Archives

In simple terms, sourdough starter is a mix of flour and water that contains a symbiotic population of microbes (saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast and lactobacillus bacteria). When you mix starter into your bread dough, you are inoculating your dough with the microbial culture from the starter and over the next several hours, the microbes eat, reproduce, …

There’s not much to this process. Just smear some fresh sourdough starter in a thin layer over a piece of parchment paper and let dry. Once dry, the starter will easily separate from the paper and can be ground up into small pieces and placed in a plastic ziplock bag. Store your starter in the …

Why switch to a rye sourdough starter? In my experience, one type of sourdough starter is not objectively better or worse than another. With observation of the dough, starters made from different flours, stored at different temperatures, and used at different degrees of ripeness and quantity will all leaven a lean dough. (Heavily enriched dough, …

Breadtopia’s sourdough starter is fed organic bread flour, but you can feed it a different flour if that is your preference. This is also true of starter you’ve made yourself or that a friend gave you. Even if the starter was fed a particular flour since someone’s great-great grandma made it, the microbes will adapt: …

It can be disheartening when your new (or longstanding) starter does nothing after you feed it. Maybe it has no bubbles at all. Maybe it expands just a tiny bit. Maybe it separates into layers of sludge and watery liquid. None of these are ideal scenarios when you’re hoping your starter will double in size …

Each package of Breadtopia dry starter contains enough for three tries. You’ll want to use white flour (white bread flour or all purpose flour) and filtered or spring water (not chlorinated tap or reverse osmosis water). Any reasonable (read not extreme) room temperature will work just fine. To ⅓ of the dry starter included in …

When working with a new starter or one that requires reviving, it’s best to use white flour (white bread flour or all purpose flour) to strengthen it and get it to a really healthy state. Once it’s robust, feel free to switch to using the flour of your choice (einkorn, rye, whole wheat, spelt, etc) …

Store your starter in a container with a loosely fitting top. A mason jar works well as long as the lid isn’t screwed down tight. Or a wire bale jar as long as you don’t use the rubber gasket. Latching the jar without the gasket will allow sufficient air passage but will prevent the starter from …

The most common reason for a good starter to go bad is not feeding it enough flour and water and/or not feeding it often enough. If your starter falls into this category, try the following method of reviving it: Combine 2 Tablespoons of starter with ½ cup white bread flour or all purpose flour and …