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How to Store and Use Sourdough Starter from the Fridge

May 10, 2021 by Lisa Le 9 Comments

Today I’m breaking down how I store my sourdough starter in the fridge for several months, untouched, and how I revive it to make delicious sourdough bread again!

picture of sourdough starter in a jar, with text overlay of the title of the post

Making sourdough can be time consuming, If you need to take a break from sourdough, you don’t need to throw out your starter! Here’s what I do to store mine in the fridge:

How to store sourdough starter in the fridge to hibernate long term

I use a clean jar with an airtight lid. I use the same kinds of jars for when I store my sourdough on the counter. These are old gelato jars I get from my zero-waste bulk shop! But you can use any jar, it’s easier with a wide mouth jar!

With the new, clean jar, I create a sourdough starter feed of my usual ratio of 1:5:5 (5 g mature starter, 25 g flour mix, and 25 g water). Then, let it sit on the counter for about 6-8 hours for the yeast to multiply. I’ve also just fed the starter, and then immediately stuck it in the fridge. However, I find that my starter bounces back a bit better and is less angry at me if I let it feed a little bit before going in the fridge.

Either way, I stick it in the fridge with the lid on airtight. If my jar was more than 50% full, I’d leave the lid on more loosely, but since it’s only 20% full, there’s lots of room for it to expand.

From the fridge: Discarded all but 5 g, then fed 25 g flour mix and 25 g water (1:5:5 ratio)

How long can you store sourdough starter in the fridge?

Leave your starter in the fridge for as long as you want. I’ve left it in there before for 1 week; 2 months; and just recently; I pulled Carter the Starter out of the fridge after being dormant and untouched for 4 months. I’ve heard of people leaving it in there and still being able to wake up their starter after a year!

The older your starter is, the more resilient it is. So personally, I think it’s better to hibernate your old starter than to throw it out and start from scratch.

24 hours after my first feed from the fridge: I didn’t feed at the 12 hr mark because he barely rose at all (this is about 175% increase instead of my ideal 200% increase)

How to wake up my starter from being in the fridge:

First, I pour off the grey liquid I see on top. That liquid is the alcohol produced from long-term fermentation. Actually I take it as a good sign, that the culture is still active! But it also means it’s hungry, which is fine, because next we feed it!

I take a new, clean jar and take 5 g of the hungry starter, then feed it my usual 1:5:5 ratio of starter:water:flour mix. My flour mix is 40% rye, 40% bread flour, 20% whole wheat. Feed your starter whatever you normally feed it, be it rye, bread flour, or all purpose!

So feed your starter whatever ratio you normally feed your starter; be it 1:3:3, 1:4:4, whatever works!

So your newly fed starter will sit in a warm place on your counter for the next 12 hours. If it doubles, I discard all but 5g again, and feed my usual 1:5:5 ratio. After 24 hours, it has doubled and has a lot of bubbly activity, which tells me yeast and bacteria production is back to normal! It should smell pleasantly nice and sour.

Can you eat the discard from the fridge?

When your starter is cold, the bacteria will continue to grow, but the yeast production is halted. So depending on how long your starter has been dormant in the fridge, it’ll be a little TOO probiotic for your digestive system.

Compost or throw out the remainder of hungry starter from the fridge: I would not recommend cooking with it if it’s been in the fridge for longer than a week.

Carter the Starter after 48 hours of being taken out of the fridge. I fed at the 36 hour mark, kept that discard and this discard to bake a loaf of bread!

How do I know when my starter is ready to bake with?

Depending on the age of your starter, it should be able to bounce back within a day or two. If you find it’s not doubling or getting nice and bubbly, give it more time to ferment.

Since I feed mine 1:5:5, I felt safe to let it ferment to 24 hours, but if you typically feed a 1:3:3 or 1:4:4 ratio, you can probably discard and feed again at the 12 hour mark. Then use your starter as you normally do.

Something not quite right with your starter?

