Hi Jessica , I'm in the process of drying a sourdough starter that I inoculated with store bought bread machine yeast after it still wasn't perking up after 20 days of feeding (cold house, not a lot of windows, likely never got a good yeast foothold), so what I'm working with is most likely very similar to a commercial yeast levain. It is going well so far, I haven't finished dehydrating it but it smells good (like a brewery, strong yeast smell, not quite sourdough starter smell but close) and is drying appropriately in the corners. I decided to put the parchment sheets in a dehydrator to speed things up after reading a user comment about mold growing (which I think is pretty unlikely but I had it sitting there and thought why not). It's running with no heat just fans overnight and by morning it should be dry even in the thickest spots. I think if it's working out for me it should work out for you, and anyone else who reads this wondering the same. I made an everlasting supply of that yeast (at the cost of flour which I'm lucky the stores have here, but no yeast for 2 months now) and seem to be successfully preserving it with these instructions.

• Reply