Start(er) Here

You’re here! And if you’re here, you most likely have a dehydrated, inactive sourdough starter in your possession and are ready to get it active and start your sourdough journey. Exciting.

Baking sourdough has become so much more than just making bread to me. In just under a year, baking sourdough has fed the journey of a slow, simple lifestyle while feeding my family. It’s sparked creativity and trained intention. It’s turned me into a ‘Sourdough Lady’, and I’m never looking back.

While everyone’s sourdough journey is different, I only hope that you gain a glimmer of joy in the art of bread-making that dates back centuries.

Here’s what you’ll find in this post:

• What’s a Sourdough Starter?
• Reviving Sourdough Starter
• How Do I Know My Sourdough Starter is Ready to Bake With?
• Maintaining and Storing Your Sourdough Starter
• Let’s Bake!

What’s a Sourdough Starter?

First things first — what is a Sourdough Starter? You may also hear it referred to as a pre-ferment, mother culture, or seed — they’re all referring to a starter.

In summary, a sourdough starter is a stable culture of Lactobacillus bacteria (that’s the good kind!) and wild yeast, mixed with a type of flour and water. Sourdough starter acts as a natural leavening agent in bread — aka: what makes it expand. Those two key ingredients in the culture both serve important purposes. The wild yeast helps the bread to rise. The Lactobacillus bacterium gives that delicious sour-y, acidic flavor to the bread.

The starter is one of four necessary ingredients for baking your sourdough. And, assuming you want to keep baking sourdough, you’ll need to maintain your starter — kind of like a pet, but less work and you’ll eat the result.

Reviving Dehydrated Starter

Making your dehydrated starter active again is easier than you may think. In just 2 or 3 days, you’ll be ready to do your first bake.

It’s important to know how much dried starter you’re working with, so you can feed it properly. For the following steps, I’ll use a 10g starter example.

If your starter is in large flakes or pieces, break it down so it’s finely crushed, nearly a powder consistency.

1. Weigh your starter. Use a kitchen scale with the unit of grams (g), weigh your total starter amount. Since you’ll be feeding it at least a few times before baking, I recommend starting with 15g or less. Add all of your weighed dehydrated starter to a pint-sized mason jar, or similar sized container (just be sure it can be covered), to begin the re-hydration process.
   
2. Start the re-hydration process. With 10g dehydrated starter in its container, add 20g of warm water (30g total water & starter). Warm water (not hot!) helps activate the yeast in the starter. Stir the starter and water together well, making sure there’s no dried pieces or clumps left.
   
   Allow to sit for 2-4 hours, depending on the temperature*. After 2-3 hours in warmer weather, or up to 4 hours in cooler weather, you should see a bubble or two in your starter. Great news! The yeast is activating, and you’re on your way to having an active starter.
   
   <*Starter Tip! Temperature plays a huge role in the whole sourdough process, and it can get a little complicated. As a rule of thumb, the ideal temperature for sourdough is between 75 & 82°F. If you’re activating or proofing in the colder months, keep in mind every part of the activation & proofing process may take longer than it does in the warmer months. That’s because the fermentation process works less efficiently in colder weather. Just keep an eye on your work, and use best practices and good judgement to determine how things are progressing>
   
3. Let’s do our first feed. If you’re a beginner or intermediate sourdough baker, I highly recommend using a kitchen scale at least the first handful of times you’re doing feeds.
   
   For the first feed, we’re starting with 30 grams of starter (the 10g of dehdrydated starter & 20g of water that we mixed together in step 2). To start, we’re going to feed our starter at a 1:1:1 ratio – that’s equal parts starter, water, and flour.
   
   Add 30g of bread or whole wheat flour to the starter and 30g of filtered, warm water. To track how it’s rising, you can mark a line on your jar where the starter currently is (see the image below). Cover, and let it set about 12 hours, or overnight.
   
   Since this is the first feed, there’s a good chance your starter won’t double in size like it should in later feedings. You should, however, see some good activity. Look for lots of bubbles and a rise of some kind.
   
   <Starter Tip! I prefer organic flour, and like the texture of all-purpose or bread flour, but will often do a mix of all-purpose, bread, or whole wheat. As you get more experienced, it’s fun to play around with different flours, like rye or sprouted flour. If you’re gluten-free, there are plenty of great resources out there for your diet.>
   
4. Discard & Feed Number 2. After the first feed and rise, you’ll do your first discard.
   
   <If you’re first starting out, discards can be confusing — why would we dump out half of the starter we just worked so hard to build?! Read my blog post about why we discard sourdough, and also do a quick Internet search on Sourdough discard recipes. Our family-favorite, super quick sourdough discard cracker recipe can be found here. >
   
   At this point you should have 90g of starter. We’ll discard 2/3 so we’re left with 30g of starter. Now we’ll do another 1:1:1 feeding — add 30g of flour and 30g of warm water to starter (making 90g total). Stir together well so there are no lumps; it should be like a thick pancake batter. Cover, and let it sit for 6-8 hours, until it peaks. You’ll know it’s peaked when the starter has doubled in size or has started falling.
   
   Keep an eye on activity again by marking where your starter is in the jar, and watching how high it rises. After this feed, you should get more bubbles and a rise. Also notice that it’s taking less time to peak; that’s because your starter is getting strong and more efficient.
   
5. Discard & Feeds Numbers 3 & 4. We’re going to do the same thing we did in step 4: discard then feed 1:1:1.
   
   Discard 1/2 (45g) so you’re left with 45g of starter, and add equal parts flour and warm water. Your starter should now be about 135g. Mark the level on your jar, and let sit for 6-8 hours, or until it peaks.
   
   Repeat that step one more time. Discard 1/2 (~67g) so you’re left with 68g of starter, and add equal parts flour and warm water. Your starter should now be about 204 (plenty for your first bake!) Mark the level on your jar, and let sit for 6-8 hours, or until it peaks.
   
6. Additional Feedings. It’s a good idea to keep at least 1/4 c (or about 70g) of starter in your reserve; don’t use all your starter in one recipe! If your recipe calls for more starter than what you have at the end of step 5, give it another feeding. Use the same rule of discarding and feeding in equal parts flour & water to starter.

How do I know if my Starter is ready to bake with?

If your starter is bubbly and doubling in size after feedings, chances are it’s ready to bake with.

When in doubt, however, I use the float test. It hasn’t failed me yet!

Maintaining & Storing Your Starter

Amazing! You have an active sourdough starter. Now what the heck do you do with it if you’re not baking every day?

You’re probably not going to be baking with your sourdough every day.

Once you’ve built up an active sourdough starter, it’s really easy to maintain it. If you’re going to go more than a day between feedings, it’s best to store your starter in the fridge. Ideally, you should feed it every 3 to 4 days to keep it nice and active. But good news – when you inevitably forget or just don’t have the energy to keep up on it, sourdough starter is really forgiving. Even if you don’t bake with it, you can just feed it once every couple of weeks and put it back in the fridge right away.

Give yourself a few days to reactivate it with feedings if it’s been in the fridge for a while, as it may be dormant.

Let’s Bake!

Okay, okay — now to the fun part. Baking!

There are a million things you can bake with sourdough other than the obvious beautiful bread loaf — banana bread, cookies, crackers, pizza crust, cinnamon rolls, bagels, naan, pretzels to name a few.

If you’re looking to make your first loaf, check out my go-to Sourdough Loaf recipe.