How to Acquire a Sourdough Starter

What does it cost to receive a dry starter?

Hi Ann. It's $5.75 total when I mail it within the US. Eric

Hi, I received my starter from my mom in 1972 (who knows how long she'd had it) and have, over the years, made just about everything you can imagine with sourdough, including bagels and doughnuts. My favorites are english muffins, chocolate cake, and waffles. One thing I'd like to learn more about is how to cook bread in a heavy, cast-iron dutch oven on the stove top and also in the coals of a campfire. I wonder if any of your viewers (readers?) have experience with this kind of cooking? Marie

Marie: First, the type of dutch oven. I assume you are speaking of the type that has a lip around the lid and stands on three short legs. The other types are just glorified cast iron pots. They can be used as ovens, I suppose, but not as easily.

Given the above, and assuming it is properly seasoned as any cast iron should be, it is ridiculously simple to use over a fire. It is easiest with charcoal although campfire coals may be used. They are just not as controllable as charcoal and usually have to be replaced a time or two during baking. For a 12 inch diameter oven put 12-13 coals on top (the lip on the lid keeps them from falling off) and another 12-13 underneath. That gives you a 350-375 degree oven and you can bake anything you can in your oven at home. Size is the only limitation. Dutch ovens can be stacked so the coals on top become the coals on the bottom for the next oven. That is a bit difficult to do with your normal oven at home unless you have really high ceilings and a very, very tall ladder.

One further recommendation: when baking it is best to use a baking pan/sheet for most things just as at home. Put three or four small stones or other objects under the pan so it does not actually contact the bottom of the dutch oven. That becomes your oven rack so you are baking with the hot air all around instead of being in direct contact with the heat source and likely burning on the bottom.

Hope this helps.

Eric, there's a fourth way to get a sourdough starter. I loved the flavor of a bread from a coastal bakery. I purchased a fresh loaf and took a slice from the middle of the loaf. Took the soft center of the slice and soaked it in a cup of filtered water to soften. When softened, I added some flour and placed in the oven with the light on overnight. There were a few bubbles in the AM and removed about a 1/4 cup of that and refreshed it with half cup each of water and flour. Before long I had a fairly active starter. This took just a couple of days. Although I have yet to use it with the long fermentation to increase the sourness which is what I liked about the bread.

That was creative. I've read that yeast dies at a relatively low temperature when baked, so it would be interesting to know if the starter you created came from the air and/or flour you added or the bread you soaked. If it was from the soaked bread, it would sure be easy to capture some of the prized cultures from the famous San Francisco sourdough breads, for example.

I liked the idea of using yeast from an actual product, but I wonder if bread yeast could survive the baking process. On the other hand, I have done exactly the same thing to get a yeast culture from beer (think hospital level sterilization) … and then make my own.

There's a restaurant near me that has their own brick oven and makes great pizza. Bought some pizza dough from them, and used some of it for a starter. It's one of the stronger starters I've ever had!

The idea or concept of soaking a piece of bread from the center of a loaf of bread to obtain a starter is a nice experimental idea, however, anything that has been baked at a temperature of over I believe 145 degrees is when yeast cells die. So, apparently, although it may have been a good base for a starter (??) it was probably the actual capturing of wild yeast in your environment that actually came to life as an active starter. There is a lot of info on starters in Prof. Raymond Calvel's book - The Taste of Bread, which has been translated from French into English within the past several years, and can be found on Amazon on-line. May your dough rise faithfully!

Eric,

I'm sure glad I came across your website while looking for information on sourdough bread. Since finding your site I have requested and recieved a dry sourdough starter from the freinds of Carl's at http://www.carlsfriends.org that you mentioned on your site.

As a lover of all things scientific I am having great fun reviving the starter and watching it come back to life. I would say it is "almost" as fun as baking a loaf. Now that I have my starter and hope to be able to use it this weekend I am back on Breadtopia to search for a great recipe and review some of the videos you have here.

Thanks much for the wealth of information you have here. I'll be heating up the baking stone again any day now and making my first loaf of sourdough.

