If you’ve picked up some of our sourdough starter in store here’s our low-effort guide to keeping it going. This is based on founder Katie’s tried and tested method over the last decade as a sourdough baker and busy business owner. There are lots of ways to care for and use your starter and this is just one of them. So if this doesn’t work for you then please research and experiment to find one that fits in with your lifestyle and routine.
What actually is a sourdough starter?
A sourdough starter is a living culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria, kept going in a mixture of flour and water. Instead of adding commercial yeast to a dough, you’re relying on the wild yeast and bacteria already present in the flour (and in the air around you) to do the leavening — the same way bread was made for thousands of years before packaged yeast existed. Feed it flour and water regularly, and those organisms stay active, producing the bubbles that raise your bread and the mild tang that gives sourdough its flavour.
Sourdough vs. the Chorleywood method
Most of the sliced bread on supermarket shelves in the UK is made using the Chorleywood Bread Process, developed in 1961 and now behind around 80% of UK bread. It uses high-speed mechanical mixing along with added yeast, fat, and dough conditioners to take a loaf from flour to finished, packaged bread in about three and a half hours.
Sourdough does the opposite. There’s no shortcut — the dough ferments slowly over many hours, sometimes overnight, with nothing added beyond flour, water, and salt. That slow fermentation is what builds sourdough’s depth of flavour and chewy texture, and it’s also why many people who find Chorleywood-process bread hard to digest get on better with a properly fermented sourdough loaf. You trade speed for flavour, texture, and a much shorter ingredients list.
A low waste method to keep your starter going
Many online recipes suggest feeding your starter and discarding the waste almost daily and baking at least once a week if not more. But if you don’t have time to do this and want to avoid the waste of constantly throwing away discard you can keep your starter in the fridge and slow the process down.
- Feed and chill. After receiving or using the starter, feed it equal parts flour and water by weight, then pop it straight into the fridge.
- A few days’ rest. It sits there quite happily for several days between bakes — no daily feeding required.
- Wake it up. When you’re ready to bake, take it out of the fridge and scrape it back to about a tablespoon, discarding the rest.
- Feed to the recipe. Feed that tablespoon with exactly enough flour and water to cover what your recipe needs, plus a little extra to keep the cycle going.
- Bake and save. Once it’s at peak activity, over double its size and bubbly with a domed top, use what the recipe calls for and pop the leftover starter straight back in the fridge, fed and ready for next time.
Why this suits once-a-fortnight bakers or ad-hoc bakers
This is what’s sometimes called a “zero-discard” or “build-to-order” method, and it’s built for exactly this kind of baking rhythm. Rather than feeding a large, active starter every single day, which produces a lot of discard and needs constant attention, you keep a small, dormant amount in the fridge and only wake it up and feed it in proportion to what you’re actually about to bake. No waste, no daily ritual, and no guilt if life gets in the way for a week or two.
The one thing to know: because your starter spends longer dormant in the fridge than one fed daily at room temperature, it can be a touch slower to get going after a long stretch. If it seems sluggish on the first feed, don’t panic, give it a second feed a few hours later before you build your final dough. It’ll usually bounce back by the second or third feed. Some bakers do two or three room-temperature feeds over a day or two before baking, rather than just one, to bring a long-dormant starter fully back to strength.
There’s no single “correct” way to keep a starter — it’s really about matching the method to how often you bake. If you’re baking every week or two, the fridge-and-feed-to-order approach above is about as low-maintenance as sourdough gets.
Happy Baking and don’t forget we stock a range of organic flours other help make your sourdough creations. Order online or come into our Faringdon shop for a refill.