A lovely customer emailed asking what should they do with their sourdough starter whilst on holiday. So let's dig into it!
Whether you want to buy sourdough starter or grow it yourself from scratch the thought of it coming to harm, usually makes us all very nervous. The good news is that it's actually quite hard to kill a well established sourdough starer.
So how do you keep your sourdough starter alive whilst on holidays?
It's fairly simple.
24 hours before going on holiday:
1. Discard half of your sourdough starter.
Note: If you have huge amounts of starter discard enough so that you have 100-200gr of starter left.
2. Weigh the amount of starter you have left.
3. Multiply the weight of your starter by 2.5 (this is the amount of flour to feed your sourdough starter).
4. Add the 2.5x flour into your sourdough starter.
5. Multiply the weight of your starter by 1.5 (this is the amount of water to feed your sourdough starter).
6. Add the 1.5x water into your sourdough starter.
7. Mix it all up, it should be a fairly stiff dough.
8. Place it in a bowl and cover with cling film.
9. Place your covered bowl into the bottom shelf of the fridge (ideally towards the back wall), or wherever your fridge is the coldest.
10. Go and enjoy your holiday for up to 3 weeks.
So what do you do when you get back from your holiday? Stay with me for a little longer. This is going to be just as important as feeding your sourdough starter before you leave.
Within 24 hours of getting back:
1. Get the sourdough starter out of your fridge.
2. Scoop about 50gr of the sourdough starter form the bottom of the bowl.
3. Feed your sourdough starter with 50gr of flour and 50 gr of water.
4. Mix it up and leave it our at room temperature.
5. After 12 hours discard 50 gr of the starter.
6. Feed again with 50gr of flour and 50gr of water.
7. After another 12 hours your sourdough starter should have doubled and you can go back to normal feeding.
8. If not discard and feed again until it doubles in volume.
If you need any further help please don't hesitate to reach out to us via email at care@getsourdough.co.uk.
