— Clive Allison

So we have a, a couple of things to think about here, A couple of, uh, ways forward. One is to put it in the refrigerator. And, uh, you know, very often, uh, a bread starter, uh, will last, uh, months and, and years, uh, in the freezer. It'll, or in the, in the refrigerator, excuse me. Um, it'll take on a, a dormant state and, uh, just, uh, just hang low and then, you know, waiting to be, uh, resurrected and, and fed, uh, once you get around to baking again. Okay? Um, now the, I mentioned the freezer. That's also a place where you can store, uh, your bread starter, your sourdough starter, or whatever, uh, it, it is that you have. And there's a couple of ways to do that. You can store it in, its in its wet form, uh, in, you know, some sort of a, a container that's gonna be, um, airtight and will be safe, uh, otherwise safe in that freezer environment. And, uh, you know, it, it's, it could be a jar. Um, if you have a larger quantity of starter, you can divvy it up into smaller portions. Um, some people use, uh, a silicone, uh, muffin, uh, uh, mat, I guess I'd call it. It's not really a, a muffin tin, but you know, it, it replicates a muffin tin, but made of silicone. You can freeze these little pucks, uh, of starter, and then pop those out and then transfer them to a, a Ziploc bag, uh, maybe a, a double layer though, so they're airtight as as much as you can, uh, throughout that winter period to avoid drying and, and freezer burn, or, you know, damage to that starter. Uh, the other thing that, uh, that some folks do is they'll get their starter and spread it out on parchment paper, or even a nice clean sill pad, and then dehydrate it. And that can be done in a dehydrator if you have one, or, you know, at, uh, uh, room temperature, um, you know, with some moving air, so that things will dry out pretty quickly without any other, um, foreign, uh, critters invading and growing in, in the form of mold, right? Mold that you don't want. Um, and then those dried chips can be put into a Ziploc bag and then stored, you know, in the freezer. Uh, so those are some, uh, a few ways forward, and I hope you'll, uh, you know, give one or two, or all three of 'em a try and see what might work best for you.