Things Elizabeth Cooks, LLC

So, you’ve purchased or been gifted a little bag of “Hattie”, my dehydrated sourdough starter, now what? On this page you’ll see a day by day guide for how to rehydrate, feed, and (eventually) bake with your starter!

Before we begin, gather the rest of your supplies. These are the basics that you will need. You can refer to my full “Sourdough Must – Haves” list on Amazon for more items that are fun to have and use, but these (in my opinion) are the necessities.

A food scale that weighs by grams and has a "tare" (zero out) function
A food thermometer
A glass jar - I love the Weck jars but any clean glass jar will do
A wooden spoon with a long handle (or a spurtle)
A rubber band that will fit around your jar
Dutch oven with a lid - at least a 3 quart size
Parchment paper or a silicone sling

Day 1 - Rehydrate

Empty your dehydrated starter into a glass jar. Break the starter up into pieces resembling large crumbs.

Add 1 tablespoon of room temperature water. Filtered or tap water are fine, but do not use distilled.

Allow the starter and water to sit in a warm spot for 1 to 2 hours until the dehydrated starter is softened and dissolving.

Feed your starter with 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour and mix to combine with the handle of your wooden spoon. Cover loosely with a paper towel, coffee filter, or loose lid. Leave in your warm spot for 24 hours.

Day 2 - First full feeding

Feed your starter with 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour and 1 tablespoon of room temperature water. Do not discard at this stage. Cover. Place your rubber band around the jar at the level of your starter. This will enable you to easily see how much it’s rising! Allow to sit in a warm spot for 24 hours.

Day 3 - Second feeding

By this point, your starter may have started to show signs of life. Bubbles and an increase in the rise would be an indicator that the starter is taking off. But if not, that’s also fine! Your room may be a little on the cool side, or your starter just needs a bit more time.

Feed the starter with 2 tablespoons of all purpose flour and 1 tablespoon of room temperature water. Cover. Allow to sit for another 24 hours.

Day 4 - Third feeding and first 'discard'

Today you will do your first discard. Remove about half of the starter from your jar (you can just eyeball this). You should be left with approximately 1/4 cup of starter in your container. Then feed your remaining starter with 1/4 cup of all purpose flour and just under 1/4 cup of room temperature water. At this point you want slightly more flour than water in your feeding. This will result in a starter that is the consistency of a thick pancake batter. Cover and let sit for another 24 hours.

With the starter you removed, your discard, you can either just throw it away or you can move it to a different container and store it in the refrigerator. There are a lot of recipes that you can make using just the discard, which is just unfed (dormant) starter!

Day 5 - Fourth feeding and second discard

Discard and feed as on Day 4.

After allowing your starter to rise for 4 – 6 hours, note its appearance. It should be very bubbly and doubling in size as it rises. Maybe more than double! If it’s not quite there, you will repeat this feed and discard process (discard about half, feed with 1/4 cup of flour and just under 1/4 cup of water) for another few days until it starts to rise.

Day 6 (or beyond) - Feed and Mix your dough

Once your starter is consistently doubling in size when you feed it, it is time to bake your first loaf!

First, feed and discard as you did on days 4 & 5. Once your starter reaches its peak (at least double in size), mix your dough. You will start using your scale at this point.

Place a mixing bowl on your scale and hit the "tare" or "zero out" button.
To the bowl add 350 grams of room temperature water and then zero out the scale
Add 50 grams of your active bubbly starter to the water, and mix it in until the water/starter are a milky consistency (a whisk works well for this. Then zero out the scale.
Add 10 grams of salt. Whisk. Zero out the scale.
Add 500 grams of all-purpose white flour.
Using your hands (yes, this will be messy) thoroughly mix the flour into the water mixture until you have a shaggy dough.
Cover the bowl and rest the dough for 30 minutes. You can cover with a shower cap, damp kitchen towel, plastic wrap, whatever you prefer. You just want to protect the dough from drying out.
After the 30 minutes, you will do your first round of stretch and folds. Slide one hand under the dough, pull the dough up and over the other side, repeat this motion around the bowl, one side at a time, about 4 sets of stretch/fold. This has the purpose of further mixing the dough together and also developing the strength of the dough. You can repeat this process a second time now, if your dough still is showing some dry spots of flour.
You will repeat the above stretch and folds 4 times over the next few hours, with 30 to 60 minutes between each round. Cover your bowl between each round.
At the end of this time period, do one more round of stretch and folds, cover the bowl, and allow your dough to bulk ferment overnight.

Baking Day!

In the morning, your dough will have doubled in size. If the dough is not quite doubled, give it a couple more hours on the counter, making sure it's in a warm spot.

Prepare your banneton basket (if you have one) or line another mixing bowl with a clean, dry kitchen towel. Generously flour the basket or towel lined bowl.

Shape your dough into a smooth ball. A simple method for this is to do a repeat of the stretch and fold motion in your bowl, pulling one side over another gently until you have a round ball. Now move your shaped dough into the floured bowl or basket.

Cover your dough and place it into the refrigerator for 2 - 4 hours. This cold proof will allow more of the sour flavor to develop in your bread.

Once you are ready to bake, place your dutch oven and lid into your oven, and preheat both the oven and the pot to 450 degrees. Once the oven reaches temperature, allow to heat for 15 to 20 minutes.

Turn your loaf out of the basket or bowl onto parchment paper, score an "X" across the top of the dough using a lame or sharp knife. The score should be full length of the dough, at a 45 degree angle, about 1/4 inch deep. This is the expansion score that will keep your bread from bursting.

Now, CAREFULLY remove your Dutch oven from the oven, and place your loaf inside the Dutch oven. Return the Dutch oven to your oven, cover, and bake for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, remove the lid from your Dutch oven, and bake for another 15 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread reaches 190 degrees.

Once baked, remove the bread to a cooling rack. Cool completely (for at least 2 hours) before slicing into your loaf of homemade sourdough!

ENJOY!!