Stop Wasting Time & Flour Maintaining A Sourdough Starter. This Strategy is Way Better 

You can dry your sourdough to always have a back up. Take some 50g of active starter, spread it thinly in parchment paper, and let it dry at room temp until it becomes super dry, then crush it and store it in a tight sealed jar. It can last years.

For occasional bakers, the absolute easiest thing to do: dry it out and freeze it. I just used some 27 month-old starter and it worked perfectly. Just make a batch of starter, let it rise until it's at its peak, then spread it out onto parchment paper, put another parchment on top, and roll it out until it's tissue-paper thin. Unpeel the two parchment papers, and let it completely dry. It should flake off in chunks. Crush that down into as fine a powder as you can get, bag it and freeze it. When you're ready to bake, just pull out however much you need to make a batch of new starter (5-10 grams starter powder + fresh flour + water) and you're off to the races. Your starter will never grow mold, you don't have to worry about feeding, and you'll have scads and scads of starter for the rest of your life.

Yes! I keep mine in the fridge, nearly empty, just "scrapings" as you say. Take it out a day before using it, and feed it exactly how much I plan to use for the bake. No extra feeding, just use it and back into the fridge. No discard ever, lasts for a month or more. Starter going strong now 7 years later.

I had a starter kept in the fridge unfed for 3 years. Took it out, fed it and it came back to life. Save your flour and just revive your starter before your next bake.

I am a very old woman (85 yrs!) who is a very NEW sourdough wannabe! Your advice on maintaining my new starter is so helpful. I thought it was requiring a lot of flour to keep my starter going. Your advice about using small amounts of flour sounds good!

I had my starter in the back of my fridge for approximately 4 years. There was about a 1/2" in the jar. Turned into about 50/50 liquid and solid. When I fed it as an experiment before throwing it away it can right back to life. Doubled in size in a few hours. I was blown away!

Yes, I use this method for the last couple years and have let scrapings go for a couple months no problem. Worst case scenario you might have to feed twice if it sits too long. My starter is 27 years old and very strong though.

For long periods of not baking simply freeze you starter in ice cube trays and pack the cubes in a plastic bag afterword.

This is exactly what I do. You barely need any starter in order to make a new batch. All you need is the live culture. I also never refrigerate mine. Sometimes I let my starter sit on the counter for days on end without feeding it, and let it ferment until it looks putrid, then I discard that and use the scrapings to start a new batch, and I swear it makes the starter tastier and stronger. My theory is that putting it under stress by almost killing it off actually makes it stronger and actually gives it more time for new cultures to develop. When my batch of starter is fully active, I play calming music for it, in hopes that the musical vibrations alter the crystalline structure of the water molecules in the starter, therefore making a more structured bond in the dough. All theories, but it's super fun to experiment. Thanks for the videos!

I did the scrapings savings for 2 months and 3 weeks. I gathered what was on the bottom, put in new clean jar, and within 2 small feedings, it was back up and running.

I've maintained the same starter for a couple years now. I don't even measure. Like you, I leave a couple tablespoons in the jar after making bread, throw in some water and flour, stir it up and throw it in the fridge. When I'm ready to bake, I pull it out of the fridge, (it doesn't even look very active) make up a batch and bake. I've had very consistent beautiful and delicious loaves every time. I credit Elly's everyday sourdough channel! I think we make it too hard and fussy when it's really not.

I've been using a modified version of Bake With Jack's system for about 3 years now. I often run experiments with my starter and have used as little as 3 grams of scraping to create four wonderful 850g loaves. I've also recently brought back to life 65g of a neglected uncovered, and dried out starter that was left in the back of my fridge for 5 months following a motorcycle accident that left me unable to bake for a time. My approach is always of minimalist ways and I'm never precise in my measure of ingredients. I'm relying on the feel of the dough when I mix it. My results are always fine. Simple is best, is my motto.

