Sourdough Starter Best Practices – Food Smart Colorado (2024)

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Sourdough Starter Best Practices – Food Smart Colorado (2)

Sourdough bread can safely be made at home,following best practices to cultivate a healthy and viable sourdough starter,or culture. Maintaining a sourdough starter involves managing an ecosystem ofmicroscopic yeast and bacteria. The key to ensuring a healthy sourdough starteris controlling the factors which influence microbial survival and growth.

When making your own sourdough starter, keep the following bestpractices in mind:

  • Use safe food-handling procedures. Start with clean kitchen equipment and surfaces, and use quality ingredients. Wash hands before handling ingredients and equipment, and at any time cleanliness is compromised. Limit airborne contaminants by keeping the starter loosely covered.
  • Flour is a raw agricultural product. Flour itself is not a ready-to-eat food and should always be cooked before consuming. Flour could become contaminated at any point along the food chain, especially at home when handling. Do not taste raw sourdough starter before baking. Instead, a bubbly appearance, tangy smell, batter-like consistency, expansion, and records of preparation steps should be used to determine when your starter is ready. The fermentation process will acidify the starter, which helps prevent pathogen growth. The baking step will kill any bacteria present.
  • Wild yeast is naturally on the flour and in the air. Yeast does not need to be intentionally captured from the air, nor does commercial yeast need to be added when making a sourdough starter. These wild yeasts are inactive, but under suitable conditions will become activated in the presence of water.
  • Take care of your living starter. The fermenting microorganisms in sourdough starter need to be fed fresh flour and water regularly to survive and grow. Regular removal of some starter is an important step when feeding, to stabilize the volume of microorganisms and ensure nourishment for metabolic processes. Refrigeration can be used to prolong time between feedings in an active starter, but is not needed if feeding regularly. Sourdough starter can also be dried for long-term storage.
  • Sourdough bread is made using a traditional fermentation process, which relies on bacteria and yeasts to produce a compositional change from the initial ingredients into a living leavening.
  • A vibrant sourdough culture will limit growth of harmful microbes and baking will ensure a safe final product.
  • Fermenting sourdough starter simply using flour and water takes practice and patience!

Monitor factors that influence microorganism growth:

  • Time: Creating a starter or rehydrating a dried starter will take several days of regular feeding. It will bubble and rise, and develop a pleasantly sour smell when ready to use.
  • Temperature: The fermenting microorganisms are more viable at temperatures that feel comfortable for you, a warm room temperature (around 70°F). Fermentation will slow at colder temperatures, and occur too rapidly or even stop when too hot for your own comfort.
  • Moisture: Water combined with the flour will provide the environment needed to cultivate the wild yeast and bacteria. Keep starter loosely covered to discourage mold development.
  • Acidity: Beneficial lactic acid bacteria (LAB) will produce lactic acid, which will increase the acidity, dropping the pH safely below 4.6. This rapid acidification of the sourdough starter will help limit growth of harmful microorganism, including mold.
  • Nutrients: Regularly spaced feeding intervals are necessary. Removal of some starter with each new addition of flour and water assists with nutrient access for optimal microbial growth. Flour type will also have an impact on the microbial development and final product.
  • Oxygen: Fermenting sourdough starters will produce carbon dioxide. The starter should be loosely covered in order to safely release the gas, but the culture does not require oxygen.

Troubleshooting:

  • Contaminated starter should be discarded. Sourdough starter that shows any sign of mold (colored and/or fuzzy) should NOT be used, and the container should be thoroughly cleaned and rinsed before starting over. Sourdough starter may develop a liquid layer that smells of alcohol, and this is fine. The liquid is a by-product of the fermenting yeast and can either be poured off or stirred in. A sourdough starter that is kept in the refrigerator and not fed regularly may develop whitish clumps on the surface of the liquid layer that are safe yeasts, but not mold.
  • High altitude adjustments. Make note that low humidity and low pressure at higher altitude has an effect on food preparation. Follow recipes either adjusted for altitude or make adjustments using High Altitude Food Preparation information from Colorado State University Extension.
  • Considerations for bread starter variations:
    • Amish Friendship Bread: Although rare, there have been incidents of foodborne illness associated with friendship-style bread, which differs from traditional sourdough by addition of milk and sugar, and thus provides an environment which could support growth of harmful microorganisms. To limit introductions of harmful bacteria in friendship bread starter, use pasteurized milk or cultured (soured) dairy and ferment in a refrigerator, not at room temperature.
    • No-Knead Bread Using Commercial Yeast: Another popular style of artisan bread baking uses the ‘no-knead’ method, whereby commercial yeast provides the leavening, rather than the traditional fermentation process of wild yeast and bacterial cultures. Because these breads do not produce LAB growth or acid development, the dough should never exceed two hours at room temperature, and should be refrigerated for the remaining resting time.

Enjoy a safe, nourishing, and tasty balance of art and science!

Sourdough Starter Best Practices – Food Smart Colorado (3)

A benefit from maintaining a sourdoughecosystem is a ready leavening that will yield bread and baked goods with highquality sensory characteristics and nutrient profiles. The fermentation processtransforms the initial grain, developing more readily digestible proteincontent, decreasing starch content, improving some mineral and vitaminavailability, and often increasing overall palatability.

