Fermentation Support Forum

I can't see how this would work since sourdough starter needs oxygen but has anyone ever tried a pickl-it for this? thanks.

Haven't tried that specific brand, but would advise against it... mostly because sourdough likes to grow especially when you don't want it to.

So sourdough grows, it only has one way to grow which is up and through the airlock, which if is not discovered in the first few minutes,well, disaster and many bad words happen. Cleaning the angry sourdough from the airlock becomes virtually impossible.

To stop the disaster you would need to keep the starter at less than 1/4 the volume of the jar, which is kind of counter productive to using an airlock to leave that much space in it.

I keep my sourdough starter in a container that I bought three-for-a-dollar at the dollar store. I do use airlocks on my wine ferments though after the yeast multiplication stage. The anaerobic stage is all about increasing alcohol. During the yeast multiplication stage (first few days of a wine ferment), I cover wine with cheesecloth, as air is good at this stage.

It seems like sourdough is always at the yeast multiplication stage. You feed it at regular intervals, and get rid of some so you never really develop the hooch. I would probably use an airlock if I wanted the maximize the hooch production for some reason. Otherwise, any container is fine.