The Lazy Baker's Guide to Caring for Sourdough Starter

Taking care of a sourdough starter can feel like a huge pain that isn’t worth the effort.  However, when you consider the transformative effects a sourdough has on bread (and other baked goods), it just makes good common sense to take a few minutes a month to feed this living organism.

The flour you choose to feed your starter depends on the flavor profile you want in your culture.  I knew I wanted a whole grain starter because of the earthy aroma and added nutrition.

Below is what the starter looks like right after the first feeding.  You can see there is no bubbling action just yet.

You can see in the photo below the starter has risen quite a bit and there are some bubbles starting to form already.  This is really because of the whole grain flour adding extra minerals to the party.

The idea of feeding a starter every single day for the rest of your life may not sound so awesome, right?  Well, we can actually slow down the fermentation quite a bit so that it only needs to be fed weekly from the fridge or a couple of times a month from the freezer, YEAH!

So if you don’t want to feed it every day, keep some in the freezer. After feeding it a couple of times, then do a once-a-month bake for bread, muffins, pizza dough, waffles, or even tortillas, and store everything in the freezer to have on-demand throughout the month.

Tips for remembering to feed your starter: 1. Set a reminder on your phone! Easy! 2. Name your starter-yes, really! In bread school. everyone named their starter! 

Now let's get to baking!