Organic Sourdough Starter

Bubbly Betty is a robust dehydrated organic starter that makes beautiful artisan sourdough loaves! 

Ingredients: Organic hard white dehydrated sourdough starter

Reactivate Dehydrated Starter Directions

Day 1

In a clean pint-size mason jar or similar, combine one package of dry sourdough starter (approximately 1 heaping half-tablespoon) with 1.5 tablespoons of filtered lukewarm water. Avoid using cold water throughout this process, as it will slow down the activity of the starter. Allow the dry sourdough starter and water to sit for several minutes to soften and combine. Use a fork or spoon to stir it on occasion. 

Then, mix in 1 tablespoon of flour. Mix thoroughly. Use the edge of your fork or a small spatula to clean up any hefty smears on sides if jar. 

Cover the jar with a lid, coffee filter, or plate. It doesn’t necessarily need to be air-tight; the purpose is to prevent it from drying out or allowing mold spores in.

Finally, set the container in a moderately warm location. Come back in about 24 hours. 

Day 2

Into the same jar as yesterday, add 1 tablespoon of flour and 2 teaspoons of water to the starter. Mix well. Cover the jar or container again, and allow it to sit for another 24 hours. 

Day 3 

By day three, you may start to see fermentation bubbles in the starter! Repeat the same process as yesterday, adding 1 tablespoon of flour and 2 teaspoons of water. Mix, cover, and set aside. 

During the next 24 hours, your starter may start to rise. Just for fun, mark the level of the starter on the side of the container after mixing (either with a washable glass marker or with a rubber band around the jar) and watch how much it rises. 

Day 4

This time, add 1/3 cup flour and 1/4 cup water.

Mix well, until it looks like most of the flour clumps are broken up and the starter is fairly smooth. 

Cover the container, note the level of the starter on the side of the container, and set it aside again. If you’re using a pint jar, it should be about ⅓ full now.

Within 12 to 24 hours, your starter should bubble, rise, and nearly double in size! You may need to adjust your consistency, but it doesn’t mean the starter isn’t alive! If it is too runny, it won’t rise well. Different types of flours, humidity levels, and even measuring spoon sets can lead to some variation between my starter consistency and your own.

On the other hand, if your starter doubles in size and then quickly falls back down to the original starting point, you can move on to the next step sooner if you wish. That is a signal that she is getting hungry. If you see smears on the side of the container that is a sign that it rose and fell. For example, if you added flour and water in the morning, it rose by midday, and fell back down by the evening – you could do the next feeding that same evening. Or, simply wait until the next morning. Either way is fine. At this stage, the example starter rose and fell in the same day, but not all the way back down to the original level marked on the container. Thus, we waited to feed her until the following day. 

Day 5 

If your starter is now actively bubbling, rising and falling – congratulations! You have successfully reactivated the dry sourdough starter. When a starter rises to double its size and then stays elevated, that is considered “peak activity”. Technically, it is ready to bake with at that point! However, at this stage in our reactivation journey, we don’t have quite enough volume for ongoing baking and maintenance. Every time you bake sourdough you must leave behind at least a half a cup of starter to feed and continue on. Therefore, we need to add a bit more bulk to the starter, and move it into a larger container – her forever home. 

Transfer your starter from the mason jar into a clean mixing bowl.

Now, add 1 scant cup of fresh flour and 1/2 cup of filtered lukewarm water. These measurements are approximately equal weights of flour and water in grams, which is the recommended flour-to-water ratio for ongoing starter maintenance. Another way to measure is a 1-5-5 ratio on a kitchen scale. (One part starter, five parts flour, and 5 parts filtered lukewarm water.)

Mix well, then transfer the starter into a new larger container of choice. Set it aside at room temperature once again. 

Choosing a final storage container:

I like to store my sourdough starter in a glass container that is at least 1 liter/quart (the very minimum) up to a 1.5 liter container. It provides sufficient space for the starter to be fed and double in size, and it also fits well in our fridge. We only ever bake one sourdough loaf or recipe at a time, and most sourdough recipes call for about 1/2 to 1 cup of active starter on average. Therefore, we don’t need to maintain a huge amount of starter.

However, if you plan to make several loaves of bread or many sourdough goodies at once, you will want to use at least a 1.5 liter to even a 2 liter container and maintain a larger volume of starter than we do.