This past year I didn't bake for over 7 months, I kept my starter on the fridge the whole time and did not feed it. I was afraid to take it out and feed it but I did and it was completely fine!

Love your info here. Over the years I have learned that a good starter needs little to no maintenance. Just two days ago I took out a jar of starter from the back of my fridge that i have neglected for almost one year. It had an inch of brown hooch at the top. I smelled it and it was good, no mold or anything funny on it. I poured off the brown hooch, mixed it up and gave it a quarter cup flour and same amount of water. After a while it had some more hooch rise to the top, I poured that off and fed it again. It developed hooch again but very little so again I poured it off and fed it. I left it on my counter over night and it was beautiful and bubbly in the morning. Basically under the hooch the yeast had gone dormant having nothing to eat. Yeast is pretty hard to kill. The only problem you can run into, is if some how mold spores get into it, but that becomes pretty obvious not only by the obnoxious smell but dark brown or black patches. Then you discard the whole thing. So I have learned that if you have a good strong starter to begin with, it will not fail you in the long run. I am not suggesting leaving it unattended for a year of course, but I am trying to let people know that this new idea of constantly feeding and discarding is unrealistic. You should not be discarding any of it. I come from an eastern European background. In the villages women made bread in large wood basins. After shaping the five or six loves of bread, they would scrape the left over scraps from the bottom of the basin and keep that for the next batch of bread. Some women left it in the basin and pored warm water to dissolve for the next batch. There is no need whatsoever to discard so much good flour. The only time it is acceptable is when you first make your sourdough starter.

I've done the scrapings method for a while now since seeing Jack do it. I'd left a jar of scrapings in the fridge and forgot about it for over a month. It had dried out but I added a little water and shook the jar, left it for an hour to rehydrate it. I then fed it and it had almost doubled in size in 24 hours. After one more feed it was healthy and ready to use again. I was amazed and the bread was just as good as previous loaves.

Always thought the daily feeding idea was crazy and I think it puts off a lot of people start baking sourdough breads. I have about a cup of starter that sits in the fridge. Currently bake once a week and if on holiday, I may not bake for 3-4 weeks. Before I refresh the starter, I take it out of the fridge to get to room temperature, for about 8 hours, and refresh using a tablespoon of this with 100% water. Always get a nice bubbling starter - how long it takes is most influenced by the temperature is my experience. I make sure there is about a tablespoon leftover to join the mother in the fridge and if I didn't refresh for longer, I usually make a bit extra.

You can freeze a blob of it and revive it when you're in a baking mood. It takes about two days to get a good batch going from frozen.

My starter is now 2 years old. I don't feed it regularly, I often run it down to almost nothing and then pull it back up. I often bake with unfed starter if there is enough in the jar and then just feed the leftovers. I have found the starter has got stronger by doing this. I love having some starter in case I want quick flatbreads, or to use in a cake. Starter is about so much more than bread. Crumpets, english style muffins made quickly amongst other things. I love having a sourdough starter, one of the best things I did in lockdown.

I learned this method from Bake with Jack as well and have actually neglected my scrapings for 8 months in the fridge! It took about 4 feedings to get it kicking (each time throwing away some and leaving the scrapings so yes, a little waste but it was only 4 feedings.) Then I made a fabulous, delicious loaf!

I dehydrated several trays of fed starter at 95 degrees, and store it in a sealed jar. Rehydrate @100%, feed and rest overnight and it’s ready to go. I can easily share starter this way and I’ll never run out. Anytime I need to replenish the stock of dried stuff I feed the active starter to the desired volume, wait for peak activity and dehydrate more. If your starter is very sticky, thin it out to pourable consistency with water. Since all of that water will evaporate anyway it doesn’t matter how much you start with - it just makes it easier to pour/spread onto the trays. Crepe batter is about te consistency I find easiest to work with.

