Maintaining a sourdough starter is not an easy job, as you have to feed it and discard it daily. But there is a solution to it, and that is keeping it in the fridge. But, can you do this forever, will the starter be ok if it spends a lot of time in the fridge? How long can you keep your sourdough starter in the fridge?
A sourdough starter can stay indefinitely in the fridge as long as you feed it. If you don’t feed your sourdough starter, it can last up to 2 weeks in the fridge. On average, you should feed the starter once every 7 days, if you keep it in the fridge.
Keeping your sourdough in the fridge is a great thing to do if you can’t feed your starter daily. The low temperature of the fridge will slow it down, which means that you will need to feed it less often. But this will also change the taste, smell and aspect of the starter.
A Starter Kept in the Fridge Will Change the Taste of the Bread
A sourdough starter that is kept in the fridge will make the bread taste very, very sour, even for sourdough bread.
The reason for this drastic change in taste is simple. Your sourdough starter is in a continuous fermentation process, during this process the sugar that is naturally found in flour is converted into acetic acid, which is responsible for the sour taste of the bread.
Keeping the starter in the fridge slows this process down. The slower the fermentation process of the starter, the more sugar will be converted, and the more acetic acid will be produced.
If you prefer your sourdough bread as sour as possible, this change in taste can be a good thing, and if you want to know what else you can do to make your sourdough bread taste even more sour, you can check out this article: 21 Ways to Make Sourdough Bread as Sour as Possible. However, if you don’t want your sourdough bread too sour, this change might not be that welcomed, but you can easily rectify this by using one of the tips found in this article: 21 Ways to Make Sourdough Bread Less Sour Tasting.
While the change in taste is the biggest change, there are a few others that you should be aware about.
How to Deal With Hooch
A sourdough starter kept in the fridge will produce hooch. Hooch is the liquid that collects on top of a sourdough starter when it hasn’t been fed for some time. Hooch is a mix of water and alcohol that forms during the fermentation process.
Normally, hooch appears because starter is hungry, and there is nothing left to eat. The starter feeds on the sugar and starch naturally found in flour. But if you keep your starter in the fridge, hooch can form even if they have enough food. This is a simple byproduct of the slow speed at which the flour is eaten.
As for what you can do with hooch. You basically have only two options, you can either throw it away, or you can mix it with the rest of the starter. Both options are perfectly fine and won’t affect your starter in a bad way, but they will have a significant impact on the bread made with this starter.
The liquid is a combination of water with alcohol, which resulted from the fermentation process, and it’s very sour. If you mix it in with the rest of the starter, the bread that you will make using this starter will be more sour, than it would have been if you were to throw the liquid away. And if you throw it away, there will be no difference in the bread.
It basically comes down to how you like your bread, sour or mild, other than that there is no difference.
How Often to Feed Your Starter While It’s in the Fridge
Now that we covered hooch, you know that you shouldn’t let it fool you. Even if there is hooch, your starter is not hungry. But there is still the question of how often should you feed it?
I for one, feed my starter once per week when I store it in the fridge. But I know people that feed it once every two weeks, and people that feed it once every 3 days. And in all cases the starter is perfectly healthy.
So, there is no straight answer. And since every starter is slightly different, that is to be expected. So, feel free to experiment. And don’t worry, starters are very hardy, feeding it a few days later won’t be a problem.
Effects of Long Time Storage in the Fridge
Something else that you should know is that, a starter kept in the fridge for 2 weeks won’t look like one kept for 2 months. And one kept for 2 months won’t look like one kept for 6 months.
The longer you keep your starter in the fridge, the less appealing it will look and smell. Here si a picture of a starter kept in the fridge for 2 months.
But this is perfectly normal. The dark liquid is hooch, which as we discussed it’s completely harmless. And is the source of the strong acidic smell.
As for the reason why the rest of the starter is more or less a puddle, it is due to the low activity.
So, while the starter might not look great, it’s actually fine. But one thing is clear, you can’t use it like this to make bread, you have to take it out a few days before baking with it.
