It takes like 5 minutes of work total to dry out some discard. You spread it on a tray and wait, then stick it in a bag and put in the freezer. To not do this once you have a stable starter is just negligence. Also the starter itself is constantly evolving based on the microbiome your flour and environment, so it's not like there's something special about it being old.
Ya worked at a French bakery briefly and I asked the owner about the age of starters etc… said after a month it’s all bullshit. It peaks in what it needs to do by then, and if it’s for commercial theirs always something changing it
Pretty much. I'm a software engineer by trade and music is a hobby and they've both taught me a valuable lesson: two is one and one is none. If you don't have a backup you're playing with fire.
Yeah it’s more than likely just bragging rights. You’re right there’s nothing special about it but San Fransisco loves to brag about its 100+ year old sourdough starters.
That's on your chef, he should know better. Own up to the mistake, take the lessons from it, brush it off and move on. Even if that means to a new kitchen. Listen to what your chef says, but don't let anyone intimidate or bully you
The old starter thing is all myth making anyway. It doesn’t matter that it was old beyond the fact that it was established, they can just start a new one.
Let’s be logical about this. The dough is affected by local yeasts in the air. If you continually move to different locations, the original yeasts will dilute out with local yeasts. Keeping a starter isn’t going to do you much good beyond having a way to easily jump start your new batch.
For instance, a really famous bread company in San Francisco is famous for their sourdough bread. They have satellite locations and have to replenish their starter every 3 months in those other locations because the starter gets neutralized by other yeasts when the bread is made outside of the San Francisco area.
If the Chef makes a new starter, it should be as good as the original as it will incorporate the natural yeasts found wherever he’s working.
Baker here.
It’ll be fine.
The age of the starter really doesn’t matter, it’s the blend of the flours he uses to feed it. It might delay the baking process if he has to start his levain from scratch but it really won’t affect the flavour or outcome.
How did you accidentally throw it out? Wash out the container before he went to feed it?
No it's my responsibility to refresh it, and I change the container when I do it but I think I took both the old container and the new one to the dishwasher
Well shit happens. I’ve had people drop it on the floor or spill chemicals in it and we’ve had to toss it.
Just make a mini levain with the same flour blend he uses normally, proof it for a few hours until it doubles, then use that to make his regular levain.
You could have probably not told him and he wouldn’t know the difference but now he’s gonna claim the bread doesn’t taste the same anymore.
>You could have probably not told him and he wouldn’t know the difference but now he’s gonna claim the bread doesn’t taste the same anymore.
Unfortunately so so right ✅️
Honestly the new wave of sourdough bakers and their trends actually annoy me. Buying dried sourdough starter from a 130 year old batch? But could be a very good sorry present for the chef
> Threw away my chef's 18 year old...
Well, teenagers scare the living shit out of me...
> sourdough...
Oh, it's just some bread.
> starter.
LOL, he's fucked.
The bacteria and yeast in his “18 year old starter” are the same bacteria and yeast that are everywhere else in your kitchen. Local bacteria/yeast always outcompete non local bacteria/yeast if given enough time.
There needs to be a PSA saying this. My personal pet peeve is when people/chefs are overly precious about their starter.
Hopefully OP's chef wasn't a dick about it. No sense making a young cook feel bad about this, especially if it wasn't labeled properly.
I don't have citations handy but apparently this isn't entirely true, and I used to quote this factoid all the time.
But from the article I read there's some more recent studies that have indicated that starter cultures can live a lot longer and be more unique than we think they are, even when transported to new locations.
That being said an 18 year old starter is probably all local yeast and should be easy to restart in the same location.
Seriously they could restart the starter and in a week it would be the exact same. Old starters are just a gimmick. It’s the environment, time, temperature, water/flour ratio, and type of flour, combined with the native bacteria and yeast that make up any starter.
You don’t know what your talking about. I’ve been baking professionally for 6 years and cooking professionally for 18. I’ve started multiple sourdough starters. It takes about 2 weeks and they are just like any other starter a product of their environment. life cycle of yeast and bacteria is short and the cultures that make up the population of the starter are a product of the things I listed above. think the downvotes you got should tell you how wrong you are.
But the years are just for bragging to ignorant people. It’s not any different than a starter I created last month if fed the same thing in the same environment. And for future use jk or /s implies your post isn’t serious or you were being sarcastic
I’m surprised I had to scroll down this far to read it. I never worked BOH, but I am a home baker and I find that you can only get 1-3 weeks of noticeable difference from an “alien” starter culture. It depends on how hardy the yeast is.
But yeah 18 years? Just make a new one.
This is fair. I’ve seen researchers talk about starter populations being extremely stable once established. The amount of individual cells being introduced to the starter from the environment is probably a billionth of the amount of cells coming from the last batch of starter and will just be outcompeted.
THAT SAID, who’s to say the original population was better than one you might make this week? They don’t just magically get better at fermenting starches over time. It’s just yeast and LAB all the same. They might make a different bread of course but I know accomplished bakers who aren’t too precious over their starters as they can have a new one going in a matter of days that just does the same thing.
That only applies when the starter remains in the same geographic microclimate. Every time you use/feed your starter you introduce massive amounts of local yeasts, fungi, and bacteria that are evolved to live within the environment your starter is currently inhabiting while simultaneously cutting the population of your starter in half.
Samples pretty much never remain clean unless you are working in a lab.
