07/09/2026
Sourdough starters are both pretty simple and surprisingly tricky. But once you get it, its a no-brainer.
Once you have a starter established, you get used to the different stages it takes and adapt your feeding schedule around them.
After feeding, your starter will be stiff and dry, like a wet pasta dough or REALLY thick pancake batter. This is good! The flour will hydrate as it matures.
After 8 or more hours, your starter will puff up, be full of bubbles and almost double in size (or more than double!). This is the time to bake with it! This is also known as "peaked." It will smell like yeast and jiggle when you move it around.
After peak, it will deflate and turn dense again- now its hungry. It can stay like this until 24 hours after your last feeding- dont rush! Feeding more than once in a day can weaken your starter.
Not all starters get to stage 4 in less than a day- depends on temperature and feeding schedule. While hungry you might see a grey liquid on top- thats h***h! Its totally fine, just your starter telling you its hungry- mix it in then discard and feed it!
Keeping your sourdough starter fed regularly keeps it super strong for baking, builds its resilience, and resists mold growth. Starters are made by fermentation, if you keep it fed it's own digestion process prevents mold growth. Some starters are hundreds of years old! If you want to or need to feed less often, starters can be kept in the fridge between uses to slow down its digestion. Just take out, warm up, and feed the night before baking!
