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!
