How to know if a sourdough starter is healthy: Well-maintained sourdough starters can live indefinitely and take on slightly different tastes depending on the environment. If your starter is healthy, you’ll have bubbles, consistent growth, and a pleasant sour/yeasty smell.
Sourdough starters are so forgiving, as long as you don’t bake it or pour in boiling water by accident! Discard and feed, and your starter should bounce back.
How to Dry Sourdough Starter
If you need to take a break from baking for several weeks or months, you can dry your starter and store in the pantry. This is also a good idea to keep as a backup starter. Simply spread a small bit of starter thinly on a Silpat mat or parchment paper. Leave at room temperature until dry and flaky. Store in a dry jar.
How to Use Sourdough Starter to Bake Bread
Healthy starters should grow and double in size in about 4-6 hours. A recipe will call for “active sourdough starter”, meaning the starter is bubbly, has more than doubled and has been fed in the past 12 hours.
- Room temperature starter: watch for your starter to reach its peak. Remove the amount of starter needed for the recipe, and feed the remaining starter.
- Refrigerated starter: remove the jar of starter the night before baking to bring it to room temperature. Discard and feed. Once the starter has reached its peak, remove the amount of starter needed for the recipe. Feed the remaining starter, label it with the date, let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours to jump-start the process and return the jar to the refrigerator.
Pro Tip:
The amount of time it takes for a starter to rise can vary depending on the environment, the flour used, and the strength of the starter. Watch for these signs to determine when the starter is ready to be used: has doubled in size, has bubbles and a pleasant smell, and passes the Float test (drop a bit in water, if it floats, it’s ready!). Use it to make dough within 1-2 hours of hitting its peak height.
Let us know how your starter is doing! Share your sourdough experience in the comments, and feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Once you learn how to feed sourdough starter, it’s simple to maintain your starter around your baking schedule. Now that you have a thriving starter, it’s time to bake! Start with our beginner-friendly Sourdough Bread Recipe.
More Bread Baking Recipes
If you’re excited about making homemade bread, then you should try these delicious bread-baking recipes. P.S. Before long, we’ll have a variety of sourdough recipes to share. Let me know if you have any sourdough recipe requests.
How to Feed Sourdough Starter
You’ll love this easy recipe on how to feed sourdough starter because it’s tailored to your schedule and baking needs. Before you begin, determine how often you want to bake with your sourdough starter. For frequent bakers (every day or every other day), store your starter on the counter and feed once a day at the same time. For casual bakers, store your starter in the refrigerator and feed ir once a week. The proportions below will be enough to make 300 grams of active starter for 2 loaves of bread and you should end up with 100 grams of leftover starter after making 2 loaves. You can easilly scale it up or down depending on how much active starter you need, just keep a 1:1:1 proportion with feeding. So if you need less, use 50 grams starter, 50 grams flour, and 50 grams water.
Prep Time: 5 minutes mins
Total Time: 5 minutes mins
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How to Feed Sourdough Starter:
- Bring Starter to Room Temperature: If your starter is refrigerated, remove it from the refrigerator a few hours or the night before to come to room temperature. If your starter is at room temperature, you’ll want to feed it daily or at least every other day to keep it bubbly and happy.
- Feed the Starter: Using a kitchen scale to weigh in grams, discard all but 100 grams of your starter in your glass jar. Add 100 grams flour and 100 grams water and stir thoroughly with a silicone spatula to combine (see note 3)
- Let it Rise: Scrape down the sides of the jar, cover with a loose-fitting lid, place a rubber band on the jar to track how far the starter has risen, and let it grow at room temperature (70-75 ̊F). Once it has at least doubled in volume (4-6 hours – see note 4), it is considered ‘active sourdough starter’ and you can use it to make sourdough recipes. Once it falls and is no longer active, you can repeat the feeding process in step 2.
To Refrigerate the Starter:
- To Refrigerate the starter: Once you have used the amount of active sourdough starter needed for your recipe, feed the starter again using the same proportions as in step 2 above. Optional: Let it sit at room temperature for 1 hours to jump-start the process then refrigerate. Feed weekly to keep it alive -(see note 5).
(1) Note on Water: Use filtered non-chlorinated water or spring water. Chlorine can hinder the growth of the yeast and bacteria. To dechlorinate your water, you can boil and cool or set your water into a vessel and leave it on the counter for 1 day to naturally dechlorinate and come to room temperature. Don’t use water that is too warm or you will deactivate the yeast. If you have a warm house, use room-temperature water. If you keep your house cooler, use lukewarm water (85 ̊F) to give it a boost. Avoid cold water which will slow the growth.
(2) Note on Flour: We commonly use organic all-purpose flour, but you can substitute 25-50% of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat or rye flour to help increase starter activity.
(3) A Weck Jar is my favorite because it weighs exactly 400 grams without the lid so the math is easy, and it has a loose-fitting lid which is important to prevent pressure buildup. To save time, keep a note of the weight of your empty jar. You can zero out the scale before adding each ingredient for easy measuring.
(4) Rise Time: The time it takes for the starter to double depends on the starter’s strength, the feeding ratio, the type of flour used, water temperature, and room temperature. You want to use it within 1-2 hours of being fully risen before it starts to drop back down from its peak levels.
(5) Maintaining a Refrigerator Starter: If you’re feeding your refrigerated starter only to keep it alive and aren’t planning to bake with it, you don’t have to bring it to room temperature before feeding. Feed and let it sit on the counter 1-2 hours (if time permits), then return to the fridge.
(6) Clean your jar occasionally (every 1-4 weeks) or when there’s too much built-up gunk on the sides to prevent mold growth.
455kcal Calories95g Carbs13g Protein1g Fat0.2g Saturated Fat0.4g Polyunsaturated Fat0.1g Monounsaturated Fat8mg Sodium107mg Potassium3g Fiber0.3g Sugar18mg Calcium5mg Iron
Nutrition Facts
How to Feed Sourdough Starter
Amount per Serving
% Daily Value*
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