Make or buy delicious and nutritious sourdough bread

  • Learn how to use a sourdough starter to make delicious sourdough bread in CSU Extension’s Sourdough Basics: Caring for your Starter and Making Bread.’
  • Discover the nutritional benefits of sourdough bread and how to purchase sourdough bread in CSU Extension’s ‘Understanding and Selecting Sourdough for Health Benefits.’

Photo credits: Callie KochandFermentation Science and Technologystudents at Colorado State University

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Sourdough Starter Best Practices – Food Smart Colorado (2024)

FAQs

Sourdough Starter Best Practices – Food Smart Colorado? ›

Take care of your living starter.

How do you feed sourdough starter at high altitude? ›

It's not essential to add more water to your sourdough starter if you live at higher altitude, however the lower humidity will cause the flour you use to be drier. If you feel that it's too dry, adding a little extra water will not hurt it.

What are three top tips when making sourdough starter? ›

Top 10 Sourdough Starter Tips for Success
  1. Maintain a Schedule to Feed your Sourdough Starter. ...
  2. Know How to Store a Sourdough Starter. ...
  3. Maintain a Small Sourdough Starter.
  4. Use Sourdough Discard for Less Waste.
  5. Know How to Revive a Sourdough Starter. ...
  6. Measure your Ingredients by Weight.
Mar 26, 2024

What are the best conditions for sourdough starter? ›

A flavorful starter likes to be kept warm! Ideal temperature is around 78-85 degrees. The fridge is a good way to store your starter if you are not baking regularly, but we recommend that you take the starter out and feed it for 3-5 days on the counter before using it if you like a sweeter-tasting, flavorful bread.

What is the 1 1 1 method for sourdough starter? ›

A good rule of thumb is to maintain a ratio of 1:1:1 (equal parts sourdough starter, water, and flour). The amount can be increased or decreased as needed. It is nice to keep a small amount when you are not intending to use it for baking as then there is less discard waste to manage.

Should you feed sourdough starter at its peak? ›

With the Peak-to-Peak method, you ignore the clock, watch your starter's activity, then discard and feed your sourdough starter as it is peaking.

How do you get dough to rise in high altitude? ›

At higher elevations, yeast can rise 25 to 50 percent faster, so reducing the amount of yeast and other leavening agents is key. Some bakers will also cool yeast by allowing it to rise in the refrigerator in a bread bowl first or punch it down twice to slow the expansion of gas in the dough.

How to make a super strong sourdough starter? ›

There is no single best ratio, but I've found a ratio of 1:5:5 fed twice daily at 12-hour intervals to produce a sourdough starter that's strong and healthy. This ratio corresponds to 20% ripe starter carryover, 100% water, and 100% flour (a mix of whole grain rye and white flour) at each feeding.

Do you have to discard sourdough starter every time you feed it? ›

With each sourdough starter feeding, you'll be discarding some to avoid it from becoming overly acidic. Most will compost or trash this discard, but you can save it and use it in other recipes!

How often should I stir my sourdough starter? ›

It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening. Feed the starter. Add 60 g flour and 60 g lukewarm water, stir well to combine, and let sit out for 24 hours.

Should sourdough starter be in sun or shade? ›

It is better to keep your sourdough starter out of direct sunlight.

Can I use tap water for sourdough starter? ›

Myth 2: Sourdough starter requires fancy water

The key to sourdough starter success is using water without chlorine, which can cause the starter to die. While bottled water is chlorine-free, you can also use filtered tap water for our sourdough starter recipe.

Where is the best spot for sourdough starter? ›

Storing Your Sourdough Starter In The Refrigerator

This reduction in hydration helps the starter hold up extremely well in the fridge.

Is plain or strong flour better for sourdough starter? ›

NOTE: Use regular, unbleached all purpose flour or bread flour for best results- skip organic. The enzymes are different which can hinder the rising process the first time around. I use either KAF, Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. Filtered water or tap water is fine.

What is the healthiest flour for sourdough bread? ›

Compared to whole wheat flour, rye flour is said to be the most nutrient- and amylase-dense option for a sourdough starter. Overall, it has a lower gluten protein content than wheat flour, which means it produces slack, sticky, and dense doughs.

Why discard half of sourdough starter? ›

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

How do you feed a dead sourdough starter? ›

How To Revive An Old Sourdough Starter
  1. Pour off as much of the dark hooch as you can.
  2. Discard most of the starter (you can either just remove it from the jar or place some of the starter into a clean jar). ...
  3. Feed the remaining starter with 100g of flour and 100g of water.
Jan 17, 2021

Does my sourdough starter need to breathe? ›

Oxygen: Fermenting sourdough starters will produce carbon dioxide. The starter should be loosely covered in order to safely release the gas, but the culture does not require oxygen.

What is the best way to feed sourdough starter? ›

To ready your refrigerated starter for baking: Take the starter out of the fridge, discard (or set aside) all but 1/2 cup (113g) and feed that 113g as usual with equal parts (113g each) flour and water. Cover the starter and let it rest at room temperature.

How do you feed a sluggish sourdough starter? ›

And larger feedings encourage yeast activity. I do this by putting 2 TBSP (60 grams) of the slow starter in a clean stainless steel bowl, whisking in 1/4 cup (60 grams) of water, and then whisking in 1/2 cup (60 grams) of the plainest white flour I can find.

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