For those of us who grew up playing Neopets or Tamagotchi, the idea of having to do something every day in order to keep a creature alive can be a little stressful. Yet if you want to make sourdough bread, you need to maintain something called a “starter,” or an active colony of wild yeast and good bacteria that you can bake with.
But don’t worry, keeping sourdough starter alive may require a little bit of regular effort, but it really isn’t as hard as it might sound. In fact, it’s not even nearly as easy to kill as a Tamagotchi is. So if you want to get into sourdough baking, here are some tips for how to maintain your starter.
- Feed your starter one or twice a day or two before you use it to bake
- Feed your starter with a cup of water and 3/4 cup of water
- Generally, you’ll want to double your starter size each time you feed it, unless doing so will have you end up with more than you need
- If you’re not planning to use your starter very much, don’t keep too much on hand
- Store your starter in a NOT airtight container
- Let your starter rise and get spongy before you use it
- If you’re not planning to use your starter for a long time, you can freeze it until the next time you need it
- To use up excess starter, you can make things like sourdough pancakes, sourdough waffles, or give some away to a friend who is interested in baking