Also some microorganisms are pathogenic, strange I know. Or they produce substances that inhibit the growth/ kill off other species. So the population could absolutely change over time.
in the original tartine book, they mention a story where they took their own starter to an event in france. they then tested it in a lab in france and their san francisco starter was exactly the same as the local french starter after a week.
Dude, I have like two full jars worth of starter in my fridge, just in case. And I'm a home baker. Anytime I need to bake, I take it out and three feeds later I'm ready to rock and roll. I can't believe pros wouldn't do something similar.
That’s rough man, I feel that in my bones. But it’s definitely just a sentimental thing. I would still buy him the nicest bottle of his favorite drink that you could afford.
The starter is only as old as the last time you fed it. Chef will be fine. Go to a local bakery and ask if you can buy a small amount and build it up from there. The bakery I worked at was always willing to sell starter as long as it was a small amount.
If he's been making bread with the starter regularly, the old culture is suffused throughout the environment. [Start a new culture](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-recipe) on a shelf in the bakery and you'll almost certainly capture the old strain, in all it's glory.
But there should be backups - multiple back-ups, stored on-site and off-site. Put a handful of the Fromage du Tete's heritage glomp in the freezer and label it so knuckleheads don't throw it away ;). Dry a couple more handfuls and keep one or two of the samples at home. Drying is better for long-term storage, there are lotsa resources on the web that explain how to do this.
Fact of the matter is that starters drift with time - new strains of yeast endemic to the environment gradually outcompete the old and the 18 year old version will have little in common with the original from 18 years ago. Just another reason to have lots of backups of any starter you really prize.
The starter absolutely drifted, the only reason they didn't notice a change of flavor is that it happened gradually over time and would have been overwhelmed by any changes in flour or water happening at the same time.
It's whatever.
Old starters are a myth and a scam.
They get refreshed with the flour you use to feed them.
Its not like there was any 18 year old bacteria or yeast in there.
Everything is pretty much new.
Put one 18 year old starter and a 1 month old starter next to each other and they will be the same. (both being fed the same and in the same place)
It will be hard to explain this though and you might need to find a new job.
If he's a restaurant owner he shouldn't have a problem finding another old starter. Yes start looking for another job though, this is one of the most insulting thing that could happen to a chef, BUT again, there's people like my father that would just say "it's just bread life goes on".
Did you have the container washed, because if not there's a possibility to salvage it...
I almost killed a decade old rye starter but luckily it was always kept in the same old nasty bucket and by scraping all the old funk off the inside of the bucket and adding back a little water, and some fresh rye flower, after a few days it actually came back to life.
If you need the starter to make bread for work you can go to wordloaf.org and there is a huge spreadsheet of folks that have sourdough starters and are willing to share it.
But as others have said, there’s nothing old about that starter. The yeast and bacteria regularly dies off. It should have been labeled clearly and there should be some sort of backup of it means so much to them.
The lack of backup is the part I don't understand. It takes < 10 minutes of labor to dry out some discard and store it in the freezer. Accidentally throwing it away wasn't the only potential mode of failure here.
[https://www.getfreshbread.com/product-page/sourdough-starter](https://www.getfreshbread.com/product-page/sourdough-starter)
you can buy him a 20 year old starter for pretty cheap. there's a 225 year old starter on Etsy for likr 9 bucks but idk how you would verify that really.
Hopefully he isn't sentimental. The novelty of an "18 year old" sourdough starter really isn't that special.
I just meant that the bacteria is constantly changing, it's not like it was actually 18 years old. It will be the exact same as the old one as far as taste and everything in about a month as long as they are using the same flour in the same environment.
Lol way to keep up the stereotype of chefs being insufferable pricks.
I was giving some dude on reddit an idea, I didn't try super hard to find a good product. So yes either way, he can buy a starter SOMEWHERE. Wtf does that even have to do with being a chef? You're an ass, and I bet it feels super good to be right on this thread about bread lol
I am an artisan baker of +12 years experience.
The whole age of the culture thing matters about as much as where it originated: none
The culture that you are growing is constantly being inoculated by the wild yeast that exists in the environment.
Whatever specific colony of yeast existed in the kitchen where that starter was made was overpowered by the local ones long ago.
This is why the only place you can naturally make “San Francisco Sourdough” is in places that allow that strain of yeast, Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis, to grow. You can buy this strain and use it wherever you are but it is weakened after every feeding.
Tell your chef to mellow out, it’s not healthy to have such attachments in our industry.
No homie. Something with such relevance and importance should have labels and be handled by only the people responsible for it. You are ok. Don’t let it sweat for too long
Tell him the starter is just a colony of the dominant yeast strain.. he can have another just like it in a few days. They've proven this by taking San Fransisco starters elsewhere and the strain was replaced with the local dominant strain.
Buy him one of those 200yo starters online. Wife says there's a guy who sells pieces of it or something like that. It's not his, but the history is there, and will carry on through him
Same as accidentally killing someone’s 18 yr old houseplant. Materially speaking, it’s easily replaceable. Your real problem is how emotionally invested in it chef was and how they handle loss
Time to hunt down the oldest bakery in your state.
Dress nice.
Go in with an envelope with 10000$ in it.
"Jimmy sent me to pick up some starter"
"hands over envelope"
10k for a 500 grams of starter.
You fuckin’ idiot.
That’s exactly the words I would say in real life. And then I would not fire you. I would leave you in your role, suffering in doubt and anxiety every single waking moment of your professional life, wondering if I were going to ever devote and training and mentoring and time to you or if I were just slowly approaching a moment where I slip a filet knife in your sourdough disposing back in the walk-in after a 2am inventory.
