The most important part of a successful sourdough loaf is the sourdough starter. I have found the Breadtopia live starter to be my favorite so far. A dehydrated starter will also work well.
Activating a new starter:
Live Starter: as soon as possible after receiving your live starter, feed it with 2 tablespoons of distilled water and 3 tablespoons of bread flour. Stir and let the starter revitalize in a jar covered loosely with plastic wrap or a sourdough starter cloth cover. After 8-12 hours, your starter should begin showing signs of life. At this point, feed it a 1:1 ratio of water and bread flour, up to 50 grams of each. Wait at least 8 hours, up to 24 hours between feeding if you leave the starter at room temperature.
Dehydrated Starter: reviving a dehydrated starter requires a little more patience as it takes more time than a live starter, but will be just as vital and great to bake with!
- When you receive your dehydrated sourdough starter, soak 1 1/2 teaspoons of dried starter in 1 tablespoon of lukewarm purified or distilled water for a few minutes to soften. Then, stir in 1 tablespoon of all-purpose or bread flour, cover with plastic wrap or a cloth cover, and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours.
- Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and 2 teaspoons of water and let it continue to sit covered for another 24 hours.
- Add 1 more tablespoon of flour and 1 teaspoon of water. Combine. Within the next 12 to 24 hours, you can expect to see some bubbling action as the yeast begins fermentation.
- Transfer your activated starter to a small bowl and stir in equal parts by weight flour and water (or 1/3 cup flour and 1/4 cup water by volume). Within 12 hours you should have a fully active starter that can be used for bread!
What does a healthy starter look like?
A healthy starter will have a gooey, stretchy consistency with visible bubbles on the surface and throughout, with a slightly foamy texture, and have a pleasant, slightly tangy aroma. It should double or triple in volume within a few hours of feeding (I use a rubber band or sticky note on the side of the container to tracker expansion). If you drop a small amount in water, it should float when it is at its peak.
Using your starter for baking:
Your starter will be most potent for bread making at peak activity, which is typically 8 hours after feeding. I like to feed my starter right before bed and make the bread dough when I wake up the next morning. Wait at least 2 days after activating and regularly feeding your live starter (or 5 days after activating and regularly feeding your dehydrated starter) before baking with it for best results. If you are not planning on baking with your starter for more than a few days, I recommend putting it in the fridge with a lid until the day before your plan to use it. In the fridge, the starter really only needs to be fed once every two weeks or up to once a month. Remove the day or two before you plan to bake, feed twice over the course of the day to get peak potency and make some bread!
A few tips I have found to be helpful:
- Use purified or distilled water – the chlorine in tap water will affect your starter’s potency.
- Starter is very robust – it can be revived after several days at room temperature without a feeding and survive for up to a month in the fridge without being fed.
- Hooch – if you leave it too long without feeding it may form a liquid layer on top. This is hooch and is an alcohol produced by the starter bacteria. Discard the hooch, stir well, and feed again – it will be fine!
- A thicker starter is less likely to develop hooch so try to keep your starter on the gloopier side, even if it makes it harder to stir.
- Discard excess starter into the garbage, not down the sink – it is slimy and gooey and over time will wreck havoc on pipes.
- Discard can be stored in another jar in the fridge and used for a huge number of sourdough discard recipes that utilize the remaining leavening power of the starter and relies on the slightly funky flavor for unique results.
