s next, I saw where there were two sets of measurements. Once I read your explanation it made sense. Thanks for saving the sourdough day!
Oh my gosh! I am so sorry, I’ve edited the ingredients section to specify “divided” to be more clear!!
Super happy to hear that your starter loved the smorgasbord hahaha!
Once I have my starter revived, how do I scale it up for bigger bakes? Do I use the same ratios of starter, water, flour in larger equal increments?
When you’re ready to scale your starter, add equal amounts of starter, flour and water! You could do 100g starter, 100g water and 100g flour – just be aware that it multiplies super fast so you can end up with way more starter than you need!
Is there any discarding done at all during this reviving process? Thanks for your answer in advance!
Yes, you’ll be discarding all but the 50g of starter you use every day. You can save the discard in a container in the fridge and bake discard recipes, like in sourdough discard brownies!
when we let it sit, do we put a lid on it?
Thanks!
Yes you can put a lid on it, ensure it’s not airtight though!
Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise with us. It was very helpful.
Hi there! I’m so thankful you have this post! I’m reviving mine and I poured out the hooch and scraped as much off as I could. I fed it and 24 hours later, I now know it’s supposed to be 12, it was hoochy on top again. I fed it less than 12 hours today and it’s hoochy. Am I doing it right? Im doing equal parts of of starter, water and whole wheat flour. Do I need more water? This is what I’ve always done though but im wondering if I need more because I poured off the hooch.
The small amount of hooch you poured off won’t overly affect the hydration of your sourdough starter, eventually, it will get back to 100%. If the starter has hooch on top it’s cause it’s hungry, just keep up what you’re doing and it will bounce back!
Am trying to revive mine today to get ready for winter baking. Mine has been in the fridge since April, I fed. It had greyish hooch and smell c like vinegar.
I used mostly rye flour, hope that is ok. Waiting to see what happened after 22 hours.
Thanks for your post. It’s very helpful!
It should be just fine! Good luck!
Ps. I’m happy we’re back in winter baking season LOL
howdy, i started reviving on sunday, still working on feeding every 12 hours, and it’s now thursday; smells/looks great so far, but i’ve not yet gotten any significant volume increase and it’s starting to make me nervous lol. also, should i be discarding before feeding? please and thanks in advance!
Hey Hannah, it should be pretty close – I’d try to feed it and wait 24 hours to see if you get a decent rise – it might just be slow! Yes you should be discarding and only feeding equal portions of starter, water and flour.
Help! My daughter brought sourdough starter to me. It grew up on AP flour, then we fed it with bread flour and it was fine. Then we fed it with a different kind of AP flour and it’s not growing. THEN I read that you say not to change the type of flour. ;(. So. Now it is getting watery on top (is that hooch?). I am going to start consistently feeding it with bread flour. Will that work? Thanks!
UPDATE! I did as I said and fed it with bread flour and it doubled in 7 hours! Back in business on a strict bread flour diet. 🙂
Ah! So glad to hear it came back!
I got through step 4 and then my starter doubled in 8 hours and looks beautiful! Is there a reason I cannot just go ahead and start using it now? I’m confused about the next step: wait 24 hours and feed again. Is that necessary? Thanks for helping!
Hi Abi, I guess that depends on how neglected your starter was! If it doubled after a single feeding, it was probably in reasonably good shape. I find after a prolonged time without feeding my starters can double in the jar easily, but don’t always have the leavening power to raise bread. I have done exactly what you’ve done multiple times and was mad at myself each time because the loaf was not impressive – dense, poorly fermented, flat, and bland tasting. My opinion would be to give it a second feed before baking, based on my experience!
@Ally, ok thank you for explaining. But now that my starter is doubled and bubbly after two feedings, should I wait for it to fall again before feeding? You said wait 24 hours which is why I’m asking, still trying to understand. I’m used to the imperative need to use the starter asap once it’s doubled, making sure not to wait too long before it deflates. But you’re saying to let this one go for 24 and then continue to feed 50/50g? My starter was neglected for most of the year in the fridge!! So it’s confusing that it became seemingly active so quickly.
No problem! The 24 hours is just a rough guideline for feeding, you can go 36 or 20, whatever fits in your schedule. I never feed my starter until it has collapsed – if it’s still inflated it means that the yeast is still finding food – allow them to eat it all before you feed. It is important to use the starter when it’s at least doubled and active after a feed to bake with, but that is not necessary for feeding!
