Neglecting Your Starter

My quest to bake a good loaf of sourdough continues. Most recently, I’ve had issues with my starter. The way I see it, if my sourdough starter and houseplant could talk, boy, would they complain. My plant has learned to live through drought, over-watering, too much light or no light at all. But it always springs back from this general neglect. My starter would sing a similar tune.

Here’s how it played out: I traveled for 17 days, during which my starter lived unattended in the refrigerator. Apparently, when you travel for weeks, you need to get your starter a babysitter because it has to be fed every week or it will go dormant. The telltale signs of a dormant (otherwise known as neglected) starter are a clear, dark liquid covering it and a lack of bubbles or activity.

I learned all of this when I dove back into The King Arthur Flour Bakers Companion. For all you starter neglectors, turn to page 277 for a tutorial on how to wake up your starter. I followed the steps…it worked…once again I bow down to a book that is teaching me step by step all I ever wanted to know about bread baking. Now that my starter is active again, I’ve invited my mother over for an in-person class on baking a good loaf of sourdough. Tune in next time for the blow-by-blow of the session. –Denise Shoukas