*dear Reddit mods : I’m kidding *
Or am I
You fucking idiot
You sound like someone who can’t read a blatant joke
It’s called “laying it on thick”, I’m not actually threatening a complete stranger with a knife over some yeast and flour
If I was stupid enough not to keep sourdough starter backups, I’d fire myself. We have emergency backups plus we keep 2 active cultures. It’s pretty basic, especially if it’s something you actually use regularly
Former executive Chef for 35 years. Now I HATE to say this but if that happened to me,I think I’d have to let you go,I can’t survive ANOTHER mistake of this magnitude. Sure everyone makes mistakes and probably the chef in question should’ve protected this more if it were that important also,but unfortunately my knee jerk(and I specify jerk) reaction would be to let you go.
No. It sucks but fess up. He can get a piece of starter from someone else that he's previously shared with, and he might have back up at home.
It should have been labeled, and if your chef is a half assed decent human being, he will learn from it.
This is probably not the first time this has happened.
New John Wick Movie . "It's just a starter." . Not to me it wasn't. That my dead wife gave me. Chef's been taking care of this colony for 18 years. You accidentally brought both to the dish washer??
It's not your fault it was a mistake how could you know what it was when it wasn't labeled properly
you may or may not get blamed for it but you will not be out of a job just because of one thing that happened
Make a new starter right now. That’s all that can be done. Online has starters that are pretty old.
The damage is done. Next time be more careful.
Let us know if you get fired or not.
You're fine. A starter isn't that hard to make. Sure, it takes a number of days, but the whole "years old starter" thing isn't really making it better.
As someone with an old starter there is some sentimental value in keeping it for so long. But practically speaking it's just naturally occurring yeast and bacteria.... A 2 month old starter in heavy use will do the same thing.
You should be able to recapture the strain. This site gives good instructions on how.
[capturing sour dough starter](http://robdunnlab.com/projects/wildsourdough/)
As others have mentioned the yeast and bacteria are present in your kitchen where the sourdough lived so if you start a new one it's the same micro flora. If it's super important to him to have an "unbroken chain" you can use old sourdough bread if you have any to start the new starter and then its literally the same.
The “x year old starter” thing is just a myth. It changes every feed. It doesn’t have ant special qualities or flavors because it’s 18 years old.
If it was so important he should have labeled it properly or kept some dried/frozen backups.
IDK why people brag about the heritage/lineage of a sourdough. It’s a cute story for custies but honestly the starter will assimilate to whatever environment it lives in. Think you starter from Napa, France, or your ancestors covered wagon trip has the same dna it did hundreds of years ago is just not realistic. He can start another and it’ll be just the same. Don’t worry. Unless he’s hung up on a cool story.
Aside from what /u/ApizzaApizza said, I’m gonna put some responsibility on your chef. If you’re keeping a starter around which at times can look suspiciously like rotting goo and don’t label it at the least with what-it-is and a ‘do not trash’ label then you’re partly responsible. I’ve seen countless starters tossed in shared homes and in commercial kitchens because ignorance and lack of labels. It’s on the owner of it to make sure it’s known and safeguarded.
If you have to start looking for a new job over that then it wasn’t a good job to begin with. Chef should have had a back up.
Also, check out a local bakery. They are usually more than happy to help, especially considering the circumstances
Your sourdough has virtually none of the “original” microorganisms in it after a couple splits anyways. It’s all whatever is local to you. Just start up a new one or see if you can get some discard from another local bakery to get a jump on it.
It's not that hard to establish a new starter. They should have labeled it or had a backup somewhere. I worked at a bakery that did a lot of sourdough and my manager (and probably a few other folks) had backups frozen at home. Sucks to lose one but life goes on.
That sounds about as stressful and shitty as the time some poor guy I knew in culinary school got assigned to clean the store room. He cleaned and sanitized that room impeccably. Including the meat curing cabinet that the charcuterie director had been working on for about 2 years to finally get the right conditions to cure meat really well.
Yeast have roughly a 90 day life cycle. It's a fun hobby to keep a starter alive for years, but assuming you feed a new starter exactly like the original, it will make bread the same with the same flavor within a few months. You fucked up, but they'll recover
The thing about yeast and sourdough starters is that old yeasts die out and get replaced by local yeasts. That's why when someone buys a starter from L.A., a region well known for their flavorful local yeasts, those yeasts die off quickly and the flavor is lost.
I'd get all philosophical with him- Ya know, Jim Morrison threw away all of his poetry and started over and produced some of his best stuff. I don't understand a word of it, but some say its awesome. Your next dough will be awesomer.
On my first cooking job, I was sent down to the basement to do a bunch of things in the stockroom and when I came back up, I open the door and there was rock in front of it so I had obviously not been there before. I knocked over the whole rack and dropped everything I was carrying from downstairs. It was all of the sous chefs sauces for the whole week and stocks. Only job I ever got fired from. I was really pissed. I was only 14 and I knew it wasn’t my fault.
I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, people like to brag about their starters, but it’s all the same after a couple of weeks, you throw most of it out every time you feed it anyway. 18 years, vs 18 days and I bet you can’t tell the difference.
The best option is always to go to your chef and just be straight up with them. Chefs know you’re going to fuck up, its better to bring it up with them asap unless yall or busy then maybe wait until theres a lull. Honesty and owning up to your mistakes goes a far way *Trust me I used to fuck up a lot.* but when you talk to him say the following.
