I resurrected my mom's 40 year old starters after 7 years of non-use, non feeding. Took a couple weeks to get it nice and healthy, but is growing great now!

To use a very old starter successfully straight from the fridge, to be fair, after stirring in the hooch, mix up your sourdough as usual, but let it bulk raise much longer, even two plus days until it has truly doubled in size. It just takes longer! The same after forming the loaf. Let rise as long as it takes to double. Then score and bake as usual. The results could amaze you in oven spring and flavor. However I haven’t seen it done with quite so aged of a starter. Maybe up to 12 months or so.

I don't bake as much nowadays, so I keep my starter in the fridge sometimes up to 2-3 months. Turn the hooch out, feed and use next day. (I don't care for the gray color, so I do toss it.) If it doesn't rise correctly, then I feed for an extra day and bake with it. I've been doing this a couple of years with this starter. I have also stored some in the freezer for a longer tiime, maybe a year or so, feed it a few times and it's good to go. I have made different starters through the years. Back in the late 70's, a milk and yogurt starter. In the early 2000's, a wheat one, a rye one, and one with all-purpose flours all with water. Mostly now I use just water and bread flour, if it is not up to par, I put in about a teaspoon of rye flour and it's very active again. I am no expert by any means, just enjoy baking and feel like I am the lab making my concoctions. 😂

I find this very comforting. I’m traveling a lot this next two years and hate to ask others to hassle with my starter. I loved seeing the great rise in the 1:50:50 feeding. Good stuff, Sune! I love your videos.

I go south for a few months in the winter and leave my starter in the fridge. When I return home, I pour off the liquid, which I believe is mostly alcohol, and feed my starter for a day. After that it works fine. I don't understand why it wouldn't; starter can be dehydrated and still work.

Good to have you back, Sune. My longest forgotten starter was nine months. Poured the hooch off, fed three days daily and one day twice. Next day a perfect bake. All the best for the new job!

Coincidentally I just resurrected an 2 year hibernating starter from the fridge 3 weeks ago and since it's third feed it's running great, stronger than ever.

I resurrected mine after 9-12 months without feeding. I thought it was dead when it didn’t hardly move in 24 hours at room temp, but I immediately re-fed it and in another 24 hours it was very active. Still going strong. Thx for the video.

Sune... Welcome back.. I have really missed your vidoes. And your guitar collection.. I agree with you that there is a lot of mythology about starters and the need to keep an active (energetic?) starter by feeding daily. I have just been on an extended trip to Europe. I had left my starter in the hands of a neighbour to feed and refresh on a weekly basis. I also kept a small amount in the fridge which was unattended for about 4 weeks. On my return I refreshed both the managed and neglected pots on my first evening back. I baked with them both the following morning and there was no discernible difference in the results. They both worked well. This was a rye and white flour starter that I first developed about 10 years ago. As you have said it was ready to bake with after about 5 days after I first started the feeding process. Cheers Paul... Keep up the vids..

I brought my very old starter to my daughters house in Salt Lake City, fed it once and then used it - it was amazing. Sourdough is always very successful there - I think it may be the altitude. Now, that would be an interesting experiment.

I’ve also had similar results with starter left in the fridge for up to a year. After about 3 days feeding it starts to look active, I get impatient and bake. It would probably benefit from one more feeding. Will try that 50 50 1 next time

I had a starter in the fridge for almost two years as well! But I threw it away because I was afraid, I didn't want to risk any health hazards, who knows what kinds of bacteria/funghi grew in there. But after watching your video now I wish I would have kept it 🥲

What a great experiment! Thank you for sharing with us. I value nostalgia as well :)

I’m not surprised, but I am cheered!

Very Interesting Sir! Many Thanks!

A very interesting experiment, no doubt about that! My question is dough: is the "resurrected" starter in reality, really resurrected, or is just a whole new starter, which contains some of the old one, thus the longer time to bring it to life, compering it, as you also say, to starting a whole new one? I hope you don't take this as a criticism, because it is absolutely not. It's always interesting and entertaining and exciting when people are making different experiments. As long nobody gets' hurt everything is perfect and I love it.

I smear my starter in a thin coat over a ball that’s been pulled a few times, then poke it with a chopstick all over a bunch of times. After a half hour I’ll pull and mix. A couple more times and a good rest to ferment. Never fails.

The first bread, you didn't let it ferment enough. I use old starter out of the fridge all the time. Takes way longer to ferment, e.g. after a year it took a day and a half and i had to give some extra strength towards the end. But the loaf looked more like your 5 day revive

Hope you are doing well. Thank you for doing the experiment I always wondered about. I often leave my starter in the fridge for 6 to 8 weeks and I usually need just a good feeding (1:5:5) and 12+ hours to get it ready to use for baking. Of course I get better bread results after 2 feedings.

I am also interested in the starter ratios. Do you have another video that explains this? Thank you for your very helpful, informative videos.

I've used starter 3 weeks old with decent results, but I was pretty sure 2 1/2 years was going to be a bust. 🤣

My sourdough starter set for 6 months in the refrigerator I only bake in the winter pull it out feed it and I have fabulous sourdough all winter long. So many people think they kill their starter when they really don't what do you think they did back in the days they didn't discard and waste stuff.

If it took four days to get a starter from scratch, and five days using the old starter, wouldn't it be more a case of inhibiting the yeast in the fresh flour, rather than reviving any yeast that may have been in the old starter?

I left mine 8 weeks when I was travelling, fed it twice and it was good to go. I've frozen some starter, don't know how that will work out when I try it.

Great videos! Thanks for sharing. Is there any way for me to open your equipement links in Greece? Thanks again.

I don't bake bread in the summer much. So by fall my starter is a few months old. I feed it twice and its ready to go. For those that say, isn't it easier to just start a new one? For me....a friend gave me the original starter. She has since passed away. I feel its still 'her' starter and I just cannot discard it.

My starter’s 3 1/2 months old🥳

Are you going to review the Sourdough Home? :)

I've had similar experiences with "old" starter left for months in the fridge. But, as you pointed out, it only takes 4 or 5 days to make a fresh batch of starter anyway. So why bother recharging a very old starter when you can just as easily make a new one from scratch? Sentimentality? Probably, since Chad Robertson has proven that there isn't any real difference between an old starter and a brand new one--he once ran completely out of his long-time starter at Tartine and they didn't miss a beat, creating a new starter instantly from the ambient yeast in their kitchen and they continued just as before--same bread the very next day. As always, an interesting experiment. Wondering if you can completely dispense with the stretch and folds as long as the final rise is overnight for at least 12 hours? Gluten will develop anyway, right?

Hi geek thak you for your wonderful videos i have a question , my starter is yong and when i want to make bread my dough takes about 12h to grow up what can i do to make my starter strong ? 🙏🏼

What was the smell once you opened it?

How did it smell right out of the fridge? Just alcohol smell, or any other good or bad smells?

Is there a danger of botulism or other pathogens? My starter jar gets moldy if I leave it in one container too long.

Could you explain why you used such widely divergent starter, flour, water ratios when building the starters? I'm kinda stuck in the 2:1:2 ratio with good results, but not sure how to experiment with different starter ratios. Did you do already do a video showing results of different starters?

I don't buy making a fresh starter in 4 or 5 days. Not from just flour and water.