If you have bought one of our dehydrated sourdough starters, the below guide will take you through the step by step process of reactivating the dehydrated form during the week so you are ready to bake by the weekend. You might also want to read through my beginners guide to sourdough to understand more about looking after your starter

Shelf life

In its dehydrated form, your sourdough starter will be shelf stable for at least 6 months. Because it is a dehydrated product it will naturally want to absorb moisture which it comes into contact with. To keep it longer you can transfer it to an air tight jar with oxygen absorber or vacuum pack and freeze.

Failure to launch

I can readily put my hand up when it comes to killing my starter through busyness, neglect or just getting out of routine. If this happens to you remember - failure is part of the learning curve and one day in the future your neighbour will glean from your experience when you are a seasoned sourdough pro! Every sourdough baker can relate!! For this reason I made sure there is enough sourdough starter in the packet for multiple failed attempts - don’t worry, I got you!

When you are ready to get your starter going follow the steps below:

Day 1 (suggest monday)

Step one is to dissolve the desired amount of starter in water to wake up the yeast and bacteria. It’s important that you use filtered water, the chemicals in tap water will kill the micro organisms that you need to stay alive. If the water is slightly warmer than room temperature ( 80F) it helps accelerate the process. Use around 5-10g of starter to about 15g of water.

Once the all the dried starter has dissolved and the yeast and bacteria are no longer dormant it’s time to feed them. Stir in about 15g of unbleached flour until you have a thick batter consistency. If it is too thick don’t worry, add a little extra water, stir well, cover with a clean breathable cloth or napkin and leave overnight.

Day 2 ( tuesday)

In the morning feed your starter with another 15g of flour and water, stir well and leave overnight

Day 3 ( wednesday)

Repeat day 2 again. Since your starter will be starting to increase in volume now with all the flour and water that has been added, if you wish to transfer it to a larger container like a wide mouth mason jar that is fine. It takes approx 1/2 cup of active sourdough starter to bake a loaf of sourdough, so you can decide how much starter you want to keep on your counter top. The more starter you grow the more you will need to feed it. Larger pets eat more food!

Day 4 (thursday)

You should be able to see bubbling activity at this point and your starter may have risen. Today you will want to discard all but 15g of the starter and you will add back 30g of filtered water and 30g flour. Stir well and cover until the next day. The sourdough starter that you discard can also be used in many recipes such as sourdough waffles or rosemary sourdough discard crackers, sourdough pancakes or english muffins. Again if you plan on making multiple loaves of bread you might not want to discard any of your starter but then you must feed more flour and water to help it grow.

Day 5 (friday)

Today we are getting close to being ready to bake. Repeat with the morning discard and feeding routine, stir well, cover and leave. You can use a sharpie or an elastic band to mark the line where your starter is so you can see how much it has risen by lunch time. If your starter has doubled or trippled in size, it is ready to bake with. At this point you can start prepping a loaf, or if you prefer to bake in the morning ( which i do) then you are going to recover your active starter until dinner time. At dinner time you are going to discard and feed your starter one more time and then cover until morning and it will be ready to use from 6am or whatever time you wake up.

Day 6 (saturday)

6-8am begin baking sourdough!

Rehydrating Sourdough Starter