Sourdough

Get your sourdough starters for home made sourdough bread here. A wide range of starters such as Alaskan, San Fransisco, Rye and glutenfree sourdough.

Sourdough

Looking for the perfect starter for your home-baked sourdough bread? Buy your well-known top-quality sourdough starters such as Alaska , San Francisco (world-famous!), a classic rye sourdough starter and a gluten-free version here. Make it easy on yourself and buy a starter, instead of having to make one yourself.

What is a sourdough starter?
A sourdough starter  consists of flour and water that contains wild yeasts, lactic acid bacteria and acetic acid bacteria using natural fermentation. These cause your bread to rise and give it its characteristic flavour and texture, which is much more complex – and much better – than that of a yeast bread.

What do you need to make sourdough?
To make your own sourdough starter, all you need is flour, water and a little patience. You can also buy a dried sourdough starter, so you can get started quickly, and give your sourdough starter certain characteristics. In terms of materials, a glass or plastic jar, a scale for the right proportions, a cloth or lid and something to stir is enough. All things you have in your home anyway.

What is the right proportions when making sourdough starter ?
To make a sourdough starter, it is important to follow the instructions carefully, and choose a fixed ratio of water to flour or flour . There are both very solid sourdoughs, with relatively little water, and very liquid ones. Consistency is most important.
The most common ratio is equal parts water and flour or flour.

How much water should you add to your sourdough starter?
Many sourdoughs are added with a ‘100% hydration’, which means that you add as much flour as water, in grams. So for example, 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour. But other ratios can work fine too, as long as you use them consistently. If you are using a dried sourdough starter, soak it for a while before you start feeding.

Maintaining your sourdough starter: here’s how to do it
Once your sourdough starter is active (this usually takes about a week after starting), you need to maintain it. Maintaining a sourdough starter is like taking care of a little plant. Fortunately, though, it is a very strong little plant. Unless you bake every day, there is no need to feed your starter every day. You can just keep your sourdough starter in the fridge, and if you feed it there once every two or three weeks according to your regular feeding method, that is more than enough. A common feeding method is to throw away some of it (or use it to make pancakes or something similar) and top it up with the same amount of water and flour.
Note that if you want to bake with it, the starter needs time to ‘wake up’ after being taken out of the fridge, which means you need to plan your baking plans in advance. Count on about 12-24 hours.

The ideal temperatures for your sourdough starter
The ideal temperature if you want to start using your starter is between about 20 and 25 degrees Celsius. But, at any temperature higher than fridge temperature your starter will be active, the warmer it is, the more active it will be.

6 signs that your sourdough starter is no longer healthy

Although a sourdough starter is generally robust, it can still happen that something goes wrong with it. Below are 6 indicators that your starter is no longer good. No problem, start over and within a week you’ll have a healthy starter again.
1. Unpleasant smell: a healthy starter smells fresh and sour, an unhealthy starter may have an unpleasant smell. Be careful, during the making of your starter (the first 7 days), the starter can start to smell a bit unpleasant, this improves by itself after a few days
2. Discolouration: If the starter shows pink, orange or greenish spots, this can indicate the growth of unwanted bacteria or moulds.
3. Layer of moisture: A layer of dark liquid (also known as ‘hooch’) on top of the starter can indicate malnutrition or too cold conditions, although this is not always a sign of an unhealthy starter. However, if the ‘hooch’ is a strange colour or smells, it is not a good sign.
4. Consistency: If the starter suddenly changes a lot (is very watery or has an unusual texture), this may indicate that the proportions when feeding are incorrect or that there is an imbalance in the yeast/bacteria balance. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your starter is unusable, but it may need to be fed more frequently again, for example
5. Difficulty activating: If a starter stored in the fridge is difficult to reactivate and shows no signs of life after several feedings, it is possible that the starter is no longer healthy.
6. Fungi: Hairy or fluffy substance on your starter? That’s almost certainly a fungus. Get rid of it and start again.

FAQ

**What flour do you use for sourdough starter?
It is best to start your starter with a wholemeal flour (e.g. rye, spelt or wheat) and then start feeding it with white flour. If you buy a sourdough starter, you only need to feed with flour

**How often should you feed your starter?
Feed your starter at least once every two or three weeks in the fridge, but daily if you are actively using it.

**My sourdough stinks. What should I do?**
A sour or slightly sour smell is normal, but if it smells unpleasant, it is better to start again. If your starter smells like acetone/nail polish remover, that’s no reason to throw it away. In that case, try feeding your starter more often. Sometimes switching from a wholemeal flour to a white flour can also help.

**How do you know if your sourdough starter is ready?
If it doubles in volume and shows bubbles within 4 to 8 hours of feeding, your starter is ready to use. Doubling, by the way, is not necessarily necessary, as it also depends a lot on the size of your pot, the wetness of your starter and the type of flour it is made with. The smell is also important, nice fresh sour and slightly yeasty is what you want.

**Can you also use flour for the sourdough starter?
You can start your sourdough starter with different types of flour. From rye to spelt and from teff flour to wheat. Each carries its own microorganisms. Feeding may also be done with a wholemeal flour, but it works better (and is cheaper) to do it with a white flour. Even if you buy a starter, you only need to feed with white flour. The microorganisms from the flour are already in your starter.

**How long does a sourdough starter last?
In the fridge, a sourdough starter can stay good for years, provided it is fed regularly. Once every 2-3 weeks is sufficient. There are examples of sourdough starters more than 100 years old.

About starter cultures

Startercultures.eu was founded in 2018 by Dutch foodwriter ‘Meneer Wateetons’.

At that time he had authored several books on sausage making and fermentation. One of the most frequently asked question he got from readers was: “Love the books, but where can I find those starter cultures needed for making dry cured sausages/tempeh/miso etc”. After having pointed his readers to their butcher, or shops in Japan, China or Indonesia with crazy shipping times and costs for years, he decided to start offering these products himself.

A webshop was born.