Rehydrate Dried Starter

Why are you trying to use someone elses starter?  All starters, regardless of their origins will become yours in a short time.  Starters are local so why not begin with your oiwn?

I'm sure there are a number of instructions here on making a starter from scratch.  Pick one you like.  In my experience, rye based starters are a lot easier to maintain than wheat based.  No gluten, no sticky mess, but it's your choice.

Just my take.  Good luck.  Regarfds.  Jim

Leaving aside any questions about the authenticity of any claims of the age of the starter, without knowing the instructions and the steps you took, there's no way to say very much that would be helpful.

Fermentation produces alcohol.  But usually a starter does not smell of it.  That suggests that you left it fermenting for way too long a time before feeding it.  Getting fruit flies suggests that it had a lot of sugar, which would be unusual if it had fermented for a long time without feeding.  It also suggests that the container was not covered, which would be an invitation for contamination by all kinds of organisms you might not want.

You can start making a brand-new starter and have it ready to use within a week or two, and that might be easier than trying again to start with some questionable dehydrated substance.  Your work schedule might make that a little trickier, but that shouldn't be hard to work around.

If you want to try baking with sourdough but you don't have a starter yet, you could use a poolish.  That's a mixture of equal weights of flour and water with a little bit of commercial yeast added (I mean instant dry yeast that you can by in a supermarket).  Let that ferment overnight, and it will become much like a sourdough starter, except it won't have developed much if any lactic acid bacteria.  It can be used and will bake up the same as a standard sourdough starter, and the bread will taste pretty good.  You can use this approach to get the feel of using a starter while you get an actual sourdough starter going.

TomP

Flour and water - wait till it's almost watery - add more to thicken up - you'll have a starter in a few weeks (give or take). Enjoy! 

Flour and water - start very thick - wait till it's almost watery - add more to thicken up - you'll have a starter in a few weeks (give or take). Enjoy! 

Hi,

I dried some of my sourdough starter (clas). It is called a concentrated lactic acid sourdough by rusbrot. Maybe it would be a good addition for getting some lactic acid after you make a poolish. Just an idea. :)

to return to your original question. I've never rehydrated dried starter myself, though I have reconstituted starter that languished in the fridge untouched for 8 months. But there are some sensible methods online. Among them:

https://brodandtaylor.com/blogs/recipes/dehydrating-and-rehydrating-sourdough-starter

and

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2015/05/01/putting-sourdough-starter-hold

Try them and see how it goes.

One additional thought: as far as I understand it, fully dry starter wouldn't need to be refrigerated. In fact, the reason to dry it is to allow it to be shelf-stable at room temperature. So it's possible that, after languishing in your fridge for 3 years, if the container wasn't super well-sealed, the humidity in your fridge might have caused it to degrade.

Should you choose to make your own starter, there are lots of methods. I made a 100% rye starter using a combo of the methods outlined online at The Perfect Loaf and Tartine Bread Experiment. It took a ridiculously long time for me to come to understand how my starter operated (it didn't help that I starved it for an entire year because I didn't own a scale) but once I got a scale, I came to know what made it happy and it is now incredibly stable and easy to handle.

Rob

I dry my starter all the time. I have found that it doesn't always like to be revived but usually a bit of persistence and attention pays off. Start with a clean 1/2 pint or pint jar with a lid. 

It helps to remember what a sourdough culture actually is. It is a neighborhood of yeasts and lactobacillus. You are growing living creatures that need food, water, a warm environment and a clean house. As they eat and live, they will excrete, fart (give off gas), multiply and die. Both lactos and yeasts do this and do it better when they are both in a healthy balance. You need to  1.stir them periodically as they wake up from being dried so they can get to the food (they don't have legs),  2. provide them with food as they start to wake up and 3. clean their cage ( discard half the volume) once they start eating a lot and growing in population. 

Add bottled spring water to a tablespoon or so each of AP unbleached flour and dried sourdough flakes. I don't recommend tap water as it may have chlorine/chloramine, which can kill the lively little yeasty-beasties. Add enough water to be a thin pancake batter consistency-1-2tsp??. Cover the top of the jar with a lid or a small piece of cotton fabric. Stir gently every couple hours but don't feed more flour until you see it is active. It will start becoming active with a few bubbles along the edge. Sometimes this happens right away and sometimes it takes a full day. If it takes longer, the starter flakes were probably too dead to revive and you are now making a new starter from scratch.

Find a warm place that you will not forget about it as you may need to tend to it a few times a day for a few days. Suggestions: On the counter under an incandescant desk lamp, in the microwave with the door open (if the bulb is incandescant and generates heat), on top of the refrigerator (heat from coils on back rises), on a heating pad set on low, in a small lunch cooler with a bottle of warm water,etc,etc. I do NOT recommend in the oven as I have cooked a few cultures that way. :(   You will figure it out. Ideal temp is 78-84F for yeast to grow.

Feeding:

You will read or get LOTS of advice on how to feed a starter. It all works-so choose your method.  I am not a purist, I don't weigh and measure the starter or flour/water. I stir until it becomes active-anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days.. The first 48-72 hrs after that I may feed a few times a day by adding a tablespoon or so of spring water and then a tablespoon or 2 of flour (to get to a thicker pancake consistency). After a day or so, I will then discard about half and go on a twice per day feeding schedule. I always add the water and stir to thin it down before adding the flour. Since you are in a half-pint or pint jar, you should be limiting how much starter to fit the "cage". If your starter starts smelling of acetone -it is HUNGRY and needs a feeding. It should never smell like dirty gym socks. Someone bad moved into the neighborhood with that smell. Eventually, it should smell yeasty or like beer.

I should mention it may go through a really active phase if the lactobacillus activates before the yeast population grows. It is NOT ready to raise bread. Just keep stirring and feeding and it will settle down to more steady rises after a feed. When it gives a steady rise to double/triple 2-4 hrs, after a feeding, it will raise bread.

Persistence and common sense. Keep us posted and post pics.

Last year I dried some of my starter as a back-up methond since I bake infrequently and my primary starter sits in the refrigerator for extened periods of time. There has never been a situation where even my most ignored starter wouldn't revive to baking power in a couple of refreshments.

Reviving the dried starter is a lot slower and doesn't seem to be the same as the original starter. Perhaps my initial revival was too subtle: 50 g flour, 50 g water, and 5 g dried starter. It started bubbling a bit after a couple of days and had a distinctively cheesey aroma that the original does not have. Possibly an overabundance of Lactobacillus? The aroma is a bit pleasant but was unexpected. I'm now on the 4th day and third feeding. The cheesy smell is subsiding and its starting to smell more like a sourdough starter.

I'm convinced that the dried starter added something over just starting a new sourdough starter, if nothing else an bit of a kick starter. I'm also convinced that the drying process changes the original. My plan is to keep going until this new starter gets strong enough to raise bread and give it a try, hopefully side-by-side with the oriiginal starter.

After several days of fussing over the revival of my dried sourdough starter I conclude the experiment as a failure. It never came back to life. Still smells a bit cheesy and no real evidence of yeast activity. It would be much easier to start a new one and wait 900 years. 😂

My starter often sits in the back of refrigerator for many months and can be revived in a few days. I also have some in the freezer. Perhaps that is a better backup plan…