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Sourdough Requires Patience... Sorry.

Every post and every page and every person that has anything to do with sourdough talks about starter.

On and on it goes, sure, but starters can actually be fun. And starters do Not have to take over your life (unless you want them to. I’m not your dad).

Starters come in different forms, sort of like the texture is different. These different forms need different maintenance. So it’s likely one form does not work out for your life style at all and a different one is a much better fit.

Let’s break each method down with how to begin and how to keep it going, and we’ll figure out which kind fits your life.

Wet Starter! The One You See Everywhere

This is the method that I use to get a “Bread Mother” started. In my opinion, it’s the easiest way to start out, with the best success rate.

This is the Popular Kid of the sourdough world. But, like, the Popular Kid that’s actually cool instead of just surface level charming but nasty underneath.

You’re gonna like this method best if you have an at-home-person schedule. Whatever that may be.

This starter likes to be fed at least 2X a day, or to sleep in your fridge like a proper couch potato.

100% hydration starter in a mason jar on top of a well loved kitchen scale, display turned off.
Poorly lit photo of a stiff style starter in a mason jar.

Stiff Starter

Once my wet starter is behaving consistently, I transition it to a stiff starter.

What I like about this form is that you don’t have discard, you feed it once a week, and you can use it in Active Dry Yeast recipes exactly as the recipe is written. It doesn’t need you to add or subtract any flour or water.

And yes, that’s great. But this starter can’t be put in the fridge and forgotten about for months. It will not bounce back. It will die and mold over. Every starter has its pros and cons.

Dried sourdough starter flakes, resting in water in a clear glass to slowly rehydrate.

Rehydrated Starter

Maybe you know someone or found someone that had some starter they dried and shared with you? Maybe you’re the one that dried some and for reasons we don’t need to get into right now, those little flakes are coming in real?

As I always say to my sister, “IT’S FINE! It’s fine! It’s all fine. Eeeverything’s fine. Noneedtocomeinherebecauseitis soooo so fine.”

Let’s get re-started! Or, y’know, started if you’re someone who just got some dried stuff from a friend. We’ve all just got some dried starter from a friend and it’s tooootally fine.

A tall, thin vessel containing yeast water made with water, sugar, and healthy, vivid orange peels on the left. An active, bubbly sourdough starter that has been placed in a separate dish to catch any spill over.

Yeast Water

I don’t have much experience with this method. I tried it out back in 2018 and it did work. But I was just beginning my discovery of how people made bread before instant yeast was invented and I thought sourdough was more fun than yeast water.

I used orange peels for my experiment and yes, the bread did have a subtle citrusy flavor. It tasted really nice, but I was looking to bake more conventional bread without the background orange taste.

Still! This is a great gluten-free alternative for anyone who needs or wants that.

Sourdough Recipes

  • Sandwich Bread
  • Artisan Bread
  • Bread Bowl

Sourdough Tips and Techniques

  • Stretch and Fold
  • Shaping (Boule and Loaf)
  • Baker’s Percentage
  • flatbottomedbread.com