Dave M.
Fresno, Ca

erik,

two questions;

which of your starters do you place in the # 1 position? it would seem you would choose one over the other. and do they come with directions?

second, someone wrote you about putting diced garlic in the bread at the beginning, meaning before the 18 hour rise period. do you think there is any chance the garlic would go bad after a8 hours plus a few hours for the second rise? i have made olive bread that way but the olive have been cured.

thanks! whatever starter you recommend i'll order!

joe detrano

Hi Joe,

It's really a toss up which one you choose. The live is much faster to resuscitate and build up to a usable quantity. They both come with instructions.

Not really sure about the garlic once it's diced. I know you're not supposed to store it in oil at room temp. I have a feeling it will be fine and worst case I would think baking at 450 - 500 would wipe out anything harmful. Maybe someone else here knows that answer.

I was wondering if you were successful with your new batch of starter. Someone sent me a slice of bread from the Boudin Bakery in San Francisco. I'd love to be able to experiment with that and make a starter out of it. Please let me know if your sourdough bread starter was successful.

Hi Eric! I just received your starter in the mail. Thank you for shipping it out so quickly!

I will follow your instructions but of course, I have a few questions that I hope you will answer for me.

In your directions, you say that we can build up our starter to the quantity we desire. We, your little dough grasshoppers are then to feed our stater once or twice daily. Please, just how much am I to feed my one or two cups of stater for those one or two daily feedings? My goal is to create enough starter on my first batch to not only use two times a week for baking but to give some away to friends who also like to bake.

My second question is about throwing away excess starter while in the feeding process of the starter that I'm going to use for baking bread. You poured yours down the sink. May I give that away to others to use instead of throwing it away? Can't I just add that extra cup or two to another container and start another starter from that? I hate to waste something as precious as sourdough starter since I have been without it for years.

That's all I had to ask you, Eric. I will start your starter tomorrow with great pleasure! I can't wait to see what is created by a San Francisco/Iowa starter. I look forward to years of great bread! Wish me luck!

Best wishes,

Andee S.
Los Angeles, CA.

To create a really healthy starter, ideally you want to at least double the volume of starter you're feeding. If you have a cup of starter, feed it a cup of flour and about 2/3 - 3/4 cup of water. Otherwise, you can just keep it alive and reasonably healthy just by feeding it some amount of flour and water every few days or so.

But this isn't exactly a hard science. If you're not baking much for a period of time, you can cut back on maintenance. Then when you're ready to bake again, take a 1/4 cup of your old starter and feed it 1 cup flour and some water. Do this a couple times and your neglected starter is strong again.

This whole SD maintenance thing is just something you get a feel for over time. Learning as you go from experience is the best way. There's a wide range of care/feeding/maintenance options that work and are perfectly valid.

Of course you can give away all you want and start as many containers as you want, rather than toss it.

Eric -

I have a question for you. I want to mail my father-in-law some of my starter. I received live starter from you a few months ago. How do you prep your starter so that a live starter can travel via USPS for up to 4 days and be a viable starter on the other end?

thanks

nate

I just feed it really well right before I mail it, adding enough flour to create a pretty doughy ball. Then double bag it in a zip lock bag like it came to you. I've had almost no problems with this method as it seems to travel well.

Hi. I have a large covered enamel pot that I use for boiling up jars when I do preserves. Will that serve as a dutch oven for my bread baking? Thanks. Susan.

It should be better than nothing but there's something about the heat transfer properties of a high thermal mass container like a cast iron Dutch oven or a ceramic baker that works particularly well.

Hi,
Are there ways to control the flavor that the sourdough imparts to the bread? I've had some that were so strong I could hardly eat it, and many others that were like heaven. I don't know if the problem was the starter or the cook. I plan to mainly use mine for bisquits and pancakes. I've been wanting to do this for years, so here goes.

David

Hi David,

There are lots of ways you can try to control the flavor. I say "try" because it's not always easy. In fact, I find it's mostly not easy.

Although one thing that seems to hold true on a fairly consistent basis, is if you want a milder starter then feed it more frequently and feed it as close to the time you use it as practical.

