In this step-by-step guide, learn how to easily reactivate your dehydrated sourdough starter that you purchased from our shop, or one that you purchased elsewhere. This recipe will work for any dehydrated sourdough starter. You can have an active sourdough starter in just under a week! Then you will be on your way to baking all of your favorite sourdough goodies.
What Is A Dehydrated Sourdough Starter?
You may be wondering what that little bag of dehydrated particles is. Sourdough is very different from instant yeast. Typically with instant yeast, you are able to add the contents of the packet to the ingredients for your bread recipe and will have rising bread in no time. With an active sourdough starter, you can achieve rising bread in approximately the same amount of time. What you have, is a dehydrated sourdough starter. That means we need to add water back to the starter in order to reactivate the yeast. I like to call it, waking up the yeast!
Why Not Create A Starter From Scratch?
I prefer creating a sourdough starter using a packet of dehydrated sourdough starter because it essentially jump starts your sourdough! You don’t have to worry about capturing the live bacteria and yeast in your area to create your starter. By adding this packet, you are already providing your flour and water mixture with the nutrients that it needs to be an active and healthy sourdough starter.
If you would prefer to make a starter on your own, I have a recipe for you!
Tools You’ll Need:
I have linked some of the tools that you will need. I do not make a profit on any of these tools, except for my sourdough. These are tools that I prefer and genuinely use when working with sourdough.
In order to reactivate your sourdough starter you’ll need:
- Pint Mason Jar or other smaller glass container
- Quart Mason Jar or other larger class container
- Lid or Paper Towel
- Spoon
- Rubber Band
Ingredients You’ll Need
- 1 Packet of Dehydrated Sourdough Starter (approximately one ounce)
- All Purpose Flour, I like to use King Arthur’s All Purpose Flour.
- Lukewarm Filtered Water
That’s it! The ingredient list is very simple and it’s truly an easy process to rehydrated your sourdough.
How to Reactive A Dehydrated Sourdough Starter
It seems that you would be able to simply add the contents of your dehydrated sourdough in with some flour and water to create a new sourdough. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Even though we are jumpstarting the process, sourdough still needs time to grow and establish that lactobacillus bacteria and yeast that are in the contents of the packet.
When feeding the dehydrated sourdough starter, it’s important not to overwhelm the dehydrated sourdough with too much flour or too much water. I have followed a few recipes before that call for putting 1-2 cups of water and flour into the mix with the dehydrated sourdough. As we wake our dehydrated sourdough back up, we want to give it only a little taste of new flour and water so that we don’t bombard it.
Each day we will start with a small amount of flour and water, and work our way up to having a full cup of active sourdough starter!
Instructions
Day 1:
- Start off by pouring the contents of your dehydrated sourdough packet into an empty pint mason jar. Next, you’ll need to fill the mason jar with 2 tablespoons of lukewarm, filtered water. I like to use warm water because it helps to active the sourdough. Cold water can deter the sourdough from activating as quickly. Stir the contents together and let them sit on the counter for a few minutes in order to incorporate.
- Next, add 1.5 tablespoons of all purpose flour and stir. Make sure your mixture is fully incorporated. The perfect consistency should look like a thick pancake batter.
- Place your sourdough concoction in a warm spot with a lid resting on top of the jar or a paper towel placed on top of the jar secured with a rubber band. You want to make sure that the sourdough can breath, but you want to make sure not dust or other particles can find a way into your mixture.
- Wait 24 hours! (This is the hardest part!!)
Day 2:
- Add 1.5 tablespoon of all purpose flour and 1 tablespoons of lukewarm, filtered water.
Be sure to stir everything really well to ensure all of the flour and water is incorporated into the mixture.
You’ll want to keep adding to your same jar for a few days. There is no need to move the contents of your jar into a new one. We’ll keep it relatively clean while we are adding to our jar.
Leave your sourdough in a semi-warm spot and allow it to rest for another 24 hours. While you’re waiting, check out my top 15 favorite sourdough recipes.
Day 3:
You should begin to see some action by day 3. If not, don’t fret! Sometimes it just needs an extra day to get acquainted in its environment. Tiny fermentation bubbles should begin to appear on the top of the sourdough mixture. If you smell your sourdough starter, you should even be able to smell something different that before. It should have a faint sour smell. This is a good sign!
If you happen to see any black liquid on top of your mixture, don’t worry. This is called hooch, and it’s an alcohol that is formed on top of your sourdough. Your sourdough is simply telling you that it’s hungry and would like to be fed. This will happen if you go past your 24 hour window.
Add 1.5 tablespoons of all purpose flour and 1 tablespoon of lukewarm, filtered water to your mixture. This is the same process as yesterday. Return to a warm place in your home and wait 24 hours.
Day 4
Now’s the fun part! Add 1/3 cup of flour to your mixture, and add 1/4 cup of lukewarm, filter water to your sourdough mixture. Stir to combine thoroughly and place in a semi-warm location of your home.
You should see your sourdough become more active within 12-24 hours. This process should have your sourdough starter doubling with very active bubbles!
Day 5
You’re almost there. If your sourdough starter is rising and falling during your feedings, then you’ve created a successful sourdough starter. If you’re not seeing that quite yet, give it another day of feeding and monitor your starter. You may wish to place a rubber band around your sourdough starter to monitor the rise and fall after feeding it.
Now, you’ll need to upgrade to a bigger jar! I recommend using a wide mouth quart jar. It will easily hold 2 cups of starter and provide enough room for the rise and fall during the activation process.
Maintaining Your Starter
In order to maintain your activated sourdough starter, you’ll need to feed it like we have been feeding it.
You’ll want to feed it the same amount of sourdough that you have in your jar. For example: If I have approximately 1 cup of sourdough starter in my jar, I am going to add 1 cup of all purpose flour and around 3/4 cups of lukewarm, filtered water. This keeps the sourdough starter happy when you feed it the right proportions.
To store it, I keep it covered in my refrigerator and only pull it out whenever I am going to bake with it. I’ll typically pull it out 4-6 hours before I need to bake with it. This will allow me to feed my sourdough and give it a few hours to wake up and become fully active again.
After I finish using it, I’ll put it back into my fridge.
If you’re not using it weekly, you do need to pull out your starter every 1-2 to feed it. Then you can put it back in your fridge to store it.
Happy Baking, Friends!
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