Reviving Your Dehydrated Starter and Maintaining & Storage of Your Active Starter

reviving your sourdough starter - an overview

LPB dried living organic sourdough starter will create an active, bubbly sourdough starter within one week of re-activation. Our sourdough starter is fed with 100% certified organic flours (organic whole wheat flour, and/or organic all-purpose flour) and water.

You can either reactivate it right away, or choose to wait. It will stay viable in powder form for approximately 6 months as long as it is stored in cool, dry, dark location.

The process of reactivating the dry starter takes about one week (with quick steps each day) and is very easy to do!

To reactivate the dry starter, you will need a medium size glass container (e.g. a pint mason jar), all-purpose flour or bread flour, and water. We use a blend of 50/50 all purpose flour and whole wheat flours here at the bake shop.

To reactivate your dry sourdough starter, you are going to need to feed it once per day for the duration of about a week. Therefore, don’t start this process when you’re about to go on vacation! It is best if the feedings occur about 24 hours apart, though it doesn’t need to be exact.

Don’t worry, once the starter is reactivated, it won’t need daily feeding (unless you choose to store it at room temperature). Our starter is stored in the refrigerator and only taken out to be fed and/or bake once a week.

directions for reviving dehydrated starter

day 1

  • In a clean pint-size mason jar (or similar) combine the entire packet of dried sourdough starter powder with 1.5 Tbsp (15grams) of lukewarm water. Allow the dry sourdough starter and water to sit for several minutes to soften and combine.

  • Use a fork or spoon to stir it on occasion.
    Add 1 Tbsp (10g) of flour (we se a blend of 50/50 all purpose and whole wheat or you can use the LPB blend. Mix thoroughly.

  • Cover the jar with a lid, beeswax wrap, plate, or other cover to prevent it from drying out. Set the container in a moderately warm location (70 to 75F is ideal). Come back in about 24 hours.

day 2

  • Into the same jar as yesterday, add 1 Tbsp (10g) of flour and 2 teaspoons (10g) of water to the starter. Mix well.

  • Cover the jar or container again, and allow it to sit for another 24 hours.

days 3-5

  • Repeat the same feeding process as Day 2 (1 Tbsp (10g) flour and 2 teaspoons (10g) water).
    You may want to consider marking the level of the starter by marking it with a sharpie or placing a rubberband around the jar. You should be seeing lots of activity by day 3, but it may take a couple more days of feedings to see it doubling in size

— Once your starter is actively bubbling, doubling in size after a few hours and rising and falling – congratulations! You have successfully reactivated the dry sourdough starter. When a starter rises to double its size and then stays elevated, that is considered “peak activity” and is ready to bake with. It will deflate after a few hours and need to be fed or refrigerated.

maintaining & storing your active starter

Most likely, you will only be baking with your starter once or week or so. If this is the case, storing your starter in the refrigerator allows you to prolong the time between feedings. Feeding your starter daily is unnecessary if you are only baking once a week and will require a lot of discarding. Unless you plan to bake lots of recipes with the discard, that will result in a lot of waste! The cooler temperatures of the fridge cause the yeast and microbes to slow down and go into a sort of hibernation, which means they won’t need as much food (flour and water).

To get your starter ready for baking after being stored in the fridge requires a little planning, but in my opinion, is worth it. It simply involves removing your starter from the fridge the night before you plan to mix so that it warm up and give it a chance to wake up. Then in the morning, simply follow instructions for the levain build in your recipe and you’re good to go! Note: The process of feeding a sourdough starter almost always involves discarding some of the existing starter before adding more flour and water. Removing some of their colony (and metabolic waste) while also providing a new food source helps keep things in balance.

If you keep your starter in the fridge for a few weeks or longer, it may develop a dark, strong smelling liquid on top. This liquid is totally harmless and is just the excess waste from the yeast and microbes. However, it is quite acidic, so it’s best to pour this liquid off and then feed your remaining starter as normal. It may take a couple of small feedings to get your starter nice and active again after a prolonged time in the fridge, but it should bounce back in no time.

Now you might be wondering: How much starter should I keep/maintain? Our recipes call for 100 grams of mature levain for one loaf. Only 10 grams of starter is needed to seed that levain. In this scenario, you would only need about 30 grams of starter in the fridge at any time to be able to make one loaf of bread, discard 10 grams and still have about 10 grams left over.

So the morning after you have pulled the starter from the fridge, you weigh out 10 grams of starter and feed as instructed for the levain build in your recipe. Then discard about 10 grams, which should leave you with 10 grams leftover to feed and store back in the fridge. To that 10 grams of starter that will be stored, feed  another 10 grams of water and 10 grams of flour and then put it back into the fridge until you are ready to bake again. If you are baking larger quantities, like two loaves simply double those quantities.

This is a lot of info to absorb and it can seem a little overwhelming at first, but you’ll quickly develop a rhythm in your baking journey. If you ever have more questions about maintaining or feeding your starter, I encourage you to shoot me an email!

Sarah Bonar