I was going to toss my sour dough starter thinking it I had to toss it. Thanks to this web site I am reviving. This is the best site I have ever seen. Love the pictures and step by step instructions. This is now mysource for all things sour dough.
I have a starter that may be dead. It has been a couple of months since I used it. It would not raise, so I put it into my bread maker, added yeast and made dough and into a couple of loaves of bread that were really good. but, now I think it is dead. I may try to revive it, according to your directions..
Do it! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Mine sat neglected in the fridge for over 4 months and it came back stronger than ever, so I say go for it!
@Ally, It was slow going for awhile (maybe because I make 100% whole wheat starter) but I’m glad I was patient, because this morning I was thrilled to see the starter finally doubled!
Now, a few questions, just to be clear:
1. For the 24 hour periods at room temperature, I should still use only 50g of the now doubled starter into a clean jar each time and toss the rest (even though it doubled)?
2. However, for the feed done right before putting into the fridge, I figure I should then take out 100g and mix it with 100g flour + 100g water because my bread recipe routinely calls for 150g starter per loaf. That way when I next make a loaf, I’ll have 300g in the fridge from of which I take out 150g for the loaf, leaving 150g to be fed a new.
3. BUT going forward, once the starter is revived and in the fridge, should I always feed it in equal amounts of starter/flour/water (1:1:1)? If so, that suggests I should always repeat step #2 above – feeding only 100g at a time and tossing out 50g, otherwise I’ll be creating a growing amount of starter going forward. Does that make sense?
4. I bake 100% whole wheat bread with Mark Bittman’s dutch oven method. His feeding regimen has you feed the remaining starter with the same *total* amount of flour and water as the starter you removed — so for example: if I take out 150g starter for the loaf, I feed the remaining starter with 75g of flour and 75g of water. That way, you don’t keep growing the amount of starter on hand and don’t have to toss any out. So that differs from step #3 of feeding equal amounts of starter/water/flour each time and tossing or using the excess.
BUT the fact is – after a year of doing Bittman’s method, my starter slowly fizzled out which is why I am now reviving it. I’m naturally wondering if the reason for the loss of activity was the lack of 1:1:1 feeding, as per step #3 above. What do you think?
Hi Jerry!
A quick thought on this results in these answers:
1. You can keep as much starter as you like – I like to use 50g because it tends to be the perfect size for me to store in a pint jar, have 60g for my regular sourdough recipe and enough leftover to feed 50g. You don’t need to toss the discard, you can store it, and bake with it!
2. I 100% agree with your thoughts on this. This is the perfect way to do it, to ensure that you always have enough on hand for your go-to sourdough recipe!
3. You’re exactly right here. I always feed my starter 1:1:1, and circles back to the reason that I only feed 50g. LOL Starters grow exponentially, so it’s important to keep a manageable amount on hand – hence the discard. That said, I find discard to be a misnomer because it can be saved and used in tons of recipes. It’s discarded in the sense of feeding the starter, but not necessarily tossed in the trash.
4. It’s very possible that the feeding method could have caused your issues. I can see what he’s trying to accomplish – a no-discard starter, but I think in order for the starter to stay healthy and viable, it needs to be refreshed by discarding.
I wish you’d give American measurements along with the metric. If I have to look up what 50 grams is every time i read a British or European recipe I’ll probably try a different recipe.
Hi Louise,
I understand your frustration, but the reason most sourdough recipes are in weighted measurements versus volume measurements is because of the ration required for sourdough starter. While you can convert it to volume measurements and have a “sort of close” replica of the original, weighted measurements are much better, and once you’re used to them, much easier to work with.
The main reason is that volume measurements of dry goods are notoriously inconsistent. 50g of flour is always going to be 50g, no matter how packed or sifted it is. 1/4 cup can vary in weight wildly based on many factors. On the small scale, it can be overlooked, but when you’re getting into larger volumes of flour, it can absolutely affect the outcome of your recipe.
It’s a little bit to get used to, but I prefer working with weighted measurements now – and I never would have thought I’d say that! I have a video up on YouTube about feeding sourdough starter and it may help convert you to the scale side!
I’m a little confused by the directions for reviving. Step 4 says that I take 50g starter, add 50g water and 50g flour and let it rest for 12 hours. Then it says in a clean jar again…so do I remove 50g of starter from the batch done 12 hours prior and then add 50g of water and 50g of flour? Then it would start the hopefully 24 hour feed process?