We usually bake sourdough twice a week, keeping about 100 g in the fridge at any given time. The night before we bake, we use 80 to make the 250 to 300 g needed for that day's baking and the other 20 gets a feeding to make 100 g, which goes back in the fridge in the morning. A piece of tape with the last feeding date on it serves as a reminder if we skip baking, but even after two weeks the starter still acts OK.

I leave the "scrapings" in a ball on the bottom of a jar and just put a lot of flour on top of it, and stick it in the fridge. I can leave it in there for months. When I want to use it, I feed it the day before I plan to use it, and feed it again a few hours before use. Then when I've prepared my dough, I stick another tablespoon ball in the jar and cover it with flour, back in the fridge for next time.

That scraping method from Bake With Jack helped me a lot also! It makes sourdough baking so much easier. Usually I bake every 2-3 days and the longest period without feeding was about one week so far and the starter was nice and active.

Have you tried the "old dough" or levain technique? Townsends channel spoke about how people used to keep old dough in dried form that keeps for years like a piece of thick cookie. Just crumble and mix with water to reactivate it. Could be a good experiment for long term storage. Also Towsends spoke how in ancient times people use unwashed dough bowl continuously as it cause the bread to rise but they can't explain it. Like how in the book of Exodus in Bible they spoke of how they had to eat unleavened bread because they have no access to the dough bowl. It is in a way, the scraping method.

I have been using the scraping method for quite some time now and I love it! No fluor waste and I’m always ready to bake within 6-8 hours. Thanks for a great channel! 😃👍

Nice content! I've been known to feed my starter & then refrigerate it for upwards to 4-6 months before I use, re-feed & refrigerate it again. It's worked for me for decades this way. Of course now I'm back to baking bread every day so even though I still refrigerate it, I make it by the quart and pull sufficient amounts out the night before I need it. Btw, you'll know your sourdough starter is potent if you drop a tsp into a little dish of water & it floats. If it sinks, it still needs more time to ferment.

I started my sourdough bread journey with Bake With Jack, so I was happy to hear you reference him. It’s true. You do not need to keep a lot of starter on hand. Just feed your scraps, and you are good to go.

Very helpful! What a great video! Been doing this same process for probably a couple of months now as I was getting frustrated wasting a lot of flour and space in the fridge keeping jars full of discarded starters.

I've left my scrapings that I fed with 10 grams of flour and 10 grams of water, mixed it up and sprinkled a tiny bit of flour on top and left it in my frige unfed for 4 months. I then feed it 2xs at room temperature and it's ready to bake again. A German lady told me about the "sprinkle a little flour on top" method. The starter will start to smell like cinnammon & works great & no waste.

So good to hear your message! - I have a starter that is 14 years old. It is made from organic rye flour. I decided some years ago that I wasn't going to waste all that flour throwing it down the drain. So I've been using your method for some years now. The longest I've left the starter in the fridge is 6 weeks. When I've been away on holiday I've asked a couple of friends to also store some starter for me.-as an insurance - I've not had issues with the starter after 6 weeks!😀

I've been using Bake with Jack's method for nearly 3 years now. I've neglected my starter for a couple of MONTHS to the point where it has an alcoholic hooch puddling on the surface. I just stirred it back in so as to not throw off my water to flour ratio... it becomes liquidy in appearance but that's only because of the breakdown of the gluten strands. It does not change the water to flour ratio. Anyhoo...I took 20g of neglected, starving starter and added 60g of flour and 60g of water. About 18 hours later, and viola! It was ready to go! It performed rather well, too!

I use a similar method. I got sick of all the silly schedules and routines. I just keep a small jar of starter in the fridge and when I want to make bread I take out a couple tablespoons and make my levain in a clean jar. Whenever my fridge starter is low I just add more flour and water. From time to time I transfer my fridge starter to a clean container to prevent mold from growing. My starter is super strong and survived being abandoned by me for nearly a year once. If your starter is good that stuff can take a beating and doesn’t need any of the fussiness.

