OK, you are sold, right? So how do you go about getting and maintaining a sourdough starter? I really recommend that you start with an established starter. Whether you get this from a friend, family member, a Facebook group, or buy it, you will be much happier with your established starter than trying to make your own. I tried numerous times to make my own, and it was time consuming hassle, and it never resulted in good bread or baked goods! I finally purchased a starter from Cultures for Health. I first chose the Parisienne starter. I loved it from the get-go and still continue to use it to this day. I also bought their whole wheat starter and then their gluten-free, brown rice starter which I trained to eat buckwheat. I love all three and use them for different things. Besides providing excellent bread and baked goods, another benefit of an established starter is that it is more forgiving. If you go away on vacation for two weeks and it doesn’t get fed, it will more than likely revive quite nicely for you upon your return.
If you get a starter from a friend, it will most likely be live and you will just need to maintain it. If you get a dehydrated one like those from Cultures for Health, you will need to follow the directions on the box to re-hydrate it first.
Your starter will need to be fed about once a week. When feeding, your starter should be room temperature. For 1/4 cup of starter, add 1/4 cup of water and a scant cup of flour. If you don’t want to end up with a lot of discard starter, you could use 1 tablespoon of starter, 1 tablespoon of water, and a scant 2 tablespoons of flour. There are many great recipes that use starter discard, however, (like my sourdough pancake/waffle recipe) so I always enjoy having a jar of discard starter in my fridge. Mix well to aerate! Be sure to choose non-reactive materials such as wood and glass for storing and stirring. I keep my starters in mason jars and use the plastic lids to cover.
Once you feed your starter, if this is just your weekly feed, you should let it sit on the counter for at least an hour or so before refrigerating. If you are actually going to use it to bake, let it sit on the counter for 3 or 4 hours and use right away. Be sure to always save some of your starter to feed to keep it going!
I use my starters to make dinner bread, sandwich bread, soft pretzels, muffins, cookies, pop overs, pancakes, waffles, dutch babies, crepes, tortillas, and more!! Go here for a great beginner’s sourdough sandwich loaf from Kitchn. It is super simple!
If you would like to watch helpful videos about sourdough and other ferments, Cultures for Health has a ton of them.
Do you use a sourdough starter? What types of things do you make? If not, are you going to give it a try? If you do, let me know how it goes!
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Are there any recipes (except for pancakes and waffles) that call for use of starter only? I have so much starter to use up. Is it possible to increase the amount of starter in a bread recipe and decrease the amount of flour added?
Hi Rebecca,
There are recipes, such as sourdough porridge (on the Cultures for Health site) that just use starter. There are also recipes that use a lot of starter, such as my sourdough soft pretzels and sourdough donuts. I haven't posted these yet, but I will soon! If you feel like you are getting too much starter, you can pull out as little as a tablespoon to feed. Just follow the typical feed ratios. One T starter, 1 T water, 2 T flour (scant). I think you could increase the starter in a bread recipe if you added less flour and liquid. I have never done it, however. You would need to play around with it a bit. Hope this helps!!