Let’s Get Started!

Thank you for purchasing our Rapid Ready Dehydrated Sourdough starter! We’ve got video instructions as well as written instructions for you below.

Rapid-Ready Starter Rehydration and Starter Maintenance

Rehydration Instructions

1. Place all 50g of your Rapid Ready Dehydrated Sourdough Starter into a small clean container. A glass container is preferred for visibility, but clear plastic will work just fine.

2. Add 12 grams of unbleached white flour to the container with your dehydrated starter (All-purpose or bread flour will work great!) If you don’t have a scale. you can measure 1 tablespoon of flour, but don’t pack it tightly when measuring

3. Add 50g of room temperature water. If your tap water is treated chemically by your city, please use either filtered water from your fridge or a bottled mineral water. Do not use distilled water or ultra-purified water. If you don’t have a scale, you can use a scant ¼ cup, so a ¼ cup that isn’t quite full, but almost.

4. With a clean spoon or spatula thoroughly mix everything together until no dry flour remains.

5. Make sure the sides of your jar are scraped down, place a lid lightly on the container, and using a rubber band or some masking tape and a marker, indicate the level of the mixture in the jar.

6.  The starter needs to be placed in a warm area for the next 48 hours, no cooler than 70 degrees. The top of a refrigerator or inside an oven with the light turned on are great options.

7.     Place the starter in the warm area. Over the next 24-48 hours you will see your starter come to life, become bubbly and even double in volume.

8.     Now that your starter is active, you’ll want to maintain it by feeding it with the following schedule. To reinforce your new starter I recommend performing 1 of the following maintenance feeds before building a levain and baking with your starter.

9. Every 12 hours: remove 10g of starter from your jar and place into a clean container. Alternatively, you can remove all but 10g from your jar and use the same jar. To the 10g of starter add 100g of room temperature water and 100g of white, unbleached flour before mixing until no dry bits remain. Mark your starter’s beginning level and place into it its warm spot. In 12 hours, it should have double in volume and be bubbly and active.

9.     Congratulations on your new sourdough starter! Be sure to give it a name and share with us @eatbasilandbloom! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns!

Maintaining and using your starter

  • Maintenance Feeding

    To keep your starter healthy, you’ll need to feed it regularly. Feeding your starter revolves around using different ratios of starter, water, and flour. I normally keep 210g of starter on hand and feed it once a week when I’m not using it for pizza or bread. I use a 1:10:10 method, which is 1-part old starter, 10 parts water, and 10 parts flour. My normal feedings consist of 10g old starter, 100g water, and 100g flour. I’ll mix all the parts in the morning, and let it rise for at least 12 hours, so it’s grown and peaked before feeding it again, or storing it in the refrigerator until needed.

  • Getting Ready to Bake

    Making your starter culture work for your schedule is very important to not feel overwhelmed by it, which is why I keep mine in the refrigerator until I need it. The morning of the day before I’m mixing, I recommend taking the starter out of the refrigerator and letting it come to room temperature before feeding it again. It helps me better predict how the starter will rise and when it will be ready to use.

  • Making Your Levain

    The way the word “levain” is generally used was at first very confusing to me. Was my starter a levain? What’s the difference between my starter and why am I calling it something different? What makes the most sense to me is that my starter culture is what I maintain week to week with regular feedings to eventually use in baking and a levain was a mixture made from my original culture for the express purpose of baking a recipe. Depending on what I’m baking I’ll use different ratios and timings for my levain. My pizza levain gets a 1:1:1 ratio and only needs 3-5 hours to mature as I don’t want too much sour flavor competing with the toppings’ flavors. For bread, on the other hand, I use a 1:2:2 ratio and let it rise overnight to develop more sourness in the loaves.

  • When is my levain ready?

    Understanding when your levain has matured enough to bake will come with experience but generally, you want to see it at least double, if not triple, in volume before use. Put a rubber band around your container marking the level where your freshly mixed levain sits and use that as an indicator of where it started. Many recipes will simply list “mature levain” as an ingredient so you’ll need to know the signs when your levain has peaked. The top of the levain will be very bubbly, smell very fragrant and it may have even started to slide back down to the jar indicating that there is enough gas trapped in the gluten structure of the mixture that it can’t continue to grow upwards.

  • Did I just kill my starter?

    Your starter culture is a symbiotic mixture of yeast and bacteria that live and thrive from the flour and water that you feed it. What happens if you forget to feed your starter for a few weeks? Is it dead? Do you need to start from scratch? You’d be surprised how resilient a starter culture can be. However long it sat on your counter or in your refrigerator simply give it a good mix and feed it how your normally would. It should bounce right back.

  • Facts about Basil & Bloom's Starter

    Our starter is an extremely active culture fed with high-quality American flour. I named it “Lord Souron” after the antagonist from The Lord of the Rings. Our current starter is about 6 years old, and we’re so excited for you to make yours. After a few feedings your starter will have acclimated to your environment and will be uniquely yours. Tag us when you’ve named it!