How to Maintain a Sourdough Starter

Your Sourdough Starter is a Living Thing and You Must Care For It

Apr 20, 2009

It needs feeding and building up just as you would do for a child. It will slowly increase in strength and power. The flavour will also become unique to you.

Bread has a special place in family life in all religions and you as the owner of your very own starter you have a very special thing to share with your family and friends. The amount you have now it is sufficient to bake bread for a small family. But as you feed your starter it will grow in volume. This should not be a problem as your success as a home baker will lead to people asking for a supply of your starter. This you should give freely and spread the gospel of good home-baked sourdough bread. You must also dry or freeze a small amount for emergencies.

Long Term Life of a Starter

Keep your starter in an airtight sealed container in your fridge, apart from the night following the feeding of the starter. You don’t want it to be too active for the majority of its life! Remember your starter is very difficult to kill! You can dry it out to a hard rock, freeze it for years. Then providing you follow the following simple rules you will be able to bring it back to life. To revive a frozen starter is simple. Just leave it at room temperature for two days to slowly defrost. Then feed with equal quantities of flour and water on two consecutive days. It’s then ready for use. From a dry state it simply takes a little more time. You need to slowly add a little water every day until your starter has the consistency of double cream. Keep your starter warm and it will come back to life. It will bubble and have a wonderful yeasty smell. You have brought back to life. If you are not planning to bake sourdough bread in any particular week, then simply miss that weeks feed. When you come back to the starter it will have a thin dark liquid floating on the top. This is natural and not a problem. Simply stir the back into the thicker flour mixture at the bottom of the container.

Two days before you wish to bake your loaf you need to feed your starter. This is simply adding an equal quantity of water and bread flour to your starter.

Leave your starter in the kitchen overnight ready for bread making the next day.

The copyright of the article How to Maintain a Sourdough Starter in Breads & Muffins is owned by David Smith. Permission to republish How to Maintain a Sourdough Starter in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.