“I Have a Sourdough Starter, Now What?”

_{A Beginner’s Guide to Storing and Feeding A New Starter}

Congratulations on your new sourdough starter! Whether you inherited it from a friend or successfully cultivated your own, a sourdough starter opens up a world of exciting bake projects. Now that you have this magical mixture of flour and water, you’re probably wondering: "I have a sourdough starter.. now what?" This guide will give you the next steps to take to turn that starter into delicious, homemade sourdough bread.

And, if you’re not ready to bake, I’ll teach you a fuss-free storage method to keep the starter healthy and out of your way till your next bake session.

Understanding Your Sourdough Starter

Before your first sourdough bake, it's helpful to understand what a sourdough starter is and how it works.

The flour in your sourdough starter supports a microbiome of wild yeast (fungus) and gut healthy bacteria (lactobacilli) that helps sourdough bread rise. This mixture of microorganisms is the cause of sourdough’s unique tangy flavour and airy texture.

To store and bake your sourdough efficiently, is a simple matter of adopting the 3 following recommendations.

Efficient Starter Maintenance

1: Pre-Bake

Contrary to popular belief, unless you’re running a professional bakery, you don’t need to feed an established starter every day for it to be healthy. (Honestly, who has time for that??)

You also don’t need a hefty jar of sourdough starter to bake 1-2 loaves of bread a week. (Unless you ~loveee~ doing the dishes and wasting your flour)

Instead, here are my 3 recommendations for sourdough baking on a small-medium home scale:

1. An Established Starter: ensure your starter is mature enough for use. If it doubles in size after you feed it, and it’s been alive for at least 10 days, it is mature enough to handle storage conditions and baking.

2. How to Store: Store your sourdough starter in the fridge until you’re ready to bake with it. If you’re storing it for a month or more, feed it flour and water right before putting it in the fridge, leaving space at the top of the container for the mixture to double.

   • A small portion of approx. 50g is enough for storage. When you bake, you will be feeding it beforehand, resulting in a final yield of at least 3 times greater than your initial sourdough starter (150g), which is more than enough for the average bread recipe.

3. How to Bake With It: The night before you plan to bake, put the sourdough starter on the kitchen counter at room temperature and feed it according to your recipe. Feeding it a 1:1:1 ratio almost always does the trick (meaning: if you have 50g starter, feed it 50g water, 50g flour). It will be ready to bake with in the morning (12h).

   • Remember NOT to bake all of your starter. Multiple times, I have forgotten to save some of my original starter from the oven, and had to restart my sourdough starter. When feeding, always remember to feed a little more than you need so you can store the excess. If you’ve forgotten to save some, you can pinch some bread dough off to serve as your new starter.

You will see a lot of discourse on these basic practices online between bakers, but honestly, doing the bare minimum as I recommend is plenty for you and the family.

2: Post-bake

After baking, feed the remaining excess sourdough starter in a 1:1:1 ratio and return it to the fridge.

Repeat the same pre-bake process when it’s time to bake again.

Is My Sourdough Starter Ready to Bake With?

Your sourdough starter is ready to bake with if it shows these 3 signs:

1. It doubles in size within 4-6 hours of being fed

2. It does not smell like vomit or poop. (It can smell like nail varnish (rye), alcohol, or overripe fruit depending on the flour type used.)

3. It’s been alive for 10 days or more.

The “float test” has a low accuracy rate, so it is better to use the above metrics to gauge your sourdough starter’s readiness.

Baking Your First Loaf (Homemade Focaccia)

With a healthy starter, you're ready to bake! Here’s a simple no-knead focaccia recipe to get you started:

Ingredients:

• 100g Sourdough Starter (does not need to be fed)

• 380g Bread Flour/All purpose flour/Pizza flour

• 280g Water

• 7g Salt

• 12-17g Olive oil

Instructions:

1. Get sourdough discard. Can be used straight from the fridge, like I did in this vid. (or active starter, doesn't matter.)

2. Mix the Dough: Mix discard with flour, water, salt & olive oil

3. Rest: Leave the wet dough to rest for 30 min

4. Stretch and Fold: Stretch the dough over itself until you the gluten in the flour resist your pulling. (A.k.a. Stretch & fold) Once the dough starts to tear when you fold it, leave it to rest for 10-30mins.

5. Stretch and fold twice

6. Optional: Scoop portions of the dough into muffin tray. Fill each muffin tin halfway with dough. (It will double-triple during proofing & bake) OR just spread all dough across baking tray.

7. Leave dough to proof for 4-6 hours: You know it's ready once the dough is pooling over the top of the muffin tin.

8. Bake at 230°C for 17-20 minutes or until the bread crust has set and turned golden brown

Baking Tips:

• you can use ANY FLOUR you have on hand as long as it has gluten. For this bake, I used leftover pizza dough and all purpose flour in a 1:1 ratio. (140g pizza dough, 140g all purpose flour.) Using more low-protein flour like "all purpose" will make the center of your muffins softer/pillowier (like a donut) and less chewy. Using higher protein flour like bread flour or 00 flour (pizza flour) will give the interior of the bread more big gaping holes like a country loaf. Customize your flour to your preference!

• focus on attaining a supple but jiggly dough more than measuring everything perfectly. This dough is supposed to be extremely runny and rather sticky. If it is hard to handle, don't add more flour. Add more olive oil OR coat your hands with olive oil to prevent sticking

• adding more olive oil on the tops of your muffins will prevent burning during the bake, and create a crispier crust.

Final Thoughts

Try not to follow any hard and fast rules in sourdough baking. At the end of the day, you made the sourdough starter for yourself and loved ones to enjoy. As long as you enjoy the process, and are able to produce a pretty good result, that’s all that matters! Have fun 😛 

For more tips and recipes, be sure to check out my other resources on sourdough baking, and connect with me on Threads & Youtube :)