Live Sourdough Starter

I’ve tried off and on to learn how to make sourdough bread, always craving that San Francisco sour taste and texture we all love. I have ordered King Arthur starters in the past, but always gave up. The flavor was never there, and every loaf was too dense. This go-around, I decided to order a new starter from Amazon for fast shipping, and I’m so glad that I did. I can’t keep up with this very active starter! It is like a pet that needs constant feeding! And so that translates to dough that rises and has nice big bubbles in the texture. And the sour flavor is there! I am a hero at home with sourdough bread coming out of the oven at least 3 times a week. And that’s with me working full time. Here is my process, using King Arthur’s recipe and a few other things I’ve learned: If dinner plans for the next day involve sourdough bread, then the evening before, when I arrive home from work, I take my starter out of the fridge, give it a little stir and feed it about 1/4 cup of flour. I leave it on the countertop while going about our evening routine. A couple hours later, after the family has had dinner and the kitchen is cleaned, and I’m about to close the kitchen for the night, I’ll start the bread. The starter by now looks happy and bubbly. Almost foamy bubbly. You can take off a pinch and put it into a cup of water. It will float if it is ready. So then I pour about a cup of the starter into a container that has a lid. At least a 2 liter container. Then I go back to feed my starter up to a cup of flour (depending on how much room is in my jar) and an equal amount of water, mix, cover, and return to fridge. Then back to the container of freshly poured starter, I add 3 cups unbleached white flour and 1.5 cups water. Stir really briskly for 1 minute. Cover and put in fridge for the night. The next morning before work, I add 2.5 teaspoons kosher or Himalayan salt, and 1 more cup of flour. I stir this just till the flour is absorbed. The dough looks kind of raggedy, but the salt and flour is mixed in enough to start the next phase. Let this sit for 30 minutes. Then just before leaving to work, add up to a cup more of flour while kneading into a soft and slightly sticky dough (feels tacky but doesn’t stick to hands). I can’t usually get more than a 1/2 cup in there. So for the recipe I end up using a total of 4.5 cups. The recipe calls for up to 5 cups.you don’t want the dough to be too heavy bc you’ll love the light airy and bubbly texture of the finished bread. Knead until smooth. Return the dough to the container and keep covered. This will be about 1 liter of dough. Now if someone isn’t home to help me with the next steps, I’ll bring the dough to work. This just means i won’t be able to start cooking it until 5:30 or so. The next process is easy. Every hour, the dough needs to be gently lifted and stretched and folded over itself while carefully preserving the air that has filled the dough. Having slightly wet hands helps. Go around the container and do this 4 times to get all 4 quarters of the dough lifted and folded over itself then cover and wait another hour. Each time you do this, you’ll notice the dough is changing! After 4 or 5 times, the dough is ready to rise in its proofing container. This is about 2:00 pm for me. I get a piece of parchment paper and a bowl about the size of a regular sourdough boulle. I wet the parchment paper and wring it out like a wash rag so it is soft and mouldable to the size of the bowl. Line the bowl with the wet paper. Then lift the dough out of the container, being careful not to lose any of the air that has developed in the dough. Remember there is no added yeast helping out your starter. The starter is doing all the work, so try not to lose what it has done for you. Gently fold into a soft ball of dough, tucking edges underneath till top is smooth. Lay the dough gently into the parchment paper-lined bowl. Cover, and let rise 2 hours. Preheat oven to 425° with a lidded Dutch oven inside that is about the size of a sourdough boulle. The Dutch oven pot will get very hot. Cut a 1/4” deep slice or two across the top of the dough at this point. When the oven is preheated, remove the Dutch oven and lift the dough by the parchment paper, carefully setting it down into the hot pot. Put the lid on the pot and return to the hot oven. After 20 minutes, remove the lid. Continue baking until the bread is a deep golden brown. Remove from the pot, pulling up by the parchment paper to lift. Set your beautiful bread on a cooking rack. Discard the parchment paper. Allow to cool completely before cutting!!! That is the hardest part!! My favorite way to eat is toasted with butter. My family also likes to add honey. It is also delicious plain! Good quality flour is important. If your flour has a cheap smell to it, do not use! I also use filtered water to both feed my starter and for my recipe.