Yes, exactly. The in a clean jar sentence explains what you should do during that feeding step 🙂 I changed the wording slightly hopefully that makes it more clear!
@Ally, okay. Now that that is cleared up, can I add the step 4 discard to the original? I was going to use that to make something with the discard since I have a lot of it.
If you add more discard to the starter you’ll have to feed it larger quantities, so I usually just keep a small amount of starter going while I’m trying to revive it. If you want to skip discarding that’s fine too. Or are you meaning you want to mix the current discard with your previous discard? If so, that’s fine as long as your discard is still healthy!
@Ally, mix the current discard from this morning to the discard that I started with yesterday. I started a new starter yesterday *just in case* this one that I’m trying to revive doesn’t grow.
Usually, the rule of thumb is not to use discard from a brand new starter for at least 2 weeks because it hasn’t been innoculated with yeast and bacteria to keep the mold and bad microbes down. I used the discard from my 24 hour starter right away cause it was made with commercial yeast. Hope that helps!
Thank you Ally,
It feels like you have been looking over my shoulder. I am reviving a months old refrigerated starter and it is on a robust doubling schedule. The question involves smell, it has almost none. I’m using King Arthur organic all purpose flour. Am I ok or does this indicate a problem?
Thanks,
Fred
Hey Fred,
If it’s doing it’s thing, no need to worry about the scent! When my starter is cooking along in the winter months, it smells faintly pleasant and not much else.
I have accidentally left a jar of starter in the cupboard for 2 months, now that’s a smell you don’t want. LOL
Thank you for this informative post! I am trying to revive my starter because it seems too acidic, and I haven’t been able to bake bread successfully. In the past, I was leaving it on the counter and feeding it once a week without discarding. Would this method of reviving a sourdough starter also work well for my case?
You bet, if there are active microbes in your starter, they’ll be happy on this diet! LOL
Your starter is likely acidic because it’s hungry. In my opinion, (I know you didn’t ask haha) the best feeding routine is 1:1:1 starter, water, flour. I always use 50g each, and then I have about 100g active starter to play with once it’s fully activated – which is perfect for my go to small batch sourdough.
If you’re wanting to only feed once a week, consider reviving it, then storing it in the fridge, you can slow down the fermentation considerably and reduce the feeds.
Thanks for your post , I appreciate the simplicity of your explanation. I have never been able to throw discard away with the high cost of flour (always use it for baking). This time I got 4 jars going and it appears to all be healthy and active so I’m thinking I could use it all in my bread recipe…
Hey Sandra, glad you enjoyed the post!
I think that discard gets a bad wrap, but it is incredibly useful. I do actually have a couple articles about discard, like what to do with sourdough discard and how to store sourdough discard. I totally agree with you, I almost never toss mine, and if it does make it’s way out of the kitchen it goes to my chickens!
Hi,
Thanks for your great website!
I started reviving a neglected starter of my own, and also converting a neglected one that was a gift and got lost at the back of the fridge to be a rye starter. However, I’ve just realised I didn’t read the recipe properly – I took 50g of the original starter(s), added 50g flour, 50g water; 12 hours later, added 50g flour, 50g water to the mix not realising I was supposed to discard some, did the same again this morning, and have now realised I should have been doing 50/50/50/discard, not mix+50/50. So, now I’ve done it properly, and have a bowl of 50/50/50 white plus a bowl of discard, and 50/50/50 rye plus discard. It’s all bubbling very nicely! But I’d appreciate your advice – do I need to do anything to rebalance my two starters or just from now on read the recipe properly?! And I have two bowls of fairly runny discard – do I just use this as normal in discard recipes?
Sorry for the long post and thank you for your thoughts!
Hey Sally, I think you’re fine to be totally honest. Not discarding for the first few feeds after reviving isn’t a huge deal, the starters are great, so no worries there! They make take an extra feed to be at full strength, but it seems you caught it early, so that may not even be a factor. And don’t worry about making a simple mistake, they happen!
The discard is usually pretty runny once the microbes have eaten all the food in it, but it should be just fine to use in recipes that specify discard. The discard is 50% water and 50% flour, regardless of the texture, if that makes sense.
