Ask Allie!
Ask Allie is our advice column, where you can ask all your food-related questions to get digestible answers! No question is off limits!
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"Allie note: please make sure you’ve saved 2 backup cultures in your freezer before you experiment. " How long will the cultures last in my freezer?
— Justin
Industry standard says 1 year. My personal experience says at least 3. Note, however, that I do freeze all my cultures in breast milk bags, and that may impact longevity. If you’re worried about having a billion bags you can’t use, they’re also great for sauces like pesto and marinara, plus other stuff you want to freeze. Also I think they sell packs smaller than 100 bags, but I use these so much (and mostly not for cultures) I just buy the large packs.
Hi, I bought your San Fran sourdough starter and read and understand the activation process. My goal is to make bread as close to the taste of the San Fran bread as possible.
Problem is that there’s a lot of different recipes for making sourdough and most don’t say how much starter to use and some even say to add yeast...What ???
Can you tell me what recipe you would use if you were making 1 or 2 loafs
of the S.F. sourdough. Please include amt of starter, needing and resting (rising) cycles and times and baking temp.
— Don
Hey Don! These are the bread recipes in the style you’re asking about on our website, and a sandwich loaf, should you need it. There are a lot of other sourdough recipes on our site, if you poke around.
Some people prefer to make hybrid loaves with sourdough and commercial yeast. This gives a bit more rise and bounce to the loaf without doing as much work as can be needed with pure sourdough. Keep in mind there is no right or wrong way to bake: only ways that are right or wrong for you (or me, or whomever), but that each method of producing bread is valid so long as the baker is getting the bread they want to eat!
Why did you stop selling dehydrated milk kefir grains?
— Yair
Yair, we only sell dehydrated grains when we have a massive surplus of fresh. That said, dehydrated grains offer no advantage over fresh, since they last the same amount of time per industry standards and also because kefir grains can get lost in the mail for months and still come out alright in the end. Unless there’s an issue with customs per a given nation’s rules about bringing in cultures that are fresh, I personally always recommend using fresh grains over dried.
