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How to revive a dead sourdough starter

30.03.17 By nick Leave a Comment

Having been working with sourdough starters for a while, I’ve seen and done a lot to my creations.  However, when I first started using sourdough I was shocked by what seemed to be quickly dying sourdough.  I would make the starter, bake with it on a regular basis, and be happy.  But if I went away for vacation and forgot about the starter for a few weeks, I’d be disappointed to find a dark mass with icky liquid on top.




At that stage I figured the sourdough starter was bad.  I mean, it smelled fairly strongly (not in a good way) and looked pretty beat up.  So I would eventually end up throwing it away and starting over from scratch.  Truth be told, that kind of sidelined be from using sourdough for a few years since I kept making perfectly good starters and they ended up dying.  I figured I just didn’t have the baker’s equivalent of a green thumb, whatever that may be.

all this time, I was doing it wrong!

the tartine bread book is one of the home baker's best resources for homemade sourdough starters and breads. It's a must-read for new bakers.One day I picked up a copy of the Tartine bread book and decided to try again.  Surely, the sourdough was created just like the book said it would and the loaves were delicious so I figured I should do a little research and put a little more effort in to this thing.  I mean, if other regular people are maintaining their sourdoughs so well then why shouldn’t I be able to?

I did my reading and found out that, all this time, I was doing it wrong!  All that gunk was basically just the sourdough exhaust.  The mass had eaten all of the nutrients in the flour/water mixture and burped up that other stuff.  Instead of throwing it away, I should just stir it back in and refresh it with fresh water and flour.

Since this revelations, I’ve kept my starters for many years.  I grow them to share with friends, to experiment, and of course to bake.

Check out this video below and see just how easy reviving a “dead” starter really is.

Filed Under: Bread Tutorials Tagged With: bread at home, fix sourdough starter, fix starter, homemade bread, homemade sourdough starter, how to fix sourdough, how to sourdough, make bread at home, revive a sourdough, sourdough, sourdough maintenance

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My name is Nick, an amateur bread baker living in Pennsylvania. I have been making bread since my neighbor in grad school showed me that you could make great bread at home and have fun doing it. Since then I've been hooked and am always looking for ways to improve my baking. Find out more about me and let's get baking together!

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