Thank you, thank you. I stayed away from making sourdough because of the discard & maintenance. So excited to try your efficient process. Blessings

I was struggling to maintain my routine for baking sourdough bread because of very hard feeding and kneeding schedule. Your videos have inspired me!! It is so much easier now! Thanks a lot for your videos!

I've used 5 lbs. of flour and just now passed the water test and put it in the fridge. Hope it survives. My first time. I was told sour dough bread doesn't cause inflammation as bad as other breads. I have arthritis. I love bread and have been doing without. It definitely makes a difference. I definitely will be trying this Thanks.

This is such a lifesaver tip! My sourdough starter is homemade, and the method I followed took a *lot* of flour. I worried a ton about how I'd be able to maintain a starter and if I had just wasted my time (and money) because I didn't have a lifestyle that allowed me to dedicate more time for baking. The scrapings method (and your realistic, busy home-baker approach) has done wonders to ease my baking worries!

Great video again, bro. I've used this method throughout my sporadic baking over the years. Key tips I have for this method. Try to refrigerate the starter as you have, but try to get it in the fridge just before it peaks, keeps the acid levels lowers, and gives the yeast a better environment to rest. Feed about every 3 days if not using it to keep it active for when you do what to pull it out and bake like you have. I also found that even after 5 months of being left in the fridge, it is a great way to start again building a lively starter quickly and keep its complex flavour. To do that, just take it out of the fridge, feed as usual, may take a few feeds to become as strong/active as desired. Hope this makes sense and helps a few people keep their bread rolling.

Great video! I have used Bake With Jack's scrapings starter, and it worked fine, as yours did. Now however, I make a 300 gram starter, and will leave it at times in the fridge in excess of two months, and then feed it twice, back to back. It works really well, and no constant feeding!

Great video Phillip. I just took my starter and placed 25g and added 55g of flour and 55g water. We have these 16 oz plastic deli containers that we buy from Amazon. It is the perfect size for the amount of starter.

You are absolutely amazing.I have followed your directions and am now at the scrapings stage,making and the baking is so good. I can’t believe I have finally made delicious sour bread. Following you has made it so easy. I love it.😄

My sourdough jar was cleaned out recently, but luckily not washed. Just added 15g flour, 30g water, took 2 hours more than usual, but came back strong as ever. This video is spot on! Too many crap methods out there!

Massive appreciation here from a new baker .....im learning a lot from channels like yours

Thank you so much for your response in your last video! The suggestions you made really helped and the last loaf I made was perfection! The best loaf I’ve made since switching off store bought flour and yeast! Thank you so much!

Okay I watched this video which compelled me to watch a few more of your videos. I’ve been making sourdough for about 7 years (using the same starter! It’s like a family pet now). I have one tried and true recipe but it has olive oil in it and my husband is okay but not in love with the taste and texture of the bread (means more for me!). I have tried one or two other recipes that just didn’t work out so I was leery trying your recipe but thought what the heck let’s give it a go. The feeding the scrapings of the starter is genius! Since I have plenty of my old faithful in the fridge I use your technique by putting about a tablespoon of our ”pet” in with your measurements. Perfection! And your recipe yields a loaf my husband can’t get enough of! He said you should know it has “Saved our marriage” (which isn’t true because we’ve been married forever and I can’t get rid of him!).

Thank you sir for your incredible work and content. It's one of the top sourdough channels out there, in my opinion. You're clear and concise and I really appreciate all the work that goes into the production. Keep it up!

Thanks for the good video. I saw the the same on Bake with Jack; glad you gave him a shout out. I feed in small quantities (40g) daily; just a routine at this point. But I keep a backup in the fridge. For longer storage I do a low hydration mix for the fridge, usually 50%. The starter in a low hydration mix peaks and exhausts itself more slowly. Combine that with the cold of the fridge, it last for months and only needs a couple of days of feeding to be back to full strength. Ever couple of months I just replace it. I also dried a portion as a really long term storage back up.