Hi! My neglected starter had some hooch on top and no mold or anything so I started working on feeding it. It’s been three days of feeding with no rising but there have been some bubbles. It wasn’t until after this I read your article and saw that the neglected starter should be thin/liquidy. Mine was definitely not that – it was thick almost like play dough before I added water to it. Can you explain why the thick consistency out of the fridge means that I should toss it?
Hey Emily, the consistency of the starter really depends on how much of the flour the microbes have consumed. So when you first feed it, based on feeding 1:1:1, it’s gonna be really thick like peanut butter and as the microbes eat the starches and good stuff in the flour, the consistency changes as the flour is broken down. This is why hungry starter is runny, and activated starter is kind of snotty, it’s in between thick and pasty and thin and runny.
Without knowing more about your starter that was in the fridge or your feeding habits, I can’t tell you either way, unfortunately. If you still have the starter, you can allow it to come to room temperature, feed it 50g starter, 50g flour, and 50 g water and rest overnight. An important step in this process is going to be transferring it to a clean new container and marking the sides of the starter jar so you know exactly where it was at the beginning of the feed and will be able to clearly see slide marks on the jar in case it rises when you’re sleeping or at work.
I’d at least give it 4-5 days of daily 1:1:1 feeding before you write it off. If it’s kind of coming around but not really activating super fast, you can try feeding it 50g starter, 50g water, and 50g whole wheat flour. Sometimes that will give my starter the boost it needs to really get going after a little rest.
My starter would not rise and I needed an understanding and solutions. This article helped a lot
So frustrated and I don’t have all day to search for accurate conversions from grams to cups, etc. Wondering how hard it would be to just put the conversion in parenthesis in the recipe. I am old and the older I get the more I truly understand the old saying, “Old people don’t like change.” It’s frustrating and we don’t have a lot of time left on this earth at this point anyway. I know I sound crabby (I get that way sometimes) but I have lots to do today and “research” wasn’t part of it. I am hoping that it may be correct what I found that 50GM in the starter would be somewhere in the equivalent of 1/4 cup? Going to try and just see how it goes. Please consider revising the recipe! Or just put in a side note. Now I will crawl back in my hole from which I came and try not to “fuss” anymore. Thanks!
Hey Susie, sorry to hear that you find weighing in grams frustrating, and to be honest, until I really gave it a shot, I thought it was annoying too. Now that I am used to it, I actually prefer to bake with weights versus volume, I find it cleaner, easier, and quicker. But the best part is that my results are more consistent.
I use grams when baking with sourdough because I know that 50g of flour today is the same as 50g of flour tomorrow, and next week, and next year. While using a measuring cup and spoon means I can inadvertently have more or less flour than I want. I do have a youtube video I recorded for my homestead channel that shares how I feed my sourdough starter, along with using my scale and a few tips and tricks along the way. It may inspire you to try it! Here’s the link.
I had some sourdough in my freezer for more than 3 years. Thought I might bring it back to life, so I fed and after 3 feedings now it still hasn’t done much but sit there. Very little action. Then I read somewhere else that chlorine kills starter. I plum forgot about the practice of putting out an open jar of water overnight to let the chlorine dissipate/evaporate before adding it to the starter. It’s been on the counter since I’ve removed it and it’s on the cooler side in the kitchen (65-70 degrees low/high). Do you suppose I should start over or continue to feed this with chlorine free water from now on and see what happens?
Hey Gary, worst case, you’re already 3 days into a new starter if the yeast completely died off in the freezer over that length of time. I wouldn’t start over, I would just continue with what you’ve got going 🙂
@Ally, Hey thanks for the really quick reply. I will continue. So…, is it true that water out of the tap (chlorinated) will kill a starter?
I have heard that this is the case, but we live in the country so I only have experience with softened well water (which works fine)
My discard was pretty thick in the fridge (not runny like you said it should be). It’s been in there a LONG time, like I don’t remember how long but at least 8 months. Just for science, I left the jar out overnight to let it come to room temperature, then I did your starter feeding method since it didn’t have signs or smells or going bad. It has doubled within 24 hours and has the tiny bubbles. So my question is, since I started it from discard that had gotten really thick, is there any reason I can’t keep feeding it and use it again? Like is there a safety issue?
Thank you for all of your insights! This has been so helpful!
Hey Deanna, it could have been thick because it was cold!
Either way, whether you revived discard or starter, they’re the same thing with the same microbiome. The only difference is our perception because one has been fed more recently, long story short, you’re totally safe as long as you didn’t notice any signs of it going bad 🙂