This starter is awesome!! I bought it because my husband accidentally cooked mine, it was in the oven with a light on it. I’ll never do that again! But actually I don’t have to. It came in a couple of days earlier than expected. I fed it and it’s been growing strong ever since!! I’m very pleased with this purchase. My sourdough bread is amazing! Get this starter you won’t be disappointed. It also comes with good instructions and a video.

I’m absolutely thrilled with this sourdough starter! From the moment I opened the package, I could tell this was going to be a game-changer for my bread baking. The instructions were clear, and the starter itself was easy to work with. Within a few days, I had a bubbly, active starter that smelled heavenly—like a blend of tangy goodness and fresh dough. The first loaf I baked was a huge hit—perfectly crusty on the outside, soft and airy on the inside, with that unmistakable sourdough flavor that I’ve been craving. I’ve since made multiple batches, and the results keep getting better. I also love that I can keep it going for future bakes—just feed it regularly, and it’s good to go! This starter has become a staple in my kitchen, and I’m excited to experiment with different recipes now that I have such a strong base to work with. Highly recommend for anyone looking to elevate their bread game!

Had to leave a review about how awesome this starter is! I spent about 2.5 weeks trying to make a starter from scratch and it just wasn't strong enough to ferment my loaves. I opted for this starter since I grew impatient but it was off to a rocky start. The starter had been delivered earlier than the expected delivery day and ended up sitting in my mail room for 3 days before I grabbed it. Since it was in stable ambient temperature, it was fine and after feeding it and transferring it to a new jar it started doubling in size 2-3 days after the first feed. I was nervous about trying a loaf so I started with an easy focaccia bread and it came out amazing. I didn't cold proof so the flavor was not as strong as I wanted it to be. I then tried a sourdough bagel recipe as another trial run for the starter and they came out perfect with better flavor. I started feeding the starter 50/50 King Arthur bread flour and whole wheat flour since I like the more acidic taste that comes from the whole wheat. I finally made my first loaf (one week after receiving the starter and keeping it at room temp) and the rise and loaf itself look beautiful. Haven't cut into the crumb yet since its still warm but this starter is amazing and I'm so happy I bought it!

I'm really glad i purchased this sourdough starter. Easy to use, no need to wait until the starter becomes active, i followed the instruction in the video in just a few days the starter increased in volume and lots of bubbles.

