Comes with every packet
Sourdough starter care
The guide that goes out with our dehydrated starter, in full. Keep it somewhere you can find it on a Tuesday night.
What is an active starter?
An active sourdough starter is a bubbly mixture of flour and water alongside wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria that actively ferment. At its peak it has roughly doubled in size since feeding, has a light, airy texture, and smells pleasantly yeasty, tangy, or slightly fruity. That's the stage when it's strong enough to reliably leaven bread.
Day to day
Feeding and maintenance
- Keep a feeding schedule
- Starter kept at room temperature should be fed every day. Starter kept in the refrigerator can last for months without feeding.
- Feeding ratio
- The most common maintenance ratio for room temperature starter is 1:1:1 — for example 10 g starter, 10 g water, 10 g flour.
- Listen to your starter
- It will go through some smelly changes. Tangy, yeasty, fruity or mildly cheesy is all fine. If it smells rancid or is growing mould, throw it away.
Good to know
The things people ask about
- Environment
- Ideal fermentation temperature is between 75° and 78°F. Lower temperatures will slow fermentation down.
- The fridge
- Starter keeps in the fridge for months. When you're ready to use it, let it come to room temperature, mix, then feed at a 1:2:2 ratio.
- Flour choice
- Bleached flour lacks nutrients a healthy starter needs. The best flours to use are unbleached, rye, or whole wheat.
- Hooch
- Hooch is the greyish liquid that forms on top of your starter. It means the starter is hungry — mix it in and feed.
Short and sweet
Five rules
- 01Once fed and doubled in size, your starter is ready to use.
- 02Keep a second jar in the fridge as an insurance policy.
- 03Refrigerate after feeding.
- 04Measure in grams — weight is always more accurate.
- 05Use filtered or dechlorinated water.
Killed it? It happens.
Packets of dehydrated starter go out at the stand most weekends. Message us if yours is doing something strange — it usually isn’t dead.