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Old starters are good enough that no one has given up on them because they suck. Personally, I’ve tried sourdough a couple of times, never gotten the starters

Old starters are good enough that no one has given up on them because they suck. Personally, I’ve tried sourdough a couple of times, never gotten the starters to really work (despite having done tons of other bread). I’m trying it again now, but I’m kickstarting the starter with pickle brine (not vinegar, the actual lactic fermented brine). There’s some bacterial activity, but it’s too soon to tell if it’s going to work. But in the meantime, I’ve got a yeast starter going from my last commercial yeast, because I’m out of yeast and so was the store. It’s been going a week now, and it’s working reasonably well, and even getting a bit sour, with none of the problems of weak rising that you can get from a more pure sourdough culture.

karatestomp 7y ago
My couple tries, the bread hasn’t risen well, the starter takes up fridge space, flavor’s not great, and the damn thing wastes tons of flour if I’m not using it nearly every day. I’ve put it in the “maybe when I’m retired” pile and will keep making very decent bread with dry active yeast in the meantime.
- chihuahua 7y ago
  I'm not sure if keeping it in the fridge leads to a good starter, at least initially. I'd let it sit on the counter for the first week or so, to give it a chance to develop.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    This’d be yet another topic on which everyone has very different “definitely the right way” advice, too, which isn’t helping. Though I have started them on the counter, it’s just after that they have to go in the fridge if you don’t want to waste flour on them every single day, apparently, and even then they’re still very hungry. Throwing out flour hurts when I know I could have made something good with it. I’ve tried recipes to use up “waste” starter without having to make bread with it, but it was still more effort than doing the same thing with other ingredients and the flavor was... poor.
- weaksauce 7y ago
  i have a small jar of starter in the fridge that i replace weekly with 50% water and 50% flour of what I take out. any time i want to bake i feed it that day and use the half i was going to discard anyway to start that loaf of bread or a pizza dough. done this way it's not too hard to have a good sourdough starter in the fridge with minimal waste. having a few jars that you cycle through every feeding removes the funky crusty buildup that tends to happen if you reuse the same jar.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    > having a few jars that you cycle through every feeding removes the funky crusty buildup that tends to happen if you reuse the same jar. If I decide to give it another go I’ll definitely do that. Good idea.

karatestomp 7y ago

My couple tries, the bread hasn’t risen well, the starter takes up fridge space, flavor’s not great, and the damn thing wastes tons of flour if I’m not using it nearly every day. I’ve put it in the “maybe when I’m retired” pile and will keep making very decent bread with dry active yeast in the meantime.

chihuahua 7y ago
I'm not sure if keeping it in the fridge leads to a good starter, at least initially. I'd let it sit on the counter for the first week or so, to give it a chance to develop.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  This’d be yet another topic on which everyone has very different “definitely the right way” advice, too, which isn’t helping. Though I have started them on the counter, it’s just after that they have to go in the fridge if you don’t want to waste flour on them every single day, apparently, and even then they’re still very hungry. Throwing out flour hurts when I know I could have made something good with it. I’ve tried recipes to use up “waste” starter without having to make bread with it, but it was still more effort than doing the same thing with other ingredients and the flavor was... poor.
weaksauce 7y ago
i have a small jar of starter in the fridge that i replace weekly with 50% water and 50% flour of what I take out. any time i want to bake i feed it that day and use the half i was going to discard anyway to start that loaf of bread or a pizza dough. done this way it's not too hard to have a good sourdough starter in the fridge with minimal waste. having a few jars that you cycle through every feeding removes the funky crusty buildup that tends to happen if you reuse the same jar.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  > having a few jars that you cycle through every feeding removes the funky crusty buildup that tends to happen if you reuse the same jar. If I decide to give it another go I’ll definitely do that. Good idea.