5 Sourdough Starter Secrets No One Tells You...

Hi beautiful people! Hope you enjoyed your first official weekend of summer. Minus the dreadful heat here in south Florida, we managed to have a really nice weekend - we spent most of it getting adjusted back to ‘real life’ after being gone for three weeks.

Oh, and giving our dogs lots of cuddles, walks and treats of course…

I also had to feed my sourdough starter three times to try to bring her back to life! She was sluggish at first, but doing fine now - remember I did take some starter with me on my trip, but I was reviving the one I had stowed away in the fridge for three weeks (mostly because I was so curious to see the outcome of leaving it unfed for so long). Thankfully, it only took a few feedings which is completely normal - I plan to post all about this soon!

Okay, I’ll stop rambling about my weekend now…

What I really came for was to talk to you about some sourdough starter secrets you may not know about - okay, perhaps secret isn’t the best word, but we are going with it anyway… :)

When I made my sourdough starter almost two years ago, I was very intimidated by it - I thought that practically anything and everything that I did or didn't do would kill it. But over the last few years, I have learned a lot about sourdough and my beloved sourdough starter.

I was so afraid to kill it because I had heard so many terrible things from other bakers and also on the internet (I know better than to trust the silly internet...). :) But I want to reassure you that your sourdough starter is SO RESILIENT. It takes so much more to kill it than you probably think (see Secret #5).

Here are a few other secrets you may not know if you are a beginner sourdough baker:

Secret #1: 100+ year old starters don't exist. This may be an unpopular opinion and I am sure I will upset some bakers here, but when you hear people say that they have a starter that's over a hundred years old, it's not technically true. This is because after about 4-5 feedings your sourdough starter has nothing to do with the original one you made - when you feed it fresh water and flour and keep it at room temperature, the microbial content changes completely. Sorry for any bubbles I may have popped today...

Secret #2: You do NOT have to discard any of your sourdough starter - if you've been following me for a while not, you know that I rarely discard any of my starter. In fact, I actually despise the word discard altogether. I avoid having to discard my starter by keeping a super small amount of inactive starter in my fridge and only feeding it as needed (when I'm baking).

Secret #3: You do NOT have to feed your sourdough starter every day. When you aren't using your starter, keep it in the refrigerator and only pull it out and feed it when you are planning to bake.

Secret #4: High protein flour is the best for feeding your starter - the yeast and bacteria in your sourdough starter love protein, so give it to them! I prefer feeding my starter with bread flour, but I often use Kirkland All Purpose flour as well (it has a protein content of 11.7%).

Secret #5: it takes a lot to kill your sourdough starter so don't be afraid of killing it, it's so much more resilient than you think. Here are a few things that can kill your starter:

• High temperatures

• Neglect - not feeding it enough

• Mold

• Chlorine

• Bleach

  
  

Which one of these secrets, myths, things - whatever you want to call them - did you already know? Are there any of them that you didn't?

Okay, now a sneak peak for this week’s recipe…

See you soon....

Also, in case you missed it! Most of my writing is now over on Substack - so follow along there for more recipes, tips and sourdough tricks!