Breadtopia Live Sourdough Starter | Organic Non-GMO Ingredients | Active & Ready to Go | It's Alive - Must be Fed Immediately on Delivery

Much faster and more reliable than making your own starter! Great results!I was concerned about the starter’s viability after the time it took to arrive. When I opened it the signs were positive: it was very bubbly and ripe with an inoffensive sour smell and no hooch separation. I scraped it into a jar and fed it right away. There didn’t seem to be any down time at all. It started up with regular starter behavior without any problems. After a few days to make sure it was going strong I baked a beautiful bread with it in my Dutch oven. The flavor is a mild sour. I can tell it is sourdough for sure but it isn’t like “Bam! I’m sour!” I’ll take that as a good thing. It’s delicious and really does remind me of the sourdough bread bowls full of chowder that I used to get on a particular California pier. A coworker had never eaten sourdough bread before and he loved the piece I shared with him.Basic first feeding:Spoon starter into a clean jar. Stir in 1/4 cup of unchlorinated room temperature water. Add 1/3 cup of unbleached white flour and stir to combine. Cover but not tightly so that pressure does not build up too much.Successive feedings:Once or twice a day, discard or use around half of your starter. Feed the remaining amount with equal weights of water and flour. That’s like the above or 2T water and 3T flour for a smaller quantity.Some people keep starter in the fridge if they don’t want to feed it as often but I think that makes it weaker and could impact flavor.The only thing negative I can say is the agreement with some other reviewers that there should be written instructions along with the package or even here on the product page. I had experience with baking sourdough from years ago and didn’t really need instructions but it would still be more reassuring and is simply faster for me to read than to watch a video. The video they have is pretty good though. There are tons of videos on YouTube about caring for your starter and baking with it if you want more tutorials like that.It is January and I live in Georgia so the weather was cold to mildly cool during shipment, probably ideal. I wouldn’t want to order this in the heat of summer or if I thought it would freeze at some point.

So easy to get this going. Just added 3T flour and 1/4 Cup water. Stirred it up and watched it come alive. Did it 3 times, and then took 1/3 Cup and made dough for ciabatta rolls. They were chewy, sour and delicious. Fabulous toast this morning. Next up, pizza crust. l love it!

I am so excited-this worked PERFECTLY! I had been trying to create my own starter for over a month with NO results. I got this in the mail, on a HOT July day (105 F) and thought it might be ruined, but I followed directions on how to revive it, and it perked right up! It smells great, it doubles in size like it is supposed to and is a great value! By the second day, I was even able to bake! Now, it didn't turn out great, but that's my fault...in fact, the flavor is phenomenal, but the texture is off, so that's totally on me! I would highly recommend this for someone starting their sourdough journey!

Why did you pick this product vs others?:This is the best active bubbly starter to bake bread . The starter is very alive and is bubbly when you follow the instructions . Great results and directions and videos are very clear to be successful Thank You Breadtopia I’m off to a good start baking my own homemade sourdough bread

I’ve tried off and on to learn how to make sourdough bread, always craving that San Francisco sour taste and texture we all love. I have ordered King Arthur starters in the past, but always gave up. The flavor was never there, and every loaf was too dense. This go-around, I decided to order a new starter from Amazon for fast shipping, and I’m so glad that I did. I can’t keep up with this very active starter! It is like a pet that needs constant feeding! And so that translates to dough that rises and has nice big bubbles in the texture. And the sour flavor is there! I am a hero at home with sourdough bread coming out of the oven at least 3 times a week. And that’s with me working full time. Here is my process, using King Arthur’s recipe and a few other things I’ve learned:If dinner plans for the next day involve sourdough bread, then the evening before, when I arrive home from work, I take my starter out of the fridge, give it a little stir and feed it about 1/4 cup of flour. I leave it on the countertop while going about our evening routine. A couple hours later, after the family has had dinner and the kitchen is cleaned, and I’m about to close the kitchen for the night, I’ll start the bread. The starter by now looks happy and bubbly. Almost foamy bubbly. You can take off a pinch and put it into a cup of water. It will float if it is ready. So then I pour about a cup of the starter into a container that has a lid. At least a 2 liter container. Then I go back to feed my starter up to a cup of flour (depending on how much room is in my jar) and an equal amount of water, mix, cover, and return to fridge. Then back to the container of freshly poured starter, I add 3 cups unbleached white flour and 1.5 cups water. Stir really briskly for 1 minute. Cover and put in fridge for the night.The next morning before work, I add 2.5 teaspoons kosher or Himalayan salt, and 1 more cup of flour. I stir this just till the flour is absorbed. The dough looks kind of raggedy, but the salt and flour is mixed in enough to start the next phase. Let this sit for 30 minutes. Then just before leaving to work, add up to a cup more of flour while kneading into a soft and slightly sticky dough (feels tacky but doesn’t stick to hands). I can’t usually get more than a 1/2 cup in there. So for the recipe I end up using a total of 4.5 cups. The recipe calls for up to 5 cups.you don’t want the dough to be too heavy bc you’ll love the light airy and bubbly texture of the finished bread. Knead until smooth. Return the dough to the container and keep covered. This will be about 1 liter of dough. Now if someone isn’t home to help me with the next steps, I’ll bring the dough to work. This just means i won’t be able to start cooking it until 5:30 or so. The next process is easy. Every hour, the dough needs to be gently lifted and stretched and folded over itself while carefully preserving the air that has filled the dough. Having slightly wet hands helps. Go around the container and do this 4 times to get all 4 quarters of the dough lifted and folded over itself then cover and wait another hour. Each time you do this, you’ll notice the dough is changing! After 4 or 5 times, the dough is ready to rise in its proofing container. This is about 2:00 pm for me. I get a piece of parchment paper and a bowl about the size of a regular sourdough boulle. I wet the parchment paper and wring it out like a wash rag so it is soft and mouldable to the size of the bowl. Line the bowl with the wet paper. Then lift the dough out of the container, being careful not to lose any of the air that has developed in the dough. Remember there is no added yeast helping out your starter. The starter is doing all the work, so try not to lose what it has done for you. Gently fold into a soft ball of dough, tucking edges underneath till top is smooth. Lay the dough gently into the parchment paper-lined bowl. Cover, and let rise 2 hours. Preheat oven to 425° with a lidded Dutch oven inside that is about the size of a sourdough boulle. The Dutch oven pot will get very hot. Cut a 1/4” deep slice or two across the top of the dough at this point. When the oven is preheated, remove the Dutch oven and lift the dough by the parchment paper, carefully setting it down into the hot pot. Put the lid on the pot and return to the hot oven. After 20 minutes, remove the lid. Continue baking until the bread is a deep golden brown. Remove from the pot, pulling up by the parchment paper to lift. Set your beautiful bread on a cooking rack. Discard the parchment paper. Allow to cool completely before cutting!!! That is the hardest part!! My favorite way to eat is toasted with butter. My family also likes to add honey. It is also delicious plain! Good quality flour is important. If your flour has a cheap smell to it, do not use! I also use filtered water to both feed my starter and for my recipe.