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Dried Sourdough Starter

In the early days of The Yorkshire Sourdough’s creations, the end products were a little hit and miss with some inconsistent results. But these were early days and over time, this determined little outfit has fine tuned the process and incorporated some wonderful Yorkshire flours on its journey.

Using organically grown Yorkshire Spelt and Rye which has been milled in Yorkshire by an artisan miller, we have two different and terrifically tantalising sourdough starters which are not only churning out delicious recipes such as blinis, pancakes and batters like there’s no tomorrow, they are also producing great bread.

If you want to see for yourself how Spelt and Rye starters can pack a dough punch they are available from the Yorkshire Sourdough Company in a dried format; all the established Yorkshire milled flavours, in a need little packet.

Like twins, each starter has its own characteristics and flavours and should be kept as two separate identities. For variation on bread types and flavours, you can use different flours for the main bread making process and add one of the twins, Rye or Spelt, as the fairy dust to make your bread rise and induce that unmistakable sourdough flavour.

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Dried starter revival and getting started:

Measure out half of the dried starter and soak for 30 mins to an hour in 2 -3 tablespoons of cold to luke warm water. The flakes of starter will soften but will not totally dissolve.

Next add 1 -2 tablespoons of Rye Flour (or Spelt depending on which starter you have) to the soaked flakes and stir well. If the mixture is a tad dry, add more cold to luke warm water until you have the consistency of pancake batter.

Finally cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature for 24 hours. You can check to see if there is any progress and while doing so, a quick, occasional stir will help things along.

The following day, stir in 2 tablespoons of the flour du jour (Rye or Spelt) in the same amount of water. Stir this occasionally to egg-on the fermentation process. Start to see small bubbles on the top and around the side of the starter, and you know it’s happily fermenting away. If you’re not getting the bubbles, you might need to repeat the process of adding 2 tablespoons of flour to the same amount of water for a couple of days or until the starter gets a’bubblin.

Once the bubbles appear, you and your live starter are in business, and it will need regular attention so that is can grow and stabilise into a healthy baking companion. At this stage you will need to slowly increase the amount of flour you feed it and again match it with the same volume of water. As you do so, you will also notice that the starter bubbles more vigorously and begins to double in size. Don’t be surprised if you need to increase the size of the container to accommodate your fast-growing friend!

Once you have an established starter, you will need to keep it in top-notch condition with regular feeding at room temperature. Alternatively you can slow the process and the number of feeds down by keeping it in the fridge.

Visit our blog at yorkshiresourdoughcompany.co.uk for more information about rearing and caring for your starter as well as some tasty recipes for sourdough bread.

Your sachet of dried starter should take off at the first attempt but just in case it does not (sourdough is not an exact science unlike baking in general) there is sufficient dried starter for another bash.

Look inside your Sour Dough Starter pack and you will find:

1 x Bag 1Kg Organic Yorkshire Rye Flour

1 x 8” cane dough-rising basket for a 500g loaf

1 x Plastic Dough Scraper

1 x Starter Home (a tub with loose fitting lid to keep intruders out)

1 x Muslin cloth

Buy this pack now for £24.95 plus p&p