Take Your Starter Out a Few Days Before Using It
Due to the low temperature of the fridge, the starter will slow down considerably.
And simply moving it to room temperature for a few hours won’t bring it back to maximum power. You need to wait at least 3 or 4 days for this to happen.
If you want to speed up the process, you could keep the starter somewhere warmer 86°F (30°C) for example. But this will make the starter hungrier, and you will need to feed it 2 times per day.
Keeping Your Starter in the Freezer
Keeping the starter in the fridge is a viable long term solution. But you still have to remember to feed it from time to time. So what about the refrigerator? Will the freezing temperatures of the refrigerator stop the starter from going hungry, or is it too cold for the starter to survive?
Technically speaking, it can be done, but practically, you have to be very careful at how you store it.
While a starter is quite hardy, there are a few things that it can’t withstand, and one of those things are freezer burns.
In order to ensure that this doesn’t happen you have to be careful with the way the starter is packaged (from my experience sealable plastic bags seem to do a good job), and make sure that there are no big temperature fluctuations in the refrigerator, as this is the main cause of freezer burns.
Another thing that you should do, is put the starter in multiple bags, or whatever recipient you are using. While the starter can survive being frozen once or twice, doing so constantly won’t do it any good, so it will be better to separate it into multiple portions from the start.
And when you want to use the starter simply take it out of the fridge, when it’s unfrozen feed it some flour, and treat it like a normal room temperature starter for three or four days, after that you can bake with it.
How Long Will My Sourdough Starter Last in the Fridge?
A sourdough starter can last forever in a fridge. But in order for this to happen, you need to feed it regularly, to avoid big fluctuations in temperature, and to make sure that the fridge is clean.
The sourdough starter is very good at protecting itself from harmful bacteria, but there is a limit to what it can do. So, try to keep it as far away as possible from food that goes bad fast, such as vegetables. This way, you will avoid the risk of contaminating the starter.
Let Your Starter Grow Before Putting It in the Fridge
And very importantly, if you are starting a new sourdough starter, you first need to let it double in size once or twice before storing it in the fridge.
While in the fridge, the starter won’t be able to grow as much or as fast. If it didn’t have the chance to develop properly in the first few days, it won’t be able to do so in the fridge. And when you’ll use it to make bread, it won’t have enough strength to make the bread rise.
If you have an already well-developed starter, you don’t have to do anything else before putting it in the fridge.
But whether you are just making your first starter, or you already have some experience, it’s extremely important to know what will happen if you put your starter in the fridge.
Final Thoughts
Overall, keeping your sourdough starter in the fridge can be a very simple way to reduce the time spent on maintaining your starter. But you have to take into account that you can’t simply take a starter out of the fridge and bake with it. You need to let it a few days out to regain its strength. If you try to use it out of the fridge, it won’t be able to make the dough rise properly, and your bread will come out flat.
And you also have the option to keep your starter in the refrigerator. This way you don’t have to worry about feeding and discarding, at all. Just make sure that you wrap it really tightly, so you avoid freezer burns.
Common Questions
What should I do if my starter has very few bubbles? Bubbles are created by the starter when it eats. Having just a few bubbles means that the starter needs more food, so it requires more flour.
My starter was really active on days 2 and 3, and then there was zero activity. Is this bad? This is a very common thing. Most starters have a surge in activity during the first few days, then scale down the activity. After a period, it will regulate its activity.
Why is my sourdough starter so sticky? Depending on the amount of flour and water used, sometimes sourdough can become sticky, but this is usually common for starters that have more flour than water.
What is a 100% hydration starter? A 100% Hydration starter is a starter that contains equal parts of flour and water. As the name implies, for every gram of flour there is one gram of water to hydrate it, thus it’s named 100% hydration.
My starter doesn’t rise enough, what should I do? The most common cause for a starter that isn’t rising enough is excessive discarding. If you discard too much of the starter, it won’t have enough resources to rise properly.