ben486•27d ago

Found out my starter was 3x older than I thought

I got my sourdough starter from a neighbor back in March and always assumed it was maybe 5 years old. Last week she finally told me her grandma started it in 1978, so this thing has been alive for 47 years. Does the age of a starter really change the flavor, or is that mostly folklore?

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mark_smith5926d ago

That whole "1978" thing is a great story for your neighbor's dinner parties, but the yeast in that jar has been replaced thousands of times over. Every time you feed it, you're basically starting a new culture with whatever wild yeast happens to be in your flour and air at that moment. The flavor difference between a 47-year-old starter and a 3-week-old one is mostly about the flour you use and how often you feed it, not the grandma's birthday. You'd get the same tangy bread if you mixed some flour and water this afternoon and just kept it happy for a month.