I had dried some starter 5 months ago and put it in an airtight
container in a cabinet in the kitchen. I left it in fairly large
pieces rather than grind it up into more of a powder consistency. I
took about a tsp of the starter Sunday night, mixed some flour and
water and by Monday afternoon is was beginning to bubble. This
morning, (Tuesday), it is bubbling and almost ready to make some bread.


I am going to try to re-activate it again in a couple of months and see
how it does. It appears that if it is kept very dry and clean that it
will hold about as well a putting it in the freezer.

In my house, little tiny bags of dry 'stuff' can disappear very easily
when the freezer is cleaned out and all of the 'old' stuff is
discarded. It is much safer in a jar in the cabinet with my sourdough
equipment.

Has anyone tried long term re-activation of dried starter? Will it
make for a year or so?

By the way, this is Carl's starter.

One other question that someone with much more experience than I can
answer; Why would anyone want to mix hooch back into the starter when
hooch is alcohol? Why not just dump it out? Flavor enricher?

John

BigJohn wrote:
>
> Has anyone tried long term re-activation of dried starter? Will it
> make for a year or so?
>

Dry and cool is the way to keep dried starter. The cooler the better.
I f your starter will stand freezing, then storing it it dried in the
freezer will keep it longer. Carl's will keep for a couple of years
easy when it is dry and frozen in a proper container.

Heat will kill dry starter. A kitchen cabinet is not a reliable place
for storage. A refrigerator or freezer is much better.

If you keep your bags of dry start in a freezer container or sealed jar
that is labeled well and it is still thrown out, I suspect that would be
grounds for justifiable homicide.

Hootch just indicates that there is not enough activity to keep the
flour particles in suspension. Often you can just stir up starter with
hootch and feed it and be good to go.


Regards,

Charles

On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:51:23 GMT, Charles Perry
> wrote:

>The cooler the better.
>I f your starter will stand freezing, then storing it it dried in the
>freezer will keep it longer.

Hi Charles,

You may be absolutely right, but I have read on many
occasions that certain LB will not survive being frozen.

Do you know that using the method you describe above will
allow one to generate the same starter that was originally
frozen?

Thanks for any tips,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

Kenneth wrote:

>
> Do you know that using the method you describe above will
> allow one to generate the same starter that was originally
> frozen?
>


Well, we have not done any DNA testing, but I did compare Carl's
restored from a dried and frozen backup with two other samples of Carl's
Sourdough that had been continuously propagated from stuff originally
received directly from Carl. Two other people did the same testing and
there was no discernible difference in the behavior of the three samples.

I concluded that not only are reasonably well maintained cultures of
Carl's quite stable, they may be dried, frozen, and restored with no
significant changes. I have no idea if that result would be the same
with other sourdough cultures.

There was some degradation of a sample that was over three years old in
the freezer so the restore was done with a one year old backup. Yet I
know of a person who claims that culture that had been frozen for five
years was revived with no obvious problems. Personally, I have only
stored dried culture in the freezer.

I think there is a nice project for some student of microbiology to do
DNA testing of the critters in a sourdough culture and see if there are
any significant changes after different periods of freezing.

Smacks a little too much like science for a person like me who is more
interested in good Karma than organic chemistry. Anyway, if the Bread
Faeries are happy and the cat says the taste is OK, why worry about
whats living in the jar?

Regards,

Charles

On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 01:58:56 GMT, Charles Perry
> wrote:

>Well, we have not done any DNA testing, but I did compare Carl's
>restored from a dried and frozen backup with two other samples of Carl's
>Sourdough that had been continuously propagated from stuff originally
>received directly from Carl. Two other people did the same testing and
>there was no discernible difference in the behavior of the three samples.

Thanks Charles!

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

"Charles Perry" > wrote in message
et...

> Well, we have not done any DNA testing, but I did compare Carl's
> restored from a dried and frozen backup with two other samples of Carl's
> Sourdough that had been continuously propagated from stuff originally
> received directly from Carl. Two other people did the same testing and
> there was no discernible difference in the behavior of the three samples.

Freezing is done by water together with water. Water adsorbed to non-
aqueous substance is different. Various things figure in:
How cold?
How old?
How dry?
How dried?
How pure?
What else?
Could I say?
Nah!
But my frozen-dried might behave differently than Charles's, if at all.
(Better stick with the tried-and-true!)

--
Dicky

Trix wrote:
> Charles,
> Would you say that freezing my dried starter (as an emergency back up)
> would be safer than just leaving my dried starter in little jars in a
> cupboard?
>


The refrigerator is far better than a cupboard. I have some in the
refrigerator and some in the freezer. Heat will shorten the life of dry
starter and even here in the North Country it gets warm in the cupboards
in the summer.

Regards,

Charles