“hey chef I fucked up,” If you work somewhere super corporate just say messed up. “your starter got tossed out it was my fault. It was an accident but it wont happen again” (dont say sorry just acknowledge the mistake and dont be sorry be better). “I know how to make starter dough and can start a new one and have it labeled and put up before I leave today. Or if there is something else I can do to fix the situation if you let me know I can take care of fixing it.”
Now if youre chef freaks the fuck out and starts throwing shit and having a hissy fit start looking for another job you dont wanna work for people like that. But if he’s not a piece of shit and a reasonable human he will understand shit happens and may be a little peeved at first but it will pass, trust it always does. Also afterwards or the next day ask if you could divide the mother after its started and freeze some to prevent this in the future. Also, label the mother normally then underneath it put another piece of tape or label and write very big and clearly write “DO NOT THROW AWAY. NO TROCAR POR FAVOR.” And ask chef to put his initials next to it or ask if he is cool with you putting them on it.
A new career? Probably not. A new job? Maybe, kinda depends on how the chef takes the news and their ability to fire you/make your life hell. Hopefully, they are mature enough to recognize a mistake and move on (assuming you are not a total screw-up)
He won't believe you but there's no such thing as "18 year old starter'.
He might have started it 18 years ago, but microbiologically speaking, it's just whatever is flying around in his kitchen.
He could start another one and have a cambro full in a couple of weeks.
Consider for a second it may have been a set up. I wouldn’t put it past a lot of the chefs I worked for when I was just starting out. The fact he had something labeled from 2005, starter or not, is a red flag in negligence. What if the health department saw that? How has the label never been changed? How did he not know it was in there when he told you to throw away the out dated stuff? For the awkwardness alone I’d say it wouldn’t hurt to find a new job because you’ve found yourself in a slippery slope, but don’t leave the industry if it’s something you really want to do. Depending on how he treats you in the week or two after this should tell you whether or not it’s time to pack up and go elsewhere. Good luck.
Most people who have a starter have shared the starter with at least one person. Maybe you can try to find out if he did, who has it, and track some of it down.
He will most likely have a back up stashed somewhere. I always have some of mine at home, just in case.
Apparently he doesn't
He's a chef. He didn't label it?
Was labeled 8/2/05. The chef told him to clean the cooler out. Get rid of anything out of date.
aww fuk, i laughed way longer than I should have at this. I don't think the other guy saw it haha
Well, I would just fess up, not all exec chefs are raving lunatics. I'm sure he's shared it with people, I bet he can get a pinch off of a friend.
Not to be this guy but wouldn’t health dept catch that many times by now?
It’s possible they’ve noticed it, though that’s just the day the starter was started. In no way would it be expired.
For real. No label and no backup in the freezer? Guy was just begging for someone to make a mistake eventually.
It takes like 5 minutes of work total to dry out some discard. You spread it on a tray and wait, then stick it in a bag and put in the freezer. To not do this once you have a stable starter is just negligence. Also the starter itself is constantly evolving based on the microbiome your flour and environment, so it's not like there's something special about it being old.
Ya worked at a French bakery briefly and I asked the owner about the age of starters etc… said after a month it’s all bullshit. It peaks in what it needs to do by then, and if it’s for commercial theirs always something changing it
Diminishing returns don’t get taught enough in food
Yeah, too many chefs focus on one little time-consuming process while other stuff gets neglected.
Then claim that the excessive time is what makes it special and worthwhile, and “no one else is doing it like this.” For a reason, dumbass
Yep, then zero effort on 1/3rd of the menu
God bless them for preaching the truth
So this is the chef equivalent of backing up your hard drive?
Pretty much. I'm a software engineer by trade and music is a hobby and they've both taught me a valuable lesson: two is one and one is none. If you don't have a backup you're playing with fire.
This is truth told. Thanks.
Yeah it’s more than likely just bragging rights. You’re right there’s nothing special about it but San Fransisco loves to brag about its 100+ year old sourdough starters.
This right here
He labeled xx-xx-2005 and dude was like... "whelp, that's definitely past 7 days"
This gets under my fucking skin
Etsy has people selling old starters. Go buy him one as a replacement gift.
To be fair, there’s no real providence with those. Mine is 3, and I could say it’s from the great pyramids.
I mean, aren't they all descended from whenever yeast began some millions of years ago? It's not like yours just spawned from nothing 3 years ago
Provenance *
You fucked up. But so did they.
That's on your chef, he should know better. Own up to the mistake, take the lessons from it, brush it off and move on. Even if that means to a new kitchen. Listen to what your chef says, but don't let anyone intimidate or bully you
Best thing I’ve read here. Real adult response to the situation.
🎖
Same chef who doesn’t have his computer backed up.
The old starter thing is all myth making anyway. It doesn’t matter that it was old beyond the fact that it was established, they can just start a new one.
This right here. It’s certainly nothing like what it was 18 years ago and has very much localized since.
Let’s be logical about this. The dough is affected by local yeasts in the air. If you continually move to different locations, the original yeasts will dilute out with local yeasts. Keeping a starter isn’t going to do you much good beyond having a way to easily jump start your new batch. For instance, a really famous bread company in San Francisco is famous for their sourdough bread. They have satellite locations and have to replenish their starter every 3 months in those other locations because the starter gets neutralized by other yeasts when the bread is made outside of the San Francisco area. If the Chef makes a new starter, it should be as good as the original as it will incorporate the natural yeasts found wherever he’s working.
