Sourdough Starter Maintenance at home and while traveling

...plus an easy dough recipe for you that you can make when you arrive and turn into any kind of bread and bake it even in a crappy microwave oven.

I’m sitting at the airport writing this on my way back to Cape Town after my first ever holiday where I left my starter at home. You heard right. It’s the longest I kept it in the fridge ever! I normally feed it every 12h or I put it in the fridge for a day or two if I’m really not baking anything which rarely happens. Every 12h may sound like a lot of work when you just completed your first week and still don’t really understand what to do with it but let me enlighten you a bit and show you ways to fit all kind of schedules.

I’ll start with saying the finding a feeding routine/schedule and stick to it is the easiest to go about it. As humans we can condition ourselves to easily follow routines when the happen at the same time and in a rhythm. To manifest a routine and easily have your inner clock remind you I find it works best to set daily alarms in the morning and evening for feeding your starter. This way you’ll condition your inner clock to think about your starter and quickly check where it is and if it needs attention or not. If you feed your starter very sporadically and with no system I guarantee you that eventually you’ll probably forget about it and probably end up with a moldy jar on your counter. Or you’ll feel like it’s too much work and you’ll just want to put it in the fridge if you don’t bake often and eventually forget about it. While a lot of people will tell you that it is not a problem and even after months in the fridge it will still be alive, I’d recommend to not let it come that far.