I know this thread is very old, but it's one of the only really relevant links to come up when you google this. After never finding a satisfactory answer, I just tried it in my indoor plastic tote worm bin (made from 2 nested 10 gallon totes from Lowes http://www.lowes.com/pd_332449-61896-332449_1z0yly3__?productId=3276019&pl=1), and the worms adore sourdough starter. At first I thought something was wrong because every worm in the bin ended up in a giant, writhing mass where the starter was put down, but it turns out they were just super excited to eat it. It gets kind of hot, though, so be careful with quantity if the temp where you keep your worms is high. You'll see more condensation in the bin with the starter in there. I've put down up to 1/4 cup with no bad consequences to my bin. I don't know about larger quantities--I would guess it depends on the size of your bin and worm population. I had no problems with odor generally, but there can be a funk for a while if you uncover just the area where the starter is--probably because it can cause a wet, sludgy spot. I've since started to take out some older bedding and mix it into the starter before putting it down. The worms seem to prefer to eat the castings/organic matter/bedding that has soaked up the starter rather than eat the starter itself anyway, and it helps me control moisture better. If I notice that the spot with the starter is getting compacted and funky, I fluff it, and it seems to nip the problem in the bud. Anyway, I'm sure this is no help to the original poster anymore, but maybe this will help the next person who Googles for the answer to whether it's OK to feed sourdough starter to the worm bin.

I'm glad I posted this -- I'm learning all sorts of things! I didn't realize that sourdough isn't necessarily sour -- but it makes sense the commerical stuff is more so. (I had a friend's homemade sourdough recently, and while it was a very nice bread I remember thinking it wasn't nearly sour enough!) The sour taste is really what I'm going for -- if I can't get that going naturally, I'll looking into adding the taste in with other things. (I picked up a littl container of buttermilk powder for another recipe -- that might be a good taste to play around with!) Thanks for the explanation on acidity and the viscosity of the starter, Carol; that's helps a lot. The alchemy of baking has always intimidated me -- it's good to have a clearer idea of what's going on. I'll keep plugging away for a while longer with this starter, perhaps feed it whole wheat for a while and see if that builds up it's puny flour-lifting muscles. If not, the soured yeast dough may be the way to go, jessica; I didn't know you could do that. It might actually be better way to go, given the infrequency with which I bake. I'm still going to work with this starter -- Ill keep you posted!

I bet it smells wonderful! I have some starter Teresa sent me months and months ago..I haven't really had time yet to babysit it and care for it as it should be, so I have yet to activate it. But soon I hope to.

I almost didn't read that Kitchen thread, but I decided to open it last night out of curiosity. I loved it!. Anyone who is following along and hasn't read about the new toaster instructions needs to go take a look at the link above. Glad you got to see the photo this time. I have to be honest and say I'd never heard of stroopwafels before I went to Holland or I would have searched them out. I'd never eaten one when I decided I had to try making them. I don't know how authentic the taste is, but I know they aren't the "authentic" look, but after seeing the ones with the grid and so thin (so commercial looking -- ya know? ), I, personally, like the ones made with the pizzelle iron. Somehow the stroopwafels came up in a conversation between this attorney and DH (her husband is a great cook, and they wind up talking food and kitchens sometimes). She had had stroowafels in Holland and loved them and DH told her I made them sometimes. It was a couple of months later that she arranged her schedule to be here for meetings on another case so she could see our son in his high school musical (she's a former actress). That was a pretty special effort, so I decided to match the kindness (and make DH proud) with a bag of stroopwafels for her. She was the first person I knew who'd had them in Holland ad had mine and she loved mine, so I was happy. LOL They do keep pretty well, so they would be great in a gift basket -- and most people have never had them. I've seen one commercial brand sandwiched with dark chocolate and want to try that for my oldest son. If you decide to try them, let me know. I use an adaptation of two recipes and will share that with you. If you want to find your own, the cookie has many variations out there and they have all worked for me. I use mostly vanilla and a little lemon or orange flavoring when I make stroopwafels. Martha Stewart's cookie recipe is good, but I had a total fail with the caramel in her recipe. The caramel I use is from Willy Dean's recipe found somewhere on the internet years ago. It is 1-1/2 c light brown sugar, 1 C butter, 1 tsp cinnamon and 6 T dark corn syrup boiled until it thickens. That's a lot of caramel. For this last batch, I doubled the cookie recipe from Martha's recipe and still had about a cup of caramel left over. Let me know if you try them. As for the sourdough, I think it may have baked too long. The dough soft and slightly on the wet side, so I don't think it was too much flour. I was thinking the crust should have been a bit darker, so I left it in a few minutes longer. It was okay fresh, but it dried quickly. I have some other bread in the freezer for bread pudding, so I don't need this too -- hope it makes good crumbs. I like your idea about retitling the next thread. Even baker's kaffeeklatsch -- we could soon be starting a new one every week. That's okay. I do have AC -- can't live in the Houston area without it -- no natural AC like in CA. We used to live in northern CA and DS1 is now in LA and loves the weather. This is year 4 and grad school options are mostly north of the snow belt -- could be a shock to his system. I get the feeling you are in southern CA. I am going to tackle organizing my cookbooks before I do any major baking. It's driving me crazy to not be able to put my finger on books like I'm used to. That's going to bleed over into cleaning other bookcases. Could be worse......