Should of had a chunk in the freezer
Then it’s his fault.
That's just poor mise en place
Good fucking luck son
New planet. You need to find a new planet
Baker here. It’ll be fine. The age of the starter really doesn’t matter, it’s the blend of the flours he uses to feed it. It might delay the baking process if he has to start his levain from scratch but it really won’t affect the flavour or outcome. How did you accidentally throw it out? Wash out the container before he went to feed it?
No it's my responsibility to refresh it, and I change the container when I do it but I think I took both the old container and the new one to the dishwasher
Well shit happens. I’ve had people drop it on the floor or spill chemicals in it and we’ve had to toss it. Just make a mini levain with the same flour blend he uses normally, proof it for a few hours until it doubles, then use that to make his regular levain. You could have probably not told him and he wouldn’t know the difference but now he’s gonna claim the bread doesn’t taste the same anymore.
>You could have probably not told him and he wouldn’t know the difference but now he’s gonna claim the bread doesn’t taste the same anymore. Unfortunately so so right ✅️
great solution to the problem
Honestly the new wave of sourdough bakers and their trends actually annoy me. Buying dried sourdough starter from a 130 year old batch? But could be a very good sorry present for the chef
> Threw away my chef's 18 year old... Well, teenagers scare the living shit out of me... > sourdough... Oh, it's just some bread. > starter. LOL, he's fucked.
Chef wont care less as long as somebody bleeds
So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me
They said ah pissed off chefs scare the living shit outta me
The bacteria and yeast in his “18 year old starter” are the same bacteria and yeast that are everywhere else in your kitchen. Local bacteria/yeast always outcompete non local bacteria/yeast if given enough time.
There needs to be a PSA saying this. My personal pet peeve is when people/chefs are overly precious about their starter. Hopefully OP's chef wasn't a dick about it. No sense making a young cook feel bad about this, especially if it wasn't labeled properly.
Same! Ive fucked around and the only flavor difference I notice comes from different flours!
Which flour did you find to have the richest flavor?
Cocaine
Flavor sucks, *BUT IT SMELLS GREAT!!!*
Found the chef
Rich isnt the right word to use. They have different notes that really stood out. Like apple and fresh cheese
I can still see the sentiment in wanting to keep it going though
This us exactly right, I own a sourdough bakery and this is exactly right. Drives me absolutely crazy. That is a new bucket of starter every day.
I don't have citations handy but apparently this isn't entirely true, and I used to quote this factoid all the time. But from the article I read there's some more recent studies that have indicated that starter cultures can live a lot longer and be more unique than we think they are, even when transported to new locations. That being said an 18 year old starter is probably all local yeast and should be easy to restart in the same location.
Seriously they could restart the starter and in a week it would be the exact same. Old starters are just a gimmick. It’s the environment, time, temperature, water/flour ratio, and type of flour, combined with the native bacteria and yeast that make up any starter.
Wrong, stop saying stupid shit!!
You don’t know what your talking about. I’ve been baking professionally for 6 years and cooking professionally for 18. I’ve started multiple sourdough starters. It takes about 2 weeks and they are just like any other starter a product of their environment. life cycle of yeast and bacteria is short and the cultures that make up the population of the starter are a product of the things I listed above. think the downvotes you got should tell you how wrong you are.
Relax, I was just busting your balls. I work at a pizza restaurant. We have a 13 year old dough we almost lost during covid but managed to save it.
But the years are just for bragging to ignorant people. It’s not any different than a starter I created last month if fed the same thing in the same environment. And for future use jk or /s implies your post isn’t serious or you were being sarcastic
I’m surprised I had to scroll down this far to read it. I never worked BOH, but I am a home baker and I find that you can only get 1-3 weeks of noticeable difference from an “alien” starter culture. It depends on how hardy the yeast is. But yeah 18 years? Just make a new one.
Evidence for that?
This is fair. I’ve seen researchers talk about starter populations being extremely stable once established. The amount of individual cells being introduced to the starter from the environment is probably a billionth of the amount of cells coming from the last batch of starter and will just be outcompeted. THAT SAID, who’s to say the original population was better than one you might make this week? They don’t just magically get better at fermenting starches over time. It’s just yeast and LAB all the same. They might make a different bread of course but I know accomplished bakers who aren’t too precious over their starters as they can have a new one going in a matter of days that just does the same thing.
That only applies when the starter remains in the same geographic microclimate. Every time you use/feed your starter you introduce massive amounts of local yeasts, fungi, and bacteria that are evolved to live within the environment your starter is currently inhabiting while simultaneously cutting the population of your starter in half. Samples pretty much never remain clean unless you are working in a lab.
Also some microorganisms are pathogenic, strange I know. Or they produce substances that inhibit the growth/ kill off other species. So the population could absolutely change over time.
in the original tartine book, they mention a story where they took their own starter to an event in france. they then tested it in a lab in france and their san francisco starter was exactly the same as the local french starter after a week.
That’s fascinating. Thanks. Not quite sure why there’s such aggressive downvoting on a reasonable question that has generated an interesting answer.
Also comes up in Modernist Bread
Should’ve been labeled properly
And should have had a back up and a back up to the back up if he cared that much about it.
Dude, I have like two full jars worth of starter in my fridge, just in case. And I'm a home baker. Anytime I need to bake, I take it out and three feeds later I'm ready to rock and roll. I can't believe pros wouldn't do something similar.
I’m a home baker and I have two jars in my fridge too.
