Sourdough Starter

I've had the same sourdough starter for several years, but I don't use it all the time.  In fact, Prudence (the name I gave my sourdough starter) has been sitting on my pantry shelf in a dried state in a vacuum sealed jar for over 2 years. 

Yikes, I didn't realize it had been that long!

One of my goals for this week was to reconstitute/wake her up, see if she's still viable, if she's still viable use her for a few weeks and then put her back in a dehydrated state where she'll sit on my pantry shelf again until the next time.

(Picture is of Prudence in a dried state since 2018.)

The first step in waking Prudence up is to measure out 1 ounce of starter (I use this scale) and put it in a jar.  If you don't have an accurate scale you can measure out 1/4 cup of starter pieces.

After I have my starter pieces in the jar I add 1/4 cup of lukewarm water.  I used room temperature well water.  You don't want to use water with a lot of chlorine in it.

The water should barely cover the sourdough chips and you may need to tamp them down a bit to get them in the water.

Every once in a while I'll give it a little stir until it's completely rehydrated.  The rehydration process could take up to 3 hours so I need to be patient.

Will Prudence be a viable starter again ... we're about to find out!  Stay tuned for the next installment!

Here's a post I did on Reviving Prudence the last time I woke her up.  It also has a link to instructions on how to dry sourdough starter and put it to sleep for a while.

Update 3 hours later:  

Prudence is completely rehydrated and ready for the next step ...

... which is to stir in 1/4 cup all purpose flour.

She gets a bonnet next and I set her in my dehydrator for up to 24 hours to see what she does.  My first preference was to set her in my oven and turn on the light, but since the light bulb in my oven needs to be replaced I went to my next option which was the dehydrator.  Thankfully, my dehydrator has a bread rising option because it's a bit cool for Prudence to work sitting on the counter right now with the cooler temperatures outside affecting the inside temp.

patsi

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