Oh Noooo! My starter.

[WJW]

The unthinkable has happened. After caring for my starter for nearly three years...after baking tons of great sour dough....it's gone. Left it on the kitchen counter in a plastic container and a new cleaning lady "helpfully" ran it through the dishwasher for me. :-(

I'll start a new one this weekend but I'll probably have to by a commercial one since mine won't be working well enough to do breads by Thanksgiving.

Has anyone bought one online?


Bill

[deejayoh]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

I bought mine from sourdoughs international (sourdo.com) and it's been great. A bit of work to get it going, but it's been good since.

I bet if you ask around you can get a friend to give you some mother starter.

Another tip - take a bit of your starter and freeze it. Then it will be there for you the next time your housekeeper does her thing!

[WJW]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

I know...I used to have some frozen and must have thrown it out at some point.

That's interesting about having to get it going.....I assumed a commercially sold starter would be mature. How long did it take you to get rolling?

I know when I started my own it would work ok after three weeks or so....but it started really cranking after a few months.

I don't know anyone local who has a starter going. If anyone has one they want to try to mail I'll be happy to pay shipping...or I'd send UPS for a pick-up and have it delivered to me via second day air or something.

Bill

[deejayoh]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

It comes as a dried starter, it takes a couple weeks to get going. Lots of feeding and pouring out half, and feeding. You know the drill. Once it gets going, I keep it in the fridge and treat it badly. Hasn't been a problem.

I'd happily mail some, but I am not sure how well it will make the trip. Probably just as easy to order the culture.

But you might just put a post on your facebook account asking (assuming you use same). You never know.

[SableSprings]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

I got my starter from a "San Francisco kit" in 1974 and it's going quite well - although it is not the same as it was 40 years ago. I keep Bill (it is alive and obviously a treasured pet) on the counter except when we leave for more than a week. If you'd like, I'll put a dried starter in a ziplock and mail it to you. If I throw (son of Bill) in the mail tomorrow (Weds-10/29) you should have it no later than Saturday. Email me your mailing address (SableSprings@gmail.com) or pm me here and I'll send it out asap.

[SevenAcre]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

I'm approximately 350 mile north of you and have a Ischia sourdough culture I've been growing for the last four months or so. It proofs fairly slowly, makes a very nice dough for neapolitan and is distinctly tangy with longer ferment times. Let me know if you're interested and I'll do a split and feed for you.

-J

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

I keep my one in the fridge and try to remember to feed it (fortnightly).
Ive had it for 2 or 3 years.(maybe more??)
Its constantly changing,I try and keep it on the dryish side because I dont bake that often.
Its smelling like pineapple wine at the moment.
Kicks into action pretty quick but took months to get to a good state.

[WJW]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

Thanks so much for the help guys. Really appreciate it. As soon as I receive the starters I'll take good care and report back on the results.

Bill

[SCChris]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

Bill, I've built 2 starters both using pineapple juice, the method was taken from Peter Reinhardt's book artisan breads every day.



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/di...rex5.html?_r=0


It worked twice for me.

Chris

[WJW]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

Thanks Chris.

The way I did mine was to simply put a blueberry in a flour water paste and swirl it around for a bit. Then the usual drill of daily feeding.


Bill

[SCChris]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

Your always welcome to a bit of my starter, but I figure that driving downtown LA isn't on your bucket list of things you want to do..

C

[WJW]

Re: Oh Noooo! My starter.

Thanks for the offer, but I'm covered. Sevenacre and sablesprings are both mailing me a bit of their starters.

As far as driving to downtown LA....not my favorite but I have to do it with some regularity. Nothing currently scheduled though.

Bill