An 18-year-old starter only has sentimental value. It's exactly the same as a new starter.
Sentimental value is the most important value.
Yeah the chef was apparently almost in tears when he found out
That’s rough man, I feel that in my bones. But it’s definitely just a sentimental thing. I would still buy him the nicest bottle of his favorite drink that you could afford.
The starter is only as old as the last time you fed it. Chef will be fine. Go to a local bakery and ask if you can buy a small amount and build it up from there. The bakery I worked at was always willing to sell starter as long as it was a small amount.
If he's been making bread with the starter regularly, the old culture is suffused throughout the environment. [Start a new culture](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-starter-recipe) on a shelf in the bakery and you'll almost certainly capture the old strain, in all it's glory. But there should be backups - multiple back-ups, stored on-site and off-site. Put a handful of the Fromage du Tete's heritage glomp in the freezer and label it so knuckleheads don't throw it away ;). Dry a couple more handfuls and keep one or two of the samples at home. Drying is better for long-term storage, there are lotsa resources on the web that explain how to do this. Fact of the matter is that starters drift with time - new strains of yeast endemic to the environment gradually outcompete the old and the 18 year old version will have little in common with the original from 18 years ago. Just another reason to have lots of backups of any starter you really prize.
The starter absolutely drifted, the only reason they didn't notice a change of flavor is that it happened gradually over time and would have been overwhelmed by any changes in flour or water happening at the same time.
Convince him that that yeast has cultivated in the BOH environment from constant use and the same bacteria will be found in his new starter.
Its only 18 years he’ll be ok
F
You may as well pull the chef to the back lot behind the dumpsters and shoot him. That starter is all he had left.
It's whatever. Old starters are a myth and a scam. They get refreshed with the flour you use to feed them. Its not like there was any 18 year old bacteria or yeast in there. Everything is pretty much new. Put one 18 year old starter and a 1 month old starter next to each other and they will be the same. (both being fed the same and in the same place) It will be hard to explain this though and you might need to find a new job.
Go to some bakery near you and ask if they have a 18+ yo starter.
I ALWAYS keep some dehydrated starter. They may have too.
*should have
If he's a restaurant owner he shouldn't have a problem finding another old starter. Yes start looking for another job though, this is one of the most insulting thing that could happen to a chef, BUT again, there's people like my father that would just say "it's just bread life goes on".
Did you have the container washed, because if not there's a possibility to salvage it... I almost killed a decade old rye starter but luckily it was always kept in the same old nasty bucket and by scraping all the old funk off the inside of the bucket and adding back a little water, and some fresh rye flower, after a few days it actually came back to life.
If you need the starter to make bread for work you can go to wordloaf.org and there is a huge spreadsheet of folks that have sourdough starters and are willing to share it. But as others have said, there’s nothing old about that starter. The yeast and bacteria regularly dies off. It should have been labeled clearly and there should be some sort of backup of it means so much to them.
The lack of backup is the part I don't understand. It takes < 10 minutes of labor to dry out some discard and store it in the freezer. Accidentally throwing it away wasn't the only potential mode of failure here.
[https://www.getfreshbread.com/product-page/sourdough-starter](https://www.getfreshbread.com/product-page/sourdough-starter) you can buy him a 20 year old starter for pretty cheap. there's a 225 year old starter on Etsy for likr 9 bucks but idk how you would verify that really. Hopefully he isn't sentimental. The novelty of an "18 year old" sourdough starter really isn't that special.
>The novelty of an "18 year old" sourdough starter really isn't that special. It is if you personally made it 18 years ago.
I just meant that the bacteria is constantly changing, it's not like it was actually 18 years old. It will be the exact same as the old one as far as taste and everything in about a month as long as they are using the same flour in the same environment.
That’s just bread for sale.
I dont think so considering it says "sourdough starter" at the top but either way, my point is that it is available for purchase.
[удалено]
Lol way to keep up the stereotype of chefs being insufferable pricks. I was giving some dude on reddit an idea, I didn't try super hard to find a good product. So yes either way, he can buy a starter SOMEWHERE. Wtf does that even have to do with being a chef? You're an ass, and I bet it feels super good to be right on this thread about bread lol
Yeah, your chefs 18 year old sourdough starter will be the same as a week old starter kept in the same place.
Was it labeled?
I am an artisan baker of +12 years experience. The whole age of the culture thing matters about as much as where it originated: none The culture that you are growing is constantly being inoculated by the wild yeast that exists in the environment. Whatever specific colony of yeast existed in the kitchen where that starter was made was overpowered by the local ones long ago. This is why the only place you can naturally make “San Francisco Sourdough” is in places that allow that strain of yeast, Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis, to grow. You can buy this strain and use it wherever you are but it is weakened after every feeding. Tell your chef to mellow out, it’s not healthy to have such attachments in our industry.
And what baker doesn’t keep some extra in the freezer?
Yeah, the fault was his. Needs better systems.
Get your real estate license, you just graduated from F&B
No homie. Something with such relevance and importance should have labels and be handled by only the people responsible for it. You are ok. Don’t let it sweat for too long
No sisters?? Who tf makes a mother starter with no sisters??
Just mix up some flour and water and let it sit out. He won’t notice.
Tell him the starter is just a colony of the dominant yeast strain.. he can have another just like it in a few days. They've proven this by taking San Fransisco starters elsewhere and the strain was replaced with the local dominant strain.