If you find your sourdough has some funky smells or isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do, I wrote a post all about troubleshooting my sourdough starter if you’d like to see what issues I had with mine and what I did to fix it. I also wrote all about how I made Carter the Starter in the first place!

It was a bit of a round-about method because I was following King Arthur Baking’s recipe for sourdough starter. It didn’t quite work so I had to change tactics half-way through. I did write what I would have done differently if I had to start over! It was a very long and detailed post, so have a read if you need help with your starter.

A hand holding up a sourdough loaf that has poppyseeds, dried onion flakes, and sesame seeds on the outer crust
Click the image above to see my Go To Sourdough Bread recipe!

I kept the discard from 36 hrs + 48 hrs feeding to make a loaf of bread! You can try my go-to sourdough bread recipe, I use a combination of bread flour and whole wheat. I’ve made it multiple times with discard straight from the fridge.

Need more help?

I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ve had Carter the Starter for almost a year now, and baked several dozen successful loaves of bread! I’ve tried so many different methods, flour combinations, and inclusions. I feel pretty confident in my ability to troubleshoot and read sourdough bread now.

Feel free to leave a comment with your questions (or you can reach out to me on Instagram for a more timely answer) and I’ll try to help if I can! Good luck, and happy baking :)

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Filed Under: Sourdough, Vegan recipes Tagged With: bread baking, fridge, hibernating, sourdough bread, sourdough starter, storing sourdough in the fridge

About Lisa Le

Lisa is the thirty-something, nerdy, procrastinating, feminist blogger and photographer behind The Viet Vegan. She loves spicy foods, noodles, and food in bowls.

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Comments

  1. Barb Critchfield says

    August 6, 2022 at 10:50 AM

    Do I bake with the discarded amount? Or discard, feed, then bake with a potion of that after it doubles in size?

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      September 1, 2022 at 2:30 PM

      You can bake with the discard if you like. I often bake my bread with discard (recipe here) but I also have a few discard recipes like banana bread and chocolate chip cookies that don’t require the fermentation like sourdough bread does.

      Reply
  2. Kelly says

    October 11, 2022 at 9:12 AM

    I have a starter in my fridge and it’s been there for a week. I want to bake with it. What do I need to do? Everywhere I look shows how to take a part of the starter and feed that, but does not explain what to do with that small bit. I want to feed my entire starter as I was told I needed to do if it was refrigerated. How do I keep feeding that and how do I use some of that to bake with?

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      October 24, 2022 at 2:34 PM

      I don’t really feed my starter once it’s refrigerated. Carter goes dormant! I only pull out to feed when I’m getting Carter ready to bake with again. You can feed your fridge starter like you would normally if you like: discard most and feed a small portion your usual ratio (I typically do 1:3:3 or 1:4:4) and then stick it back in the fridge. Your starter will need a few days of regular feeds before it’s ready to bake again.

      Reply
  3. Charlotte says

    October 12, 2022 at 11:15 AM

    Your instructions were super easy to follow and for me that’s awesome! My starter, Bettlejuice, is about 2 years old now and doing great! I’ve been feeding him every week though and I was looking for a longer term storage for when I cannot do this at times! Thank you for the great information on doing this!!! I’m going to put Bettlejuice on a break starting today!!

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      October 24, 2022 at 2:31 PM

      I love that! Long love Beetlejuice haha

      Reply
  4. Anthony Done says

    November 10, 2022 at 7:16 AM

    hello,great advice,my question is i have a clip top jar ready to make my starter,do i fully seal the lid and clamp it down or just rest the lid by not clipping it down. i cant find an answer anywhere,many thanks..Anthony. P.S. my jar is not named as yet.

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      December 1, 2022 at 11:40 AM

      I would just rest the lid! I use a loose-fitting lid or a plastic lid because you need to give it a bit of air to expand

      Reply
  5. Tina says

    December 19, 2022 at 5:47 PM

    My starter’s name is KRUH, which is Croatian for bread. My Mom’s side of the family is Croatian…😀

    Reply

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