This yeast is fabulous. I've made sourdough for decades and this is by far the best sourdough starter I have ever used. And it is easy to care for it. Using this yeast and slightly modifying Breadtopia’s recipe (I omitted the whole wheat flour and used the best of white flours: Bob’s Red Mill Unbromated Unbleached White Bread Flour, and King Arthur’s Unbleached White Bread Flour) my first try resulted in a loaf that tasted as good as the best San Francisco Sourdough bread. Thank you. Breadtopia for your starter and your recipes!!! For those unfamiliar with using sourdough starter, it is a yeast culture that you can store in the refrigerator in a jar, and as long as you use or feed it (add a little more flour and water) weekly, it remains healthy and will make countless loaves of bread. Packaged yeast is good for one loaf! Commercial style yeast rises quickly and basically adds air holes to dough. If you try to convert it to starter, you must let it reproduce or ferment overnight, and most packaged yeast produces a lot of alcohol as a byproduct if allowed to ferment overnight which ruins the flavor. In contrast, the natural wild yeast in historical traditional sourdough starters is the kind of yeast used to bake bread over many centuries. It is slow rising and the dough must rest overnight to rise. However, its fermentation results in a pleasant sour flavor (like yogurt, it has a tangy flavor rather than the flavor of alcohol produced by faster rising yeasts). And this slower acting wild yeast does more than add air holes to the dough. It transforms the dough, giving it an entirely new fluffy sponge texture which is characteristic of good sourdough. The gluten in this sourdough is reduced to minimal, and healthwise, gluten is a problem for many people, so this wild yeast offers another way to minimize gluten while enjoying the wonderful texture and flavor of genuine sourdough bread--which I consider to be the best bread ever. (First thing I noticed about this yeast was this transformation— the dough was so fluffy it looked as if the gluten had been predigested by the yeast (bread makers call this fermentation), then I looked on Breadtopia’s site and found an article about this. Another advantage of the lack of gluten in this sourdough is that it makes excellent pizza dough. And even a bread baking mistake can make a premium pizza. Most of my loaves of bread came out close to perfect. One day I let the dough rise too long, and it fell. I tried doing a third rise, but it only rises twice! So, I divided the dough and wrapped and froze half of it, refrigerating the other half. Two days later, I added 1 teaspoon baking powder (BP) and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (soda) to the dough. Then I spread it out on a pizza pan oiled with olive oil, and baked it for about 10 minutes at 365 degrees until just barely done, but not yet beginning to brown. Then I removed it from the oven, added sauce and toppings, and cooked it for 10-15 minutes longer. It had the wonderful flavor of sourdough, plus it was crusty on the bottom, with a soft but fully cooked middle. This dough does not get gluey in the middle like some. [I soon plan to try the same with the frozen dough, hoping that it can be made ahead, frozen,and thawed, adding BP and soda just prior to baking.]

I can’t believe it worked the first time! It takes patience to feed your yeast water and flour for up to four days to get a sozeable amount of sourdough starter, and I discovered at the end that if you turn in your oven briefly to get it to 90F, it works great to speed up proofing or rising. I purchased a second starter on Amazon and made both. This one is clearly the winner for the glossy outer crust and nice large holes inside. The only downside, which may be my inexperience, is that it is not as sour as my favorite Boudin, however maybe extra starter will help that in the future. Very impressed. Also, don’t forget to purchase a good kitchen scale. Most bread recipes are by weight and not cups. To keep the bread moist while cooking, I used baking parchment with a clear Pyrex bowl over the top of a metal grill plate. It worked wonderfully to keep it moist. The larger boule was made in a cast iron dutch style pot, again to keep the moisture inside for the first 20 min. The free recipe I used was “ Sourdough Bread: A Beginner’s Guide” from the clever carrot, but there are many out there. Happy Baking!

Fantastic product! Here I am, only a week and a half after receiving my sourdough starter. The culture, after being fed, as instructed, is doing terrific. It's healthy, Highly reactive, and, imparts a wonderful flavor to all that I have Baked. The first bread that I made, only three days after having received the starter, had a perfect crumb and pretty good flavor. I have been baking with it about every other day since. the flavor is getting better and better; hard to believe, considering how flavorful it was from the start. Four days after first feeding, I started keeping this "Mother Starter" in the fridge. I now, late in the evening, take out what I will need, the next day, from Mom to produce a sponge for the next loaf, feed her, then return to fridge. Next, I feed this portion of starter, with the same type of flour that I plan to bake with, and allow it to grow overnight in a covered bowl on my countertop. In the morning I mix this with the wet ingredients (preferably lukewarm) for the particular recipe that I've chosen, allow to sit for an hour or so, finally mixing in the Dry components to a shaggy dough (mixed just enough to ensure that all is 99% wet.) About 45 minutes to an hour, or so, latter I'll perform a four point stretch and fold to form a sort of flattened ball. This, upon being covered in a bowl 2 to three times the current dough volume, sits on my counter till the next morning; unless it has something like eggs in it, that require it to be refrigerated, of course.--Checked periodically to make sure it doesn't over flow its home--thumping the bowl, as necessary, to knock it down. Time to shape(or just toss in a bread pan) and bake. Mumm..Mumm...Good. I'm very happy with this live version of Breadtopia Sourdough Starter. Highly recommended for a fast, no hassle, start.