Nice to see this working for you - I have been doing this same method myself for a couple of years, care of Jack’s seminal video. On a Friday night I add 150g of water and 150g flour to my scrapings jar, make sure it’s well mixed and then leave it out for an hour or two before it goes into the fridge until morning. Saturday I make my 3 sourdough loaves, and prove them in the fridge over night. Bake Sunday morning. Amazing results every time.

I had exactly the same experience. When I started with sourdough, I had tons of discard & starter. I'd manage by mixing it with some eggs to make pancakes, but it gets tiring after a while - even though the kids are a big fan. The solution was a little planning: keep a little, feed in the evening for making your dough the next day, to bake the day after that.

Truly BRILLIANT! Thank you so much! This is exactly the kind of information I need.

I stumbled on the same method through trial and error over the last six years. Works brilliantly.

I agree with you. Watched bunch of channels, read all these books, what a waste when I am only going to bake once or twice a week. Then I started putting my small jar in the fridge and have kept in there. Take some starter from it, feed it couple of times and bake. Some people make sourdough baking look over complicated. I use Bake with Jack's knead on wet counter top method, so easy.

Thank you, Phil, for your excellent content and videos! I have been using Jack's method for almost two years and bake two loaves every 10-14 days (I do not feed the scrapings in between baking intervals). As he recommends, I have always used fresh ground organic rye for my starter. However, it appears you are using white bread flour for your starter, so I am going to convert my starter to strong white bread flour (SWBF) on my next batch (simply by using the white flour in place of the rye flour), just to see the difference (i can always go back to rye flour and vice a versa). Thanks again!

Excellent practical advice, thank you.

I love this concept! I gave up previously due to so much discard! Will try again!

Good to verify what I’ve been doing for awhile. Discard and feed, what a waste. I’ve been been baking with SD off & on for 50 plus years. Always ready to learn new tricks. My hold is a 50g (50/50) mix. Baking bread weekly but other stuff too. SD breads are mold resistant in comparison to regular breads so I adapt many recipes to SD.

Six YEARS of being FREE from the sourdough regiment! Got sooooo TIRED of fitting MY schedule around sourdough baking; the dread, knowing I NEEDED to use the starter and hating the waste, if i didn't. Elly's Everyday taught me the LAID BACK style of bread making she's been using for years. About a TABLESPOON of leftover starter, and a little water and flour. No scales, no real measuring. And uses it straight from the fridge,..No wait. And whole grains, also.

Thank you, yes I had two jars of starter in my fridge until I watched your last video ( jack and his scrapings) so much simpler and no waste! Your Bread recipes are the best 🇨🇦

Thank you for this video. I definitely will try the sourdough starter again! I tried it during the pandemic and I wasteed so much flour trying to get it started and maintaining it and I wasn’t making bread more than a couple times a month. I bake bread all the time and I haven’t been making any sourdough bread since then. But now, with your methods, I will definitely get back into it!

I've developed a method over the past few years of making one large no-knead loaf per week (after it cools I cut it in half and freeze half of it). I use a single larger jar for the starter and keep a few ounces of leftover starter. The afternoon (late) before I bake I feed the jar flour and water so that it's just under half full. By about 9:30 it is doubled in size. I use about a cup for my bread dough and a half cup for a sourdough pancake batter. I put the remaining starter back in the fridge and leave the dough and the batter overnight on the counter. I form my loaf and make pancakes while it rises. Practically no waste, and I'm only feeding it once a week. Also, I'll occasionally feed the starter mid week and use that batch to make pretzels, pizza dough or bagels (these work well if the starter is in the "discard" phase).

Our gabled house has a video about keeping the starter for longer (she learned it from her German mother). She makes sure to add flour on top of the starter, don’t mix , place in fridge then feed it the night before you’re ready to use. Btw thank you, thank you, thank you for simplifying the process for me, less stressful.

I'm very excited about this system. I too wanted to bake it but did not want to deal with the daily feedings....cant wait to try thanks

I no loved it!.I’ve been practicing baking bread for a month now,and I will try out your method. Thank you very much.

