Pretty soon this page will be filled with all of my sourdough tips & tricks. For now, here is what you need to rehydrate your starter + my favorite baking supplies.
SOURDOUGH RECIPES
Our Favorite Dinner Rolls (I skip the herbs, do 30g of honey instead of 10 & double the salt).
RESOURCES
How To Strech & Fold Sourdough
Rehydrating Your Starter
INGREDIENTS & SUPPLIES:
- Dehydrated Sourdough Starter
- Room-temperature Filtered or Bottled Water
- 2 Small Jars & Food Scale
- Bread Flour or All-purpose Unbleached White Flour
DIRECTIONS
Day 1: In a small jar, mix 5 grams of dehydrated sourdough starter with 30 grams of water. It has to be filtered water. Trace amounts of chlorine in tap water can kill the starter. Allow the starter and water to sit for about 30 min to start to dissolve & mix in 15 grams of flour. Cover with a lid & store at room temperature for 24 hours. (you can double this amount and use 10g, but 5 works fine!)
Day 2: At the end of 24 hours, add 10g of the starter mixture you made to a clean jar & combine with 40g water & 30g of flour. Mix to combine, cover with a lid & store at room temperature for 24 hours.
Day 3: Repeat the steps from Day 2.
Day 4: Add 15g of the starter mixture to a clean jar & combine with 40g water & 30g flour. Mix to combine, cover with a lid & store at room temperature for 24 hours. (By evening you should notice bubbles. If not, that’s ok! Just make sure you are using filtered, room-temp water & keep going!)
Day 5-7: Combine 25g of the starter mixture with 25g water & 25g flour until you notice it is doubling after 12 hours. At this point, it is ready to bake! Now you just need to increase your feeding ratio until you have the amount you need to bake.
Ready to bake: My Sourdough recipe needs 125g of starter. I would take as much as possible of the starter once it has doubled (at it’s “peak”) and feed it equal parts water and flour. (There are a lot of feeding ratios out there but I have found that using 1:1:1 is not only simple, but also makes sure that I’m not using a TON of flour.) Rehydrating your starter is all about getting it back nice and strong. You feed it food (flour) and water and it gets stronger. Once it’s nice and strong (has doubled in less than 12 hours) then you could use all of it and feed it equal parts flour and water. For instance, you could take 75g of starter instead of the 25g you have been doing and feed that 75g of water & 75g of flour. I would say keeping 125-250g of starter would be more than enough to bake when you want and have a good portion of leftover (the discard) to make things like pancakes and crackers!
TIPS
- Pick whatever time works best for you to feed each day.
- Always add your starter mixture to a clean jar!
- Keep the jar somewhere warm (under the counter light, pantry or microwave). Sourdough likes to be at 76 degrees so if you have a cold house you are going to need to find a warm spot!
- Dump your discard in the trash & not down the sink. Sourdough hardens like cement.
- Don’t give up! If you reach day 7 & it isn’t doubling keep going!
Feeding Your Starter
- Place a clean jar on a kitchen scale and pour in the sourdough starter.
- Add equal parts flour and water by weight (see below for details).
- Cover and store in a warm place (ideally under a light and at 75 degrees +).
- Rise until bubbly and doubled in size (typically 4-12 hours*).
The most common feeding ratio is 1:1:1 (sourdough starter: flour: water). I prefer this ratio because equal parts are easy to remember and it doesn’t use a lot of extra flour. Feel free to experiment with other ratios and see what works best for you. If you notice your bread isn’t rising well or getting a strong crust then you might want to bump up to 1:2:2 to create a stronger starter.
*Starters like to be warm (ideally 75-80 degrees). Depending on the temperature and humidity of your home, or where you are placing your starter (window seal or under light on your counter) your starter might rise faster or slower.
MY SAMPLE FEEDING SCHEDULE
- Use a kitchen scale to measure 50 grams of sourdough starter and place in a jar.
- Add 50 grams of organic bread flour and 50 grams of filtered room-temperature water.
- Mix until smooth, cover, and place somewhere warm. In the microwave with the light on, near the stove with the hood light on, or on a window sill in warm weather.
- Activated starters should double in 4-12 hours. If you’re not using a Mason jar with measurement markings, put a rubber band or hair tie around your jar so you can see when it doubles.
- When the starter has doubled or even tripled, or risen so high that it starts to fall, it’s ready to bake. I like to check it every 30 minutes to see if it’s still rising, but you don’t have to be that precise.
- Remove some starter to bake, feed the remaining starter and then store in the refrigerator or on the counter.
Note: If you don’t want to measure by grams, you can add 1 scant cup (113g) flour and 1/2 cup (113g) lukewarm water to 1/2 cup (113g) starter in a bowl.
STORING ON THE COUNTER
If you store your starter on the counter, you need to feed it once a day. You can feed a starter up to twice a day or every 12 hours.
No bubbles? No worries. You can still use the starter for discard recipes.
STORING IN THE FRIDGE
How to feed my starter if I’m storing in the fridge!
I like to feed my bread with a ratio of 1:1:1 (equal grams of starter, flour & water). But when I am going out of town or storing in the fridge, I feed it 1:2:2.
If you store your starter in the fridge, you can take it out once a week and feed it, let it rise overnight, bake with it in the morning, feed it again, and put it back in the fridge. No plans to bake? Just feed it and return to the refrigerator.
When you take the starter out of the fridge, there might be liquid on top. Either drain this off or stir it in. If there’s a lot, I drain; if there’s a little, I stir. It’s just a byproduct of the fermenting yeast, so it’s up to your personal preference.
Then you can pour some of the mixture out, put it in the trash, or use it in a discard recipe, and feed the remaining mixture. I use warm water if I’m feeding it directly out of the refrigerator and then place the jar somewhere really warm to rise. You might want to feed twice in one day if you are baking to make bread.