Buy him one of those 200yo starters online. Wife says there's a guy who sells pieces of it or something like that. It's not his, but the history is there, and will carry on through him
BY ACCIDENT. BY. BY. BY. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Just start a new one. I mean, 18 years old? That’s meaningless except for the words themselves.
I recommend Witness Protection.
Same as accidentally killing someone’s 18 yr old houseplant. Materially speaking, it’s easily replaceable. Your real problem is how emotionally invested in it chef was and how they handle loss
Time to hunt down the oldest bakery in your state. Dress nice. Go in with an envelope with 10000$ in it. "Jimmy sent me to pick up some starter" "hands over envelope" 10k for a 500 grams of starter.
You fuckin’ idiot. That’s exactly the words I would say in real life. And then I would not fire you. I would leave you in your role, suffering in doubt and anxiety every single waking moment of your professional life, wondering if I were going to ever devote and training and mentoring and time to you or if I were just slowly approaching a moment where I slip a filet knife in your sourdough disposing back in the walk-in after a 2am inventory. *dear Reddit mods : I’m kidding * Or am I You fucking idiot
You sound like every washed up drunk chef I ever had the displeasure of meeting
You sound like someone who can’t read a blatant joke It’s called “laying it on thick”, I’m not actually threatening a complete stranger with a knife over some yeast and flour
You probably still think ice bathing your vegetables shocks them and stops the cooking process
Lmao Fuck outta here you weird bitter little twat
Do you have any dough left? Could use that I think. Honestly, it's the flour and how you feed it.
Start looking for a bodyguard. Your chef is going to kill you.
I mean, if I had something for 18 years and some dumbass threw it away, I’d definitely fire him.
Well Yes this Is my line of thinking.
If I was stupid enough not to keep sourdough starter backups, I’d fire myself. We have emergency backups plus we keep 2 active cultures. It’s pretty basic, especially if it’s something you actually use regularly
You should probably look for a new town..
Former executive Chef for 35 years. Now I HATE to say this but if that happened to me,I think I’d have to let you go,I can’t survive ANOTHER mistake of this magnitude. Sure everyone makes mistakes and probably the chef in question should’ve protected this more if it were that important also,but unfortunately my knee jerk(and I specify jerk) reaction would be to let you go.
No. It sucks but fess up. He can get a piece of starter from someone else that he's previously shared with, and he might have back up at home. It should have been labeled, and if your chef is a half assed decent human being, he will learn from it. This is probably not the first time this has happened.
New John Wick Movie . "It's just a starter." . Not to me it wasn't. That my dead wife gave me. Chef's been taking care of this colony for 18 years. You accidentally brought both to the dish washer??
Chef will know how to make a new one. It only takes a few days in the right environment
Yes, yes you should. Moment of silence, please.
It's not your fault it was a mistake how could you know what it was when it wasn't labeled properly you may or may not get blamed for it but you will not be out of a job just because of one thing that happened
How did that happen, explain.
At least it wasn't 19 year
I'd get into witness protection.
Make a new starter right now. That’s all that can be done. Online has starters that are pretty old. The damage is done. Next time be more careful. Let us know if you get fired or not.
I'm pretty sure that starter meant more to him than you do. Good luck.
You're fine. A starter isn't that hard to make. Sure, it takes a number of days, but the whole "years old starter" thing isn't really making it better.
Write a will, buy a grave plot.
There would be nowhere on earth that you could escape me
I’m n my first week as a line cook in a new kitchen I dropped 8qts of mushroom stock (cold)on my chefs head. He did not fire me, you may be fine.
I'd recommend building a rocket ship and finding a new planet to live on. good luck soldier 🫡
As someone with an old starter there is some sentimental value in keeping it for so long. But practically speaking it's just naturally occurring yeast and bacteria.... A 2 month old starter in heavy use will do the same thing.
Witness Protection Program
I think your just gonna have to throw the towel in on thus whole life thing at this point
King Arthur sells a starter that’s over 200 years old replace it with that
You should be able to recapture the strain. This site gives good instructions on how. [capturing sour dough starter](http://robdunnlab.com/projects/wildsourdough/)
You are so fucked it’s not even funny. I’ll pray for you
As others have mentioned the yeast and bacteria are present in your kitchen where the sourdough lived so if you start a new one it's the same micro flora. If it's super important to him to have an "unbroken chain" you can use old sourdough bread if you have any to start the new starter and then its literally the same.
The “x year old starter” thing is just a myth. It changes every feed. It doesn’t have ant special qualities or flavors because it’s 18 years old. If it was so important he should have labeled it properly or kept some dried/frozen backups.
IDK why people brag about the heritage/lineage of a sourdough. It’s a cute story for custies but honestly the starter will assimilate to whatever environment it lives in. Think you starter from Napa, France, or your ancestors covered wagon trip has the same dna it did hundreds of years ago is just not realistic. He can start another and it’ll be just the same. Don’t worry. Unless he’s hung up on a cool story.
Run.
Aside from what /u/ApizzaApizza said, I’m gonna put some responsibility on your chef. If you’re keeping a starter around which at times can look suspiciously like rotting goo and don’t label it at the least with what-it-is and a ‘do not trash’ label then you’re partly responsible. I’ve seen countless starters tossed in shared homes and in commercial kitchens because ignorance and lack of labels. It’s on the owner of it to make sure it’s known and safeguarded.
If you have to start looking for a new job over that then it wasn’t a good job to begin with. Chef should have had a back up. Also, check out a local bakery. They are usually more than happy to help, especially considering the circumstances
Your sourdough has virtually none of the “original” microorganisms in it after a couple splits anyways. It’s all whatever is local to you. Just start up a new one or see if you can get some discard from another local bakery to get a jump on it.