You can find some conversation about controlling sour in the comments over at http://www.breadtopia.com/make-your-own-sourdough-starter, if you can handle scrolling through to find them.

Thanks for the info, I'll have a look. Back in the late 80's I was driving through Jackson Hole, Wyoming and stopped in at a place called "Sourdough Jacks" for breakfast. The place was packed and a line way out the door. The pancakes were the best I ever had! I didn't make it back that way until 2000. The place had changed hands, the crowds were gone, and the pancakes were horrible! No amount of butter or syrup could make me finish them. The originals were pretty strong but in a good way. The latest ones were just nasty. There is a place here in town that makes sourdough cakes that are very mild. They are almost too mild, but still great. It just had me wondering how that happens. Obviously not all sourdough is created equal. I guess it will be fun finding that "sweet" spot.

David

Hi Eric.. Enjoy your web pages.

The way I've been using to make my sourdough starter is with KEFIR (fermented milk) bacteria, which makes a simple, vigorous, & repeatable starter.

Typically, I add KEFIR whey (the clear non-milky part of "kefirized milk" which separates from the milk curd ) to equal parts of apple cider & flour (usually a combination of wheat berries, rye berries, hull-less barley & flax seed ground in a coffee grinder). Then after 12 - 24 hours I add double the flour & apple cider to it every 12 hours for 2 days or so. Makes a reliable starter, which if left in a jar for several days can develop a strong sourdough taste.

Anyone interested in learning about KEFIR can find lots of info at following web site.

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html

Eric,
I just ordered your live starter. What is the best way to manage the starter for the long haul if you only use it maybe once a week? Would keeping it in the fridge be a good idea, or does it need to stay at room temp? Does the lid always need to be vented?

David

Hi David.

You definitely want to keep in the fridge and vent the lid. Just a tiny vent is sufficient.

For once a week baking, you could probably get by with feeding it once a week. After a while you'll get a feel for the best way to manage it. There's a pretty wide range of workable options.

I have been attempting to make nancy silvertons sourdough starter (grapes, flower water) for a week now. what has happened is that there is a complete separation between the flour and water / grape juice with no foaming activity. Is this an inactive starter or just a complete failure. I tossed the grapes in the cheese cloth this evening and added flour and water in an attempt to kick start it.

Any help would be appreciated!

thanks

Andrew Ward
LA, CA

I'm not sure what the advantages are of using her technique. I tried it once a couple years ago with similar results to yours and ended up tossing it. To be fair, this can (and does) happen with any technique for making starter, but now I just recommend Debra Wink's method since it's much easier and has a higher probability of succeeding.

Hi, Just made my first loaf today. Tastes wonderful. It was a bit underdone in the center. I live at 3,500 ft and wonder if I need to bake it more. The loaf was very dark on the outside. Can I somehow lighten it up a bit? Any ideas are welcome as I am a novice.

I know I saw on your website how to make your sour dough "more sour" but for the life of me I can't locate it! Please let me know where it is, or how to do it.

I received my starter last week and am getting ready to try it for the first time tomorrow I'm really excited to taste it!

Thanks, Eric

Gerri

How's this for a belated reply?

I really need to put together a whole dedicated section on this topic and encourage contributions from others. Adjusting the degree of sour is a popular question. Many people want to know how to increase the sour. Not quite as many want to know how to decrease the sour.

For the life of me, I have yet to come up with advise that works for everyone all the time. Generally speaking, the longer the dough ferments, the more sour it becomes. But you don't want to over proof the dough either. So one thing that many bakers try to do is let their bread rise in a cool place to rise slowly. Bakeries may have temperature controlled rooms for just this. For the home baker, you can retard the proofing process by refrigerating the dough for several hours or overnight then resuming the process at room temp until the dough is ready to bake.

This is something you have to experiment with with each recipe to find what works, if it works at all.

Allowing the sourdough starter to get "really ripe" by not feeding for a few days before baking can contribute to a more sour bread. A baker at King Arthur Flour once told me she "abuses" her starter to achieve more sour.

If anybody reading this has any reliable and repeatable suggestions, please add them below and I'll start collecting info to aggregate in one place later.