If you leave the jar with scrapings open it will quickly dry out. Then store it in a cupboard. Takes longer to get ready to bake but no risk of mould

Bake with Jack is awesome. I use the scraping method. I have left my starter (Floyd now 2yrs old) for up to 2 months in my fridge. I take him out pour off any hooch on top and add water and flour. Boom back to life to make great bread. Sourdough rocks!!! P.s. your Channel is great 👍. Thanks for the video.

This was a great clip! Thanks for the info!

gamechanger!! thank you for your excellent videos and valuable tips

Funny you should mention... I have been thinking about trying my hand at baking and I ran across a video on Jon Townsend's 18th century cooking channel where he makes a "bacteria bread" that is kind of a sourdough without the need for a starter. One simply mixes flour salt and water into a dough and let's it sit for at least 20 hours before baking. I like simple so I like the idea. As long as you know you will need it a day or two in advance it sounds like a good approach.

Kept my scrapings in the fridge for over 7 months. Used it the other day to make a lovely rye sourdough bread, it is yum! Popped my scrapings from that back in the fridge. Agree, a huge thank you to Bake with Jack! He's the lad!

I followed your book recipe for long term storage (mixing starter with flour) as I was gone for a month. Then I vacuum-sealed several sets. Very easy!

Thanks for all of your videos. I've been baking sourdough bread since the beginning of this year and I was able to master it thanks to your videos. What you have in this video is I think an example of best looking loaf of bread ever. That's the benchmark for every sourdough loaf.

Admittedly, the problem of constant feeding is one of the reasons I have not baked Sourdough any more than I have. My work schedule is unpredictable and emergency calls often change plans with no time to respond, combined with an infrequent baking schedule and maintaining a starter was a chore I was not interested in. This method sounds like a great way to maintain a starter for the 1-2 weeks between Sourdough baking I would prefer. Thank you.

Great video..... I no longer worry about my starter and a regular feeding regime; yes, in the early days of my sourdough journey I was quite particular with my feeding, but I took a more relaxed and laid back approach to feeding around 2 years ago and only feed it before I'm about to bake. I have never looked back since and always get great tasting (and looking) bread, with a good open crumb with this approach. As I say, I feed my starter the night before I want to use it and calculate the amount of flour & water to add so that I have around 20/30g of starter left over after using it the next day to make the dough - I store my starter in once finished with. On one occasion I revived a starter found in my fridge after well over a month of not being fed, it looked a bit off and smelt pretty rancid, but after a few feeds it was fine. In other times I've taken the starter directly out of the fridge and used it to make dough without first feeding it, yes it took longer to rise, but the bread also turned out fine. In my view don't waste good flour and time on daily feeding routines - starters are tough enough not to need it!

Just found your channel have liked and subscribed. Thanks so much for this information. Love sourdough..

Amen! Bake with Jack taught me all about this!

Good show, this is what I've been doing since I started because I thought the whole feeding/discarding routine is nuts and fortunately it comes organically to some people. Down with discarding forever! I don't keep scrapings I just keep literally whatever is left. I do ZERO, I mean ZERO calculations as to how much is within the tub when I feed it and because it's always between 1-20gr or thereabouts it doesn't really matter for this kind of scale of baking. Maybe it would matter if it was in the 100s but at this scale it makes negligible difference. I don't care and it doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter to people either. This perpetuation of insane feeding and discarding habits that people reproduced like parrots has been a big bugbear of mine. I keep my starter in the fridge permanently, it can stay there for weeks and months. You just mix the hooch back and feed it and it comes back to life.

You can freeze sourdough starter in an airtight container for up to a year without damaging the starter. You don't have to feed the sourdough starter while it's frozen

THANK YOU SO MUCH! for me, this honestly is a game changer!

Thx so much from Michigan, USA. This is brilliant. Tried it, loved it, and am now onto my third bake using this method.

