FAQs
You can easily share your sourdough starter with friends and family - whether you're gifting, sharing or sending a starter, the easiest thing to do is take 20g of sourdough starter and place into a small jar and then add 20g of flour and 20g of water. You now have a small sourdough starter to gift to your friend.
Can I give someone some of my sourdough starter? ›
You can easily share your sourdough starter with friends and family - whether you're gifting, sharing or sending a starter, the easiest thing to do is take 20g of sourdough starter and place into a small jar and then add 20g of flour and 20g of water. You now have a small sourdough starter to gift to your friend.
How to share an active sourdough starter? ›
Feed Your Starter: Before gifting your sourdough starter, feed your starter so it's healthy and active. Take part of that fed starter and stick it in a clear glass mason jar. Seal the jar lightly. Attach some ribbon and a stir stick with a cute tag and you've got the perfect gift!
Can I send sourdough starter in the mail? ›
For most locations in the US, standard shipping is adequate. Sourdough starters are considered liquids and are perishable, but conform to the guidelines set forth by USPS. Other mail carriers, such as FedEx and UPS are fine to use, as long as expected shipment times are no longer than 5 days.
How do you take care of a gifted sourdough starter? ›
Maintaining A Sourdough Starter:
Maintenance is fairly simple. Like anything living, it requires food and water. The location you keep your starter in will determine how you maintain it. Leaving it out on the counter, it will need to be fed equal parts water and flour every 12-24 hours.
Do I need to throw away my sourdough starter? ›
Experts recommend feeding a starter twice daily. And at each feeding, you hold onto 1/2 cup of your original starter, discard the rest, and then add its same weight in water and flour. With this schedule, you'd discard almost a cup of sourdough starter every day.
Do you have to discard sourdough starter every time you feed it? ›
Do I have to discard my sourdough starter? It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.
How long can you use the same sourdough starter? ›
Your sourdough starter is the foundation of baking sourdough bread. Through proper maintenance and a little attention, it can last indefinitely and provide you with countless healthy and delicious loaves of bread.
How long does it take for sourdough starter to become active after feeding? ›
Take your starter from the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. Feed it with 30g of strong white flour + 30g of water, stir it well, and allow it to become fully active and ready to use, this can take 2-6 hours depending on the room temperature.
Can I use my sourdough starter twice a day? ›
Be sure your starter has a chance to ripen (develop) fully before it receives another feeding; before you use it in a recipe, or before refrigerating it. An ideal feeding regimen for a starter kept at room temperature (in the low 70s) is two feedings a day at 12-hour intervals.
Sourdough starter can be stored at room temperature or in the fridge. If you're feeding and making bread with your starter regularly (once a week or so) you can leave it out at room temperature. If you're going away for a bit or if you don't use it that often (once a month or less), store it in the fridge.
Can I transfer my sourdough starter to another container? ›
I wipe the top and rim of my starter jar every time I feed, which helps keep most of the jar clean. Transfer your sourdough starter to a new, clean jar whenever your current jar becomes overly crusted with sourdough starter. I typically do this once every two weeks.
How do you dry sourdough starter for shipping? ›
There's not much to this process. Just smear some fresh sourdough starter in a thin layer over a piece of parchment paper and let dry. Once dry, the starter will easily separate from the paper and can be ground up into small pieces and placed in a plastic ziplock bag.
How to give someone sourdough starter? ›
To share your sourdough starter, simply put a ½ cup or half the mixture into a glass jar or container with a lid.
What to do when someone gives you a sourdough starter? ›
Keep feeding your starter until it's vigorous and healthy
Give your starter another meal: Scoop out 113g (discarding the rest), place it in a bowl, feed it with 113g each unbleached all-purpose flour and lukewarm water, keep it warm, and wait 8 hours or so for it to grow.
Do you need a clean jar every time you feed sourdough starter? ›
Yes, while it's not necessary to use a clean jar every time you feed your sourdough starter, it is not harmful to your starter to do so. Some people use the "two jar method" which means you feed into a clean jar and then wash the dirty jar ready for the next feed.
How little can you feed sourdough starter? ›
You can easilly scale it up or down depending on how much active starter you need, just keep a 1:1:1 proportion with feeding. So if you need less, use 50 grams starter, 50 grams flour, and 50 grams water.
Can you keep sourdough starter as a pet? ›
Once you have your starter, you now have to treat it like a pet, feeding it, pampering it and you could even give it a name if you want to. If you are not making a lot of bread you can keep it in a sealed container in the fridge.