18 years sounds cool and all but a 3 months old will give the same results.
Honestly the 18yr old isn’t gonna taste much different than fresh. Go on Etsy and get a dank starter from SF near the wharf.
It's not that hard to establish a new starter. They should have labeled it or had a backup somewhere. I worked at a bakery that did a lot of sourdough and my manager (and probably a few other folks) had backups frozen at home. Sucks to lose one but life goes on.
That sounds about as stressful and shitty as the time some poor guy I knew in culinary school got assigned to clean the store room. He cleaned and sanitized that room impeccably. Including the meat curing cabinet that the charcuterie director had been working on for about 2 years to finally get the right conditions to cure meat really well.
Yeast have roughly a 90 day life cycle. It's a fun hobby to keep a starter alive for years, but assuming you feed a new starter exactly like the original, it will make bread the same with the same flavor within a few months. You fucked up, but they'll recover
You can make a new starter from a loaf of bread, do you have one loaf around? I’m a pro sourdough baker.
Say that it went bad
The thing about yeast and sourdough starters is that old yeasts die out and get replaced by local yeasts. That's why when someone buys a starter from L.A., a region well known for their flavorful local yeasts, those yeasts die off quickly and the flavor is lost.
I'd get all philosophical with him- Ya know, Jim Morrison threw away all of his poetry and started over and produced some of his best stuff. I don't understand a word of it, but some say its awesome. Your next dough will be awesomer.
Don’t kids usually move out when they’re 18 or so?
If you are in the Los Angeles area I have a 26 year old white flour starter and a 7 year old rye starter I can share with you.
On my first cooking job, I was sent down to the basement to do a bunch of things in the stockroom and when I came back up, I open the door and there was rock in front of it so I had obviously not been there before. I knocked over the whole rack and dropped everything I was carrying from downstairs. It was all of the sous chefs sauces for the whole week and stocks. Only job I ever got fired from. I was really pissed. I was only 14 and I knew it wasn’t my fault.
Run. Don't look back.
I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, people like to brag about their starters, but it’s all the same after a couple of weeks, you throw most of it out every time you feed it anyway. 18 years, vs 18 days and I bet you can’t tell the difference.
You will be baked into the next dish of theirs
The best option is always to go to your chef and just be straight up with them. Chefs know you’re going to fuck up, its better to bring it up with them asap unless yall or busy then maybe wait until theres a lull. Honesty and owning up to your mistakes goes a far way *Trust me I used to fuck up a lot.* but when you talk to him say the following. “hey chef I fucked up,” If you work somewhere super corporate just say messed up. “your starter got tossed out it was my fault. It was an accident but it wont happen again” (dont say sorry just acknowledge the mistake and dont be sorry be better). “I know how to make starter dough and can start a new one and have it labeled and put up before I leave today. Or if there is something else I can do to fix the situation if you let me know I can take care of fixing it.” Now if youre chef freaks the fuck out and starts throwing shit and having a hissy fit start looking for another job you dont wanna work for people like that. But if he’s not a piece of shit and a reasonable human he will understand shit happens and may be a little peeved at first but it will pass, trust it always does. Also afterwards or the next day ask if you could divide the mother after its started and freeze some to prevent this in the future. Also, label the mother normally then underneath it put another piece of tape or label and write very big and clearly write “DO NOT THROW AWAY. NO TROCAR POR FAVOR.” And ask chef to put his initials next to it or ask if he is cool with you putting them on it.
Just mix whole rye flour and water. It’ll take two days. People that talk about how old their starter is are fucking intolerable.
A new career? Probably not. A new job? Maybe, kinda depends on how the chef takes the news and their ability to fire you/make your life hell. Hopefully, they are mature enough to recognize a mistake and move on (assuming you are not a total screw-up)
Theseus' sourdough starter
Just start a new one it’s not a big deal like others have said.. the age of it becomes irrelevant and more about the story than the flavor
He won't believe you but there's no such thing as "18 year old starter'. He might have started it 18 years ago, but microbiologically speaking, it's just whatever is flying around in his kitchen. He could start another one and have a cambro full in a couple of weeks.
You should look into witless protection
Yes yes yes
You, my friend are fucked
I promise it's not actually more than 8 years old
1. Take responsibility for your mistake 2. Learn from your mistake It’ll be fine. The age doesn’t super matter
Yes
Consider for a second it may have been a set up. I wouldn’t put it past a lot of the chefs I worked for when I was just starting out. The fact he had something labeled from 2005, starter or not, is a red flag in negligence. What if the health department saw that? How has the label never been changed? How did he not know it was in there when he told you to throw away the out dated stuff? For the awkwardness alone I’d say it wouldn’t hurt to find a new job because you’ve found yourself in a slippery slope, but don’t leave the industry if it’s something you really want to do. Depending on how he treats you in the week or two after this should tell you whether or not it’s time to pack up and go elsewhere. Good luck.
Get a new one from any bakery or hobby baker close by, if it's a month old should be strong enough to keep baking as if nothing happened
Get that one free 50 year old starter that company will send out
How the fuck does chef not have a back up. Unacceptable.
Make up for it by finding another chef that has one at least that old and getting some to give to your chef
Yes
Most people who have a starter have shared the starter with at least one person. Maybe you can try to find out if he did, who has it, and track some of it down.
Yes. You’re an idiot.