9 Recipes Using Sourdough Starter (2024)

FAQs

What can I make with my sourdough starter? ›

It's usually pretty obvious when your starter has gone bad. You will either see mold or discoloration (generally pink or orange). If you see either of these things, you will need to toss your starter. The smell is usually a big give away.

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!

If you didn't discard a portion of your starter each time you feed it, two things would happen: Your starter would grow to an enormous, unmanageable size. Your starter would likely become more and more inhospitable to the bacteria and yeast we want as the mixture would become ever more acidic.

Technically, sourdough discard has the same benefits as sourdough starter, since they are both wild yeast ferments. In terms of beneficial lactic acid bacteria, natural yeasts acetic acid and colonies of microbes, they are both full of them.

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.

If you think you killed your starter with heat, always use a probe thermometer to take the temperature in the center of the starter. If it is below 130F/54C it is still alive, even if it was exposed to a higher oven temperature for a short time.

If you miss the opportunity, and the starter collapses, don't despair: simply discard some of it (or don't), and feed it again with equal parts flour and water by weight, stir, and set it aside to rise again.

As long as your kitchen isn't too warm (I'd say 78°F or higher) your starter/discard will be fine stored at room temperature for at least a few days without feeding.

I recommend keeping sourdough discard for about one week, but I do know others who keep it for much longer. After one week, there is a higher risk of mold or bad bacteria growing on the discard.

Why is my sourdough starter bubbling but not rising? ›

If your starter is still plugging along, bubbling but not getting increasingly active, I'd suggest dumping half to three-quarters of the accumulated starter, and then continue feeding and stirring the remainder. The removed starter can be added to a regular bread recipe to flavor it.

Store your discard in a jar in the refrigerator where it will continue to ferment, albeit very slowly, whereas at room temperature, it will ferment quickly and you will soon have very ripe discard on your hands that won't be useful for much of anything. You can also store your discard in the freezer.

Once the sourdough starter is established on day 8, all you have to do is just give it flour and water. You no longer need to discard half of it.

Active starter has been fed flour and water within the last 12 hours or so and is growing until it hits its peak. Once it begins to fall it is considered discard. When sourdough starter becomes sourdough discard you have two options. Refeed all of the discard.

It's best not to leave your sourdough starter jar uncovered because the starter can attract fruit flies and other bugs. You also don't want to have anything else fall into the jar and ruin your precious bubbly sourdough starter.

Your sourdough starter is the foundation of baking sourdough bread. Through proper maintenance and a little attention, it can last indefinitely and provide you with countless healthy and delicious loaves of bread.

Store it in the fridge when you aren't using it. Feed it once every week or so, and always right before you bake a loaf of bread. Put it back in the fridge after you've fed and used it. Use excess starter to make 'sourdough discard' recipes (there are so many on the internet!).

You can use 1-2 week old discard in “discard recipes”… think cookies, brownies, muffins, non-yeast breads, tortillas (pretty much anything that doesn't require active starter (aka wild yeast).

While buying a sourdough starter is very easy online, it's a very easy process to do at home! Plus, creating your own starter exposes you to the signs of fermentation, what steps you need to perform to maintain your starter, and gives you a chance to get to know the feeding (refreshment) process.