Ways To Use Your Extra Sourdough Starter (2024)

FAQs

What can I do with my extra sourdough starter? ›

Use your sourdough starter discard in sourdough pancakes, waffles, and banana bread.

Once your starter is reliably doubling in size within 8 hours of being fed, it's ready to bake with — or store for future use. If you plan on refrigerating your fed starter, let it rest at room temperature for 2 hours after its feeding before stashing it in the fridge.

And you guessed it..the more starter you use, the faster your dough will ferment - resulting in a less sour loaf. Using less starter in your recipe will help slow down the fermentation process.

Storing: Crumble Into Dry Flour

Crumbling live sourdough starter (unfed) into dry flour. This is by far my preferred method for long-term sourdough starter storage.

With each sourdough starter feeding, you'll be discarding some to avoid it from becoming overly acidic. Most will compost or trash this discard, but you can save it and use it in other recipes!

Sourdough discard recipes not only reduce waste but also offer health benefits, making them a wonderful addition to a balanced diet. The fermentation process of the sourdough starter increases the availability of certain nutrients and can help improve digestion.

Technically, yes you can start another sourdough starter with your sourdough discard - however you don't need two sourdough starters! So as long as your starter is at least 7 days old, why not bake something yummy with the discard?

If your starter gets completely covered on top with bubbles but does not rise, it is healthy but may just be a wet mix. Try reducing the water in your next feeding and see if you have different results. Also, the type of flour you are using can impede the rise of your starter.

But if it doesn't respond at all (no growth, no bubbles) after three or four days of twice-a-day feedings, you might as well start over. Just be sure to stir some of your old starter into the new — so you can continue to brag about how long you've kept your starter going!

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

Is it cheaper to buy or make sourdough? ›

So if you look solely at the ingredients, it is cheaper to make your own sourdough. But if you bring other factors into it - it might not be as cheap.

Active starter and discard both come from the same sourdough starter. However, they are in different phases. Active starter has been fed flour and water within the last 12 hours or so and is growing until it hits its peak. Once it begins to fall it is considered discard.

How to increase a starter. If your recipe calls for more than 227g (about 1 cup) of starter, feed it without discarding until you've reached the amount you need (plus 113g to keep and feed again).

Typical signs of food spoilage and mold include pink, orange, or green colors, white fuzzy spots, or sometimes areas that are darker with white areas on top. If you see any of these signs, I would recommend throwing your starter away and creating a new one.

Maintenance is fairly simple. Like anything living, it requires food and water. The location you keep your starter in will determine how you maintain it. Leaving it out on the counter, it will need to be fed equal parts water and flour every 12-24 hours.

Fortunately, you can chill or even freeze your sourdough starter to slow down the yeast's activity and preserve it until you're ready to bake. Sourdough starter stored in the fridge will stay in good shape for the occasional baker who might be making a loaf or two every couple of weeks.

If you have too much starter compared to the additional flour and water you're adding, your hungry starter consumes all the nutrients and then it's not as bubbly.

If you have a young sourdough starter, using the discard to start another sourdough starter is pointless, since then you are using even more flour to essentially feed two immature starters. You're better off using all your resources to create one healthy and active starter, rather than maintaining two starters.

Can you add sourdough discards together in the same jar? Yes you can add sourdough discards from different days together in the same jar. You just need to make sure you stir it well and you don't leave it sitting in the fridge for too long. Sourdough discard should be used within two weeks.