My spouse was going by means of the cupboards final week and hauled out two packets of dried starter.  One was a survivor from our transfer from South Africa to the US, relationship again to October 2011.  So, simply a few months away from being 14 years outdated.  Thoughts you, this has acquired no particular remedy, having been tucked away in a single cupboard or one other at room temperature.  It has additionally survived a second transfer in 2020 once I retired and we moved from Kansas again to Michigan.  The pure query was “I’m wondering if that is nonetheless any good?”

The packet, nonetheless wanting prefer it did when it was first made:

There have been 7 grams of starter within the packet.  I combined it with 43 grams of AP flour and 50 grams of water:

Room temperature was about 75F.  Twenty 4 hours later, it appeared like this:

There’s perhaps simply the tiniest little bit of enlargement.  The bubbles are the identical ones that had been seen within the “simply fed” {photograph}, above.

At 48 hours after feeding, it appeared like this:

It had peaked a couple of hours earlier and is already beginning to recede on this picture.  There’s some free liquid on the backside which has separated from the primary physique of the starter.  Prime view:

I discarded most of it and gave it my typical feeding: some complete wheat, complete rye, and AP flours with sufficient water to make it a comfortable dough.  It’s sitting on the counter and I am going to see the way it responds.  

General, I am each stunned and happy that the starter was nonetheless viable in any case of those years.  Whereas not abused, it definitely hasn’t had child glove remedy, both.  

The brand new query is “What am I going to do with a second starter?”  Perhaps I am going to should pit the 2 clones in opposition to one another to see which performs greatest, simply in case the opposite offshoot I have been utilizing since 2011 has misplaced some oomph alongside the way in which.  

Paul