Once you establish a sourdough start, you will want to keep it active and healthy. Here are seven tips to a continued favorable outcome for yours:
#1: Containers For Sourdough Starter
The traditional choice is a stoneware crock, like the one shown here, but crocks take up quite a bit of space in your fridge when you are not using your starter every day.
Most folks use canning jars to grow and keep their starter. But any glass container with a loose-fitting lid works well.
You can also use a food-grade plastic container. But I really like using a glass jar with a metal lid. However, make sure it’s not going to go up to touch the top when you feed it. Never put it in a container more than halfway full because it’s going to double in size.
Martha Levie, “Your Sourdough Start“
#2: Real Water
“The fermentation process begins when the wild yeast from flour and the environment combine with pure filtered or bottled water in a lightly covered container”—Carroll Pellegrinelli
Use filtered spring or purified water. Tap water may be treated with chloramine, which does not dissipate when left out overnight as chlorine might have in the past.
Treated water may kill the bacteria you need for a healthy start. Distilled water lacks the minerals bacteria use to thrive. Hard water has too many minerals for good growth and bacteria won’t react well with soft water. Stick to filtered or purified water for your start and bread making.
#3: Real Wheat Flour
Of all our tips, none is more important than to use ground whole wheat or a mix of fresh rye and whole wheat. Microorganisms on whole-grain whole-wheat flour help a starter take off and “it provides a strong base to continue to build the starter,” says Pellegrinelli in her book Starter Sourdough: The Step-by-Step Guide to Sourdough Starters, Baking Loaves, Baguettes, Pancakes, and More. “But,” she says, “it doesn’t maintain the kind of results a long-lasting starter needs. It may become too heavy with an overpowering sour smell.”
#4: Temperature Control
Use water that is at room temperature is an interesting tip to help increase the rate of fermentation. Use lukewarm water between 90-100°F (32-38°C). Then keep the starter between 68–72°F (20–22 °C). On chilly days you may keep the start in an oven with the light on, but be very careful it does not get turned on. On the fridge near the top back works just as well.
“Every cook wields a measuring cup differently and even cookbook authors and pastry chefs use them differently from one another. If every recipe included reliable weights, and everyone started using a scale, the overall quality of baking …would improve overnight! “
—Food52
#5: Use a Kitchen Scale
A scale helps in weighing equal amounts of water and flour for daily feedings. Each baker uses cups differently. For example, I keep a one-cup measure in my flour so I can grab it quickly or daily feeding. Near my PUR Water Pitcher, I keep a Measure-all Cup for liquids. By weight, ¾ cup of water weighs about the same as a cup of flour. But serious bakers who want to prevent too much or too little flour in a recipe use a kitchen scale for accuracy.
#6: Regular Feedings
Regular feedings of water and flour help in the process of building a starter going and keeping it healthy too. Once it’s strong and active, you might take a few tablespoons out to start an all whole wheat or a rye start. You can always freeze them until you need them another time.
#7: Other Add-ins
Some bakers suggest this strange tip enhancing a starter with other ingredients to make things move faster. Add-ins include small amounts of sugar or even traces of salt. And the strangest tip is to add pineapple juice as the initial liquid in the starter’s first mix. While these may all speed up the process, things will work fine with just flour and water, I know because that is all I have ever used.
Do you have tips you might share with our readers? Please feel free to contribute in the comment section below.
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