Dehydrated Sourdough Starter – why you need it!
If you are exploring sourdough for the first time allow me to introduce you to dehydrated sourdough starter. You can easily rehydrate it and have a healthy, mature sourdough starter that you can pass down to your kids one day! Read on to get your own dehydrated sourdough starter and why you need it.
Where it all began
I started my first starter four years ago. I was already feeling confident in my gardening ability and knew that I needed to learn to master sourdough bread. A friend gave me some mature starter and I eagerly walked into the magical world of starter. Even though my heart was ready apparently my mind was not. I quickly killed that starter after not feeding it for a long time. Not being one to give up easily I decided to start again this time making my own. By the way, I avoided telling my friend I killed her starter because I felt like such a loser! Please tell me I am not the only one?
Anyway, I had pretty good success although it took me almost two weeks to get my starter mature enough to make bread with it. Sourdough is an amazing process in patience and nurturing. We live in a fast paced, I need it now society. For many the thought of having to care for something like a starter seems like a waste of time. For me it was an absolute must that I learn this process. I am on a journey to being self sufficient and I have a need growing inside me to become even more of an outlier.
Stepping back in time
I feel this longing to slow my pace, step out of the hustle, step back into the old fashioned way of growing, cooking and baking. It’s better for me and my family. I don’t need all the shiny, fast things of this world. So yes, I am willing to nurture this incredibly healthy sourdough starter. I hope you will too.
Sourdough starter is so fascinating! Instead of typical dried yeast we are used to using to get that rise out of our bread, sourdough uses wild yeast in the air! Isn’t that amazing? Won’t you be so happy you mastered this skill if you were ever in the situation where you couldn’t buy bread? Or yeast? Yes, yes you would!
You feed your starter flour and water and it multiplies! There is a process you must go through discarding some and feeding it all purpose flour and water until you have a happy, bubbly starter ready to bake bread. After a while you will no longer need to discard but will be able to use that for recipes as well. Nothing will go to waste and you will become a master at all things sourdough.
This post isn’t going into the details of starting and feeding starter, however I want to tell you about the dehydrated sourdough starter that sort of came about by accident and how you can get some for yourself.
What is all the fuss about dehydrated sourdough starter?
Last Christmas I baked so many loaves of sourdough bread. I gave it to people in my neighborhood and brought them to parties and family gatherings. By the time the holidays passed, I had more starter than I knew what to do with! I decided to spread it out on parchment paper and dry it out so I would never run out.
This proved to be a very smart idea because I killed my starter not once but twice after that! I was able to put the dehydrated starter in a glass jar and in a few days have healthy, mature starter! It dawned on me how beneficial this would be for everyone! So I found a few people willing to be my testers and I sent them some dried sourdough starter for free along with instructions. They went through the process, helped me fine tune my directions and ended up baking amazing bread and a lot of other delicious things. One of the testers did the entire process with her young son. This was so exciting to me because teaching the art of sourdough to our kids (or nieces and nephews or cousins or neighborhood kids) is super important! In my opinion it is absolutely critical we teach the next generation the old ways of gardening, cooking and baking. It is so satisfying to know my humble dried starter is being nurtured and shared by families all across the united states!
Get on the old new fashioned sourdough bandwagon
This dried starter becomes an active sourdough starter in just a few days!
I have made english muffins, pancakes, tortillas, pretzels, loaves of bread, skillet sourdough dinners, biscuits, muffins, cookies and so much more all from the original sourdough starter. And you can too!
Your starter will need daily feedings if you leave it on the counter and weekly feedings if you store it in the fridge. It feels impossible and complicated at first but I promise you that you will master this process.
Even though I don’t sell my starter you can find dehydrated starter from several experienced makers like Whispering Willow Farm and Ballerina Farm
If you need a few tips click here for 5 tips for beginner sourdough bread.
