Cookaholics Bulletin Board

All,

During the course of my move to Portland, HP (our sourdough starter) is liable to go for 4-6 weeks without a recycle, which is too long. Given that, I'd like to preserve him for the move.

I've done some googling and I see two pieces of advice: 1. freeze and 2. dry. Advocates of the drying camp say that freezing won't work. However, given that it is currently 90% humidity in SF, I'm not sure that drying would work.

Has anyone frozen/dried your sourdough starter? How did it work out?

Related to this, apparently Stockholm has a "sourdough kennel" you can take your starter to while you go on vacation:

http://www.virtuousbread.com/bread-and- ... nk-not-us/

I have done both successfully. Maybe try both, and do your own experiment?

Is oven-drying not an option?

I've found freezing works ok. Remember, after a month or so your starter will change flavors to reflect the local yeasts.

Even the low temp (130º) my pilot light keeps the oven at would kill most yeast, and sourdough, I understand, is even more sensitive.

For us, oven-drying wouldn't work unless we turned the oven on, at which point it would be too hot.

We could, however, put it in front of the dehumidifier.

Try a dehydrator for some of it, this should not kill the yeast. I agree with Becky and in my experience, your yeast will change to the local bugs, regardless.

Wino,

Yeah, we've already seen this; with the prior culture, we used it three times in a row in another state a while back, and the flavor changed. However, HP is a strong culture, so I'm hoping he'll hold out for a while.

Why don't you do both?