Resurrecting Sourdough Barm

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! We certainly did. I love Thanksgiving, it really kicks off the holidays. Noemi and I are trying to get over a cold that we got from my Mom. (I just had to throw that out there because Mom feels terrible about it. I can't wait to hear what she has to say about this.)

The week of Thanksgiving, I started taking my kitchen back. I was ready and (somewhat) excited about being back and making my things again. One of those things I make is our bread. I'd baked several loaves before Noemi was born, but we'd gone through those the first week and haven't had my good bread since.

My sourdough barm was in the fridge for 4 weeks. (Because I just had a baby.) I've been craving my bread, and I finally got to the place where I felt like I could start baking again. So I pulled it out of the fridge, and this is what I found.

Is it alive?

I poured off the liquid on top. Some people stir it back in, but someone told me once that it is the dead yeast. And so I pour it off, because, gross. Also, I didn't let it come to room temperature because then it would absorb that stuff. (I've done this resurrection thing a time or two with my sourdough.)

Anyway, then I scraped (with a wooden spoon) back the top layer because it is grayish in color, and got some of the barm closer to the bottom of the bowl. Just a little bit. I discarded the rest.

I fed it and waited...

It's alive! That's what those bubbles mean.

I fed it again. In the morning, I made a sourdough pancake cake for breakfast, yum! Since I used so much of it, I didn't have to discard. I hate discarding, but sometimes it's necessary, I know. That recipe is nice because it uses up a lot of barm.

And fed the barm again. I let it sit on the counter all day, and then that night I started making my sourdough bread. The kids and I were so happy to have some bread again!

I made this on the day before Thanksgiving, so that's all we ate before our Thanksgiving dinner. We had it toasted with butter, and it was lovely.

All that to say, if you leave your barm in the fridge for an extended amount of time, just try feeding it before you throw it out. It may take several feedings to get it really active and tasting less sour, but it'll most likely come back. Or, if you're a more prepared person than I am, you can freeze your barm. I've left mine in the fridge for a couple of months before though. And it came back then too!

Here's my sourdough bread method/recipe: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4