October 29, 2024 - 10:54am
How old is your starter
I've had my starter for 40 years. It's had a total number of 6 homes since it was given to me by a friend who obtained it from his friend who worked at a well known bakery in the Catskills. which was the first home. It was given to me as I lost the starter that my Irish grandmother gave to my late first wife which at the time of her death was over 50 years old.
Over the years I've found that the starter tastes slightly different in a suburban area than a rural one as it lived for 10 years in 3 homes just outside of Boston and then 5 years in Vermont and for the last 25 years on our isolated hilltop farm in NH.
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I started it in 2010 when we were living in Pretoria, South Africa. It followed me home to Kansas in the U.S. in 2011 and has been thriving just as happily in Michigan since we moved in 2020.
Paul
Starters will be a little different depending on the environment. Different bugs create different tastes. The normal person (and I'm not saying you are or aren't) can't tell the differences. To create South African flavors - you really need South African ingredients etc. If you like it - make it - simple really. Enjoy!
Since about 2000. I don't remember exactly other than I made it shortly after I moved to a place in 1999. I never named it either, since I didn't know that was a thing. I was taught sourdough in 1988 when I took over as a cook for about 10-20 people at a remote fish hatchery in Alaska.
I create new starter every year on the night of the first thunderstorm after the summer Solstice.
Sounds like it could be Frankenstein's monster!
with an enormous Schwanstuker
40 years! Wow. I’m clearly a noob. That is inspirational!
I’ve got 2 that each just passed the 1 year mark. One I feed only with bread flour, the other with random flour.
About 20 years for me. I wish I had the date and process I followed, maybe I didn't have enough faith or forward looking thought to assume it would last, but it has. I started it in Prineville, Oregon, moved it around Oregon for about 15 years, then took it to Vermont where I used it almost every day in an Inn for daily bread. It really changed then, both from every day use and from a different environment - living in a fungi and bacteria rich old inn made it much more active. It can still rise in half the time it used to in Oregon, even now that it has lived in Idaho twice the time it was in Vermont. I figure it has about 20 years left in its future, if all goes well.