Dehydrated Sourdough Starter

Written By Caitlin Walls

Let’s rehydrate your sourdough starter! Starters are the key component to baking a successful sourdough loaf. This dehydrated starter was made from our own active starter. It’s what we use daily, on our own sourdough breads at the farm. We have sold over 100 loaves and continue to sell out at markets. In this post, I’ll guide you through the steps, but you’ll need to set time aside daily for it. Don’t worry, it’s only a few minutes a day, but Doughlene (that’s her name) doesn’t like being ignored!

Here are a few items you’ll need to get started

  • dehydrated Starter

  • mason jar (any size from 8oz-36oz)

  • kitchen scale

  • all-purpose flour

  • filtered water (Doughlene is high maintenance & refuses to thrive with tap water)

  • butter knife for mixing

  • breathable jar cover (paper towel or one of our jar covers)

  • dry erase marker or rubber band

Day 1: Empty 5g of dehydrated starter (whole packet) into a mason jar. Add 30g of warm filtered water, mix & let sit until fully dissolved. It could take up to 1 hour. Add 30g all-purpose flour to jar and mix until batter like consistency. Cover with breathable jar cover, mark a line or place rubber band at the top of the mixture, and let sit for 24 hrs, checking to see if its rising after 12 hrs.

Tip: use a paper towel to wipe off knife after mixing. you do NOT want to wash off any sourdough mixture in the sink. When it dries it will harden & overtime can cause damage. I recommend washing items in a separate wash bin & dumping dirty water outside.

Day 2: Remove (this is not true discard, since it’s not fully activated yet, please do not use this for discard recipes) all but 25g of starter. Add 25g flour & 25g room temperature filtered water. Mix and let sit 12 hrs. Repeat this step every 12hrs until starter starts to double within a couple hours. The stronger it is, the faster it will double in size. Once it doubles within 3-4 hours, your starter is ready to bake with!

Tip: Doubling refers to the increase in volume overtime. It should be twice as high as your starting amount. Make sure you chose a jar large enough for it to grow. If you have a healthy, active starter, it can triple or quadurple its size during feeds.

*If your starter is ready but you’re not quite ready to bake at that exact time, place the jar into the fridge with a SEALED lid (regular mason jar lid). If you place it in the fridge with a breathable top, it will dry out & start to mold. The fridge acts like a “pause” button & your starter will stay fresh until you’re ready to use.

Try out some sourdough recipes & leave a comment! I’d love to hear how it’s going.

Caitlin Walls