I’ve done this for the last few years. I found that I just couldn’t afford to keep feeding a starter. I thought that if the archeologists used a sourdough that was 3,000 years old and it worked then I could probably use my starter forever! Then Jack popped up on my RU-vid recommendation and he showed that you only need to keep a few scrapings of sourdough to start a levain. Since ten I make a batch let it go in my quart jar and when it gets down to the bottom I just add ½ cup of distilled water and 1cup (imperial) of distilled water. Works a treat let it rise use some for sim more bread. Cover and put in the fridge. Now some folks like to start with a fresh jar every time… I’m happy using the same old jar. It looks a dog’s breakfast but it sure makes great bread!

Glad you posted this - I do basically the same as you and have no discards whatsoever. I bake about twice a week, so use the frig as a time out like you described. I have another couple of guys I follow who even use the starter straight from the frig and let the dough rise overnight. I mean, when you add flour and water to it, it's basically just one big feed.

Well done! I'm always up for any plan that excludes waste! We can't afford any kind of waste these days! 👍🏽

THIS is a gamechanger for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I use the discard from feeding as flavor in biscuits. (Edit: I know this is cooking, but it's faster cooking that can be more easily worked into a busy schedule.) Gives them a nice punch. Equal parts discard and flour by weight measured into a measuring up. 10-20% butter to flour by weight. 1 tsp baking powder per cup of dough. Enough water or milk for the style of biscuits you want.

I've had success feeding my starter and immediately putting it in the fridge. You could do the same with your scrapings, just give it a mini-feed, pop in the fridge so it doesn't exhaust, and that will keep it going. You can freeze some, too, as a backup.

Love your work, brother!

This is great! Just what I needed.

I’m new to sourdough and after a few loaves I’ve discovered I can leave 40 grams-ish of starter in the fridge and bring it out and feed it make a loaf and put about 40 grams back in fridge. No discard ever. My starter works great!

I had a sourdough starter that I forgot to feed for like 6 months in the fridge due to work-related depression, and after 2 feedings it was pretty much back in shape.

thank you so much, this’s really really helpful

Excellent!! Thank you for the video!

I am a newbie and I would not do this crazy discard ever. Keep mine in the fridge and feed before I bake. My schedule is too irregular. Glad more people "come to their senses "and don't throw such treasures away 😊

You don't have to have so much sourdough on hand, bubbling away at the room temperature. Just have on hand enough to make the next loaf (or loaves) of bread. For example, one can keep 25g of sourdough starter (kept from the previous bake), add 100g of flour and 100g of water, and let it double at room temperature. Use 200g of this for your bake, which should be enough for 3 850g finished loaves. Then you'd keep the remaining, 25g, amount for the next bake. I keep my starter in this way in the fridge several weeks sometimes until I bake again.

Thanks for sharing, I've always wanted to have a starter on hand. But didn't know much about it.

Wonderful video! Clear, comprehensive and concise. Been baking sourdough bread since start of COVID and enjoying it. This clears up one of my struggles as well. Subscribed and posted for the email subscription as well. Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱.

That's what I do for my weekly bakes. I keep ~30g of starter from the prior bake and add 80/80 g of flour and water in the late evening. It works well. Lately the bread I'm making is 85% hydration and 87% whole wheat bread flour, 800g of total flour for 2 loaves.

We forget that a starter is a microbiome and as such is held to the rules of evolution. If you pamper it, it will adapt to depend on you. If you feed it randomly it will soon adapt and evolve to react to such conditions and grow strongly when fed on those occasions.

Thank you , brilliant idea 🙏❤️

This looks amazing!!! Thanks! 💪

Me alegro el día tu clase!! Soy panadera hogareña. Y me cansé de tirar masa madre, harina... Wooow! Éste método es perfecto. Saludos desde Buenos Aires Argentina

my great grandmother before the time of fridges, rubbed flour into some sour dough (remnants after baking) and kept these sour crumbs in jar covered with cloth in meat safe🔥🔥