Dried sourdough starter (free)

Import some Lowerland culture to your sourdough baking with a free sample of our sourdough starter, dehydrated for easy transport.

Ingredients: 10g natural sourdough yeast culture (wheat flour, water); olive oil.

* The small amount of olive oil was used to grease the baking sheets we dried the starter on.

DRIED STARTER INSTRUCTIONS

Ingredients:

• 10g dried starter chips
• 50g water
• 35g Lowerland white bread wheat flour

Method:

1. Place dried starter chips in a jar at least 500ml in volume.
2. Add 50g clean water at room temperature and stir.
3. Allow starter chips to soak for about 1 hour until soft and mixable.
4. Add flour and stir through. The consistency should look like flapjack batter.
5. Leave at room temperature for 12 hours / until the starter has doubled in volume, is bubbly and active. It is now ready to feed for your next bake

 Sample starter maintenance routine:

1. Keep starter in fridge until you want to use it
2. Day 1: in the evening, remove starter from fridge and allow it to come to room temperature with lid on but not tight to allow some oxygen in.
3. Day 2, morning: discard some of your starter if necessary (see calculations below) and feed starter with water and flour. Allow fed starter to double in volume and start deflating again slightly (about 8-12 hours) before next feed.
4. Day 2, evening: feed starter again.
5. Day 3, morning: use ripe starter to feed your dough. Reserve a small amount of fed starter in the fridge for next time (about 30g is more than enough).

Calculations:

For a healthy starter, feed your starter at a ratio of 1 : 4 : 4 (starter : water : flour).

To know how much you need for the first feed, work backwards from the amount of starter required for your recipe. Feeding at a ratio of 1 : 4 : 4, the ripe starter needed for each feed is a ninth of the total you want at the end of the feed.

Example:

1kg of dough (2 loaves) – 200g starter required. Divide by 81 (9 x 9) to calculate the amount of starter needed at the beginning. Round up to get to a sensible amount that will at least register on a scale. 200g / 81 = 2,46g. Round this up to 5g because 2.46g is just silly.

First feed: 5g starter + 20g water + 20g flour = total 45g. Discard 20g / keep in your reserve jar.

Second feed: 25g starter + 100g water + 100g flour = 225g total. Use 200g to feed your dough and move 25g to reserve jar in fridge for your next bake.