How To Activate Dried Sourdough Starter

Activating Your New Sourdough Starter

Making bread can be daunting. With our sourdough starters and our NO KNEAD bread recipe, that gives you no reason not to be enjoying your own home baked breads. With a 1:1:1 ratio recipe by weight its so easy to maintain your culture long term. Here is how you activate sourdough starter. If you need a sourdough starter you can get them here.

All measurements are by weight. I will include at the bottom a sort of by volume measurement. Just know that your results can be quite inconsistent and possibly disappointing. That’s not to say you won’t have great results because that may not be the case.

You should be really weighing your baking ingredients. When you bake by volume the results can be quite unpredictable as most flours can be more thirsty than others and water does not have the same volume to weight ratio as flour. For example: My particular brand of all purpose flour is approx. 146 grams per cup. Water is approx. 236 grams per cup. That’s a big difference especially when you want a 1:1:1 ratio. A scale can be purchased rather cheaply and I encourage you to do so.

Unless you order fresh sourdough starter it will most likely be sent to you dried. If you are measuring by weight its nice to know the weight of the jar you will be using so you know exactly how much starter you are working with. Unless you plan to use a fresh jar each time, then just put the jar on the scale, zero it out and add the correct amount of starter. I’ve done it both ways and each are equally as easy except if you use a new jar each time you will of course have to do extra dishes.

How to measure the amount of starter you currently have:

Take the weight of the jar and starter then subtract the weight of the jar. That amount is what you have in starter.

Day 1

1. Pour the dried culture in a jar.

2. Add 50 grams of room temperature water around 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit and stir.

3. Let the mixture sit for 20-30 seconds and stir again.

4. Add 50 grams of flour and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Try to mix until there are little to no lumps of flour.

5. Cover with a loose lid. (I like to use fido jars with the lid without the seal.)

6. Leave to ferment in a warm spot for 24 hours.

By volume: 1/2 cup water & 1/2 cup flour

Day 2

After 24 hours all you need to do is stir the mixture. and let sit for an additional 24 hours.

Day 3

First feeding

You might notice a slight sour smell/yeasty smell today. Possibly even some bubbles. That’s good. You are on your way.

1. On day 3 you are going to stir the mixture and add 50 grams of room temperature water and stir again.

2. Add 50 grams of flour and stir to incorporate until there are little to no lumps.

3. Cover and let ferment in a warm spot for 24 hours.

4. By volume: 1/2 cup water & 1/2 cup water

Day 4

Second feeding

By day 4 you should be seeing some activity in the form of bubbles. If not that’s OK just keep going. DO NOT THROW OUT THE SOURDOUGH STARTER.

Stir the starter.

At this point you can remove some starter as it has built up quite a bit.

1. Weigh the remaining starter. Remove starter until you have 50 grams of starter remaining in the jar.(If you do not know the weight of the jar and are using a new jar. Place the jar on the scale and zero the scale out. Pour 50 grams of starter into the jar.)

2. Add 50 grams of room temp water and stir.

3. Add 50 grams of flour and stir to incorporate.

4. Cover and let ferment in a warm spot for 24 hours.

By volume: 1/2 cup starter, 1/2 cup water, & 1/2 cup flour.

Day 5

Third Feeding

Day 5 is exactly the same as day 4.

Day 6

Fourth and forever feedings

At this point you can either do one of two things. Continue the feeding schedule of a 1:1:1 ratio (Starter:Water:Flour) every 24 hours OR that same ratio every 8-12 hours depending on how active your starter is at this point AND how often you will be baking bread.

Additional Tips:

Rye Sourdough Starter= Rye Flour

Alaskan, San Fransisco, Wharf, and Classic Sourdough Starters= White Flour/ All purpose

White Wheat Sourdough Starter= Whole White Wheat Flour

Wheat Sourdough Starter= Whole Red Wheat Flour

Spelt Sourdough Starter= Spelt Flour

Einkorn Sourdough Starter= Einkorn Flour

Classic Gluten Free Sourdough Starter= Gluten Free All Purpose Flour

If you need more starter than you currently have just keep building it up feeding the starter an equal 1:1:1 ratio until you have the amount you need. Make sure to leave enough to make your next batch of starter.

You should be feeding your starter daily. If you cannot feed your starter you can feed the culture with the 1:1:1 ratio and let sit for an hour then place in the fridge. Doing this you can stretch your feeding to once weekly and when you decide its time to bake, take out desired amount of starter and weigh it. Feed it its weight in equals parts water and flour. For example: 100 grams of starter will need to be fed 100 grams of water and 100 grams of flour. Let ferment for 5-8 hours and use in recipe.

When your starter has doubled or tripled in volume its ready to use. Alteratively you can do the float test. To run the float test fill a glass with water and place a spoonful of starter on the surface of the water. If it sinks its not ready and ferment longer. It it floats its ready. CO2 is a byproduct of fermentation. Its this C02 that gets trapped inside the starter and causes it to float.