Rehydrating Your Dehydrated Sourdough Starter

Maybe you don’t have a starter created yet and you don’t want to wait weeks to be able to make a loaf! If that’s the case, I have you covered. I have a dehydrated starter available for sale here and you can follow these directions for rehydrating your starter.

For those who are visual learners, you can find videos of all 7 days of the process on both my Facebook and Youtube pages.

Day 1:

Measure out 5 g of starter, add 15 grams of filtered room temp water. Once smooth, add 15 grams of unbleached flour. Let rest overnight.

Day 2 & 3:

Do NOT discard any, but add 10 g flour and 10 g filtered water.

Day 4:

***It should start showing signs of activity at this point but will not be ready to make a loaf***

Discard all BUT 15 g starter. Add 30 g flour and 30 g filtered water to the 15 g starter.

Day 5:

Discard all BUT 15 g starter. Add 30 g flour and 30 g filtered water to the 15 g starter.

Day 6:

Discard all BUT 15 g starter. Add 30 g flour and 30 g filtered water to the 15 g starter.

Day 7:

Your Starter should be active and ready to start making bread. Recommended to feed at a 1:2:2 ratio when making bread, if putting in fridge between feedings feed at a 1:1:1 ratio.

Maintaining Your Sourdough Starter for Weekly Baking

Keeping your starter on your counter is convenient for baking when the mood strikes you, but it can get expensive to be feeding and discarding daily. What I do to simplify is to keep my starter in the fridge between bake days.

My Method:

If Bake Day is Sunday then, Thursday night, pull starter out of fridge and feed 1:2:2. Friday morning, Feed again - you can discard if needed but I typically don't. Friday night mix your dough and save a portion of starter to feed and put in fridge.

Thursday Night

I take my starter out, discard and feed it at a 1:2:2 ratio, cover it with muslin and the ring and let it do its thing. This means for 25 grams of starter you feed 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water. This gives it the jump start it needs coming out of the fridge.

**By using a small amount of starter for your first feed you have minimal discard. If you have a planned use for it discard isn't bad but ultimately if you don't plan a use for your discard, you will be wasting money when you get fed up with it sitting in your fridge during clean out and decide to throw it out. I may have done this once or twice, haha. Small initial feeds also allow you to not need to discard depending on what you are baking. For example if I feed 25:50:50, which gives me 125 g starter and I plan to bake bread, scones, and noodles on bake day. Then I would need a total of 520 grams of starter plus a little left over to feed and put in the fridge.

Friday Morning

Feed a 1:2:2 ration again. You can discard if needed but I rarely do.

For our example I need 520 grams of starter and I have 125 grams. If I feed at 1:2:2 ratio I would do 125:250:250 which would give me 575 of starter - leaving me 55 grams to feed and put in the fridge.

Friday Evening

I mix up my dough and let it start the bulk fermenation process. Then I take the starter left, place it in a clean jar, typically if you would have 55 grams left - that won't all make it into the jar. I usually try to put 25-30 grams in the jar, and feed it at a 1:2:2 ratio, then cover it with the solid lid and place it in the fridge til next week.

After bulk fermentation for your recipe is finished, shape and place your dough in your banneton, cover and place in fridge for up to 48 hours.

Sunday

I preheat my oven, pull my dough out, score, and bake it. I store my baked loaves sliced in the fridge so that it stays fresh longer. Then I just pop the slices in the toaster to warm them up before eating.

Tip

***Sometimes while storing your starter in the fridge for extended periods of time, it will get hungry and develop “hooch” on the top of your starter. This does not mean it has gone bad. You can do a couple things with it; you can pour it off the starter or you can mix it into the starter.

When you mix the hooch in it creates a more sour taste in your sourdough. So keep your taste preferences in mind when you decide what to do with the hooch.

Once you have rehydrated your starter, I would love to have you share your starters and loaves of bread with me either in the comments here or on our Facebook page Lucky Duck Acres.

Til next time, keep livin’ that farm fresh life!
– Lee and Megan Taylor