RESETTING YOUR SOURDOUGH STARTER - How To Make A More Active Starter

Resetting a sourdough starter from time to time is important as your sourdough might be too sour. This happens after many days of leaving your sourdough at room temperature. Resetting the starter has helped me to bake better bread. I'll show you how to do that in this video.

Too sour starter can lead to the following issues:
- Your bread could turn out flat. You have too much acidity in your dough that prevents the gluten network to form.
- The bread is overly sticky
- Preshaping is not possible as the dough is too sticky
- The sourness is too strong on the final bread.

I like to reset my starter every week at least once. Typically the starter is back to is usual strength after 24 hours. A half teaspoon of starter is really enough to port your sourdough into a new environment.

Give it a shot and let me know if it works for you.

[marcosavio]

Very helpful and explains why I cannot control the final shaping, it collapses into a sticky mess. Starter is too sour.

[patriciazander]

...this was exactly the information I needed in my apprentice phase....thank you...coincidently, made your recipe for sourdough starter bread (which you rightly note in this video as being able to carry the sourness that is often a result of overly fermented starter) and I do like the way it tastes and put nothing on it...I used your recipe with the tumeric...and am interested in implementing strategies that will make my wheat sourdough bread less sour and agree with your reasoning on that front as well...

[hamdaalrowaiei]

Hello, thank you for this informative video, but i got confused, after 24 hour should i feed it again without discarding? I Didn't get it

[ryansova]

Hey, I am so grateful for your super informative videos. When resetting a starter, should I wait 24 hours to feed the second time? Or after it doubles? It has been 12 hours and has doubled. I just don’t want it to get too sour again. Thank you so much!!

[paulwalton]

Great video the last two weeks I’ve been racking my brain wondering why all of a sudden my dough is a sloppy mess and losing elasticity, now I have a answer you sir have my thanks 🙏🏻

[johnpreston]

I have the dreaded sloppy dough which is a recent phenomenon. I’ll try this fix first but my question is, what flour are you using for the starter? I’ve always used whole meal rye. Super videos, my new go-to reference for SD. Cheers. John.

[Moonbirdskies]

When you added the 25g of flour and water did it double in size? Or only when you feed it the next day with 50g of flour and water?

[tothpianopeter]

Great video! One question: What if one used this method to feed one's starter daily, once every 24 hours? Let's say that I almost completely empty the jar, leaving just a little bit of leftover starter in it, and give it a lot of fresh flour and water, and repeat this every day once a day? Would it result in a very active starter? Schedulewise it would certainly be more convenient than feeding it twice a day.

[zeehelen]

So glad to change upon this video. So it must be my sourdough starter being too sour! Will certainly follow yr instructions to reset my starter BUT is there no way to salvage the shaggy dough? Can't even do stretch & fold properly!

[lfam]

I love your channel. What do I do if my starter seems too runny? It is a whole wheat starter.

[ClausWawrzinek]

It would have been nice to see the starter before and after each feeding. Also your audio is sometimes not great, maybe a lavalier microphone would be better. :-)

[ColleenScatena]

So more flour will help in the sour flavor. My starter is about 1 month old
It's a whole wheat starter. I've made 2 loaves of great sourdough with my starter but now it's acting sluggish when I take it out of fridge and feed it once a week.

[emmaapplegate]

I actually would like to make my wheat breads more sour, so I'm experimenting with leaving the starter culture at room temp, which for my house is around 70 F during the day and around 68 F at night. The concentration is1:1:1 ratio, 25 g each. I fed it last night at 10:30 PM and at 5:30 this morning, the starter only rose to half it's size. The thermometer registers at 68.9 F. I knew it would be more sluggish in this environment. In the oven with the light on and the door slightly ajar, with a temperature reading at 75-78 F, it rises to within 6 hours.
So my question is, at my given room temp variance, what is a reasonable time frame for the starter to double in size and still be considered active? Or is there a better way to make my wheat-based breads more sour without sacrifising the integrity of the starter's microbiota? Should I place the culture in the oven to have an active starter to start with, and bulk ferment room temp to create a more sour dough? Or should I grow the starter and bulk ferment in the oven, but do a long cold retard in the fridge to create a more complex, nuanced flavor (but still have a good oven spring)? I appreciate your suggestion(s). And thank you so much for creating informative, and entertaining :)) videos!

[thecalicoheart]

Very helpful and useful - thank you. 😁XXX

[meisievannancy]

Would be great to have time and temperature graphs. This temperature and we can expect a starter to reactivate fed say 1;5;5 or 1;10;10 or 1;20;20 for instance. And then repeat of another temperature..

[Selyce_F]

Question: does the type of flour make a big difference in the sourness factor? It seems like my whole wheat starters are more acidic than my rye or bread flour starters. Does that mean AP would have the least amount of acidity?

[JoanahSousa]

I am a bit confused with the fermentation time of the starter. Shouldn't a new starter take 5-10 days to be ready? But in here you created a new one to use the next day?
I think I missunderstood something...

[petersharples]

Thanks for this very helpful video. I've been trying to bake good sourdough wheat bread for months but always end up with dough that's too sticky and spreads, crusts way too thick and hard and never any large holes in the crumb. My starter has a good sour tang, which I like, and bubbles, but when I feed it it never rises much, even if I hold it for hours at 27C. You've given me something really new and different to try, and your bread looks GREAT!. Just a couple of questions: I do like my bread to have a pronounced sour tang and everything I've read before tells me the longer and slower the fermentation the better, including final proofing overnight in the fridge. A super-active starter is bound to give rapid dough rising isn't it, which is the opposite effect. Finally, your video ends with about 150 gm of starter. The single-loaf recipe I'm using requires 250gm of starter. What is your typical recipe? Thanks again for a great video. Peter Sharples.

[sylviacarlson]

Just so I'm understanding, it's 25 grams of water, 25 grams of flour to start. You don't say what type of flour? Does it matter? What temperature should the water be? After 24 hours, do I still put in 25 grams, etc. of flour and water? I make Sourdough bread and I usually feed the starter for a good week before making the bread. The weather here (California) has been cooler in my house and I've been having problems with the Levain rising. It's supposed to double, but hasn't been. Any suggestions?

[pokegaiyui]

So grateful for your content! So I tried to create a starter with just Arthur bread flour and I see bubbling. But for the past 10 days it hasn't been rising. I am doing 1:1:1 at 100 grams (maybe too much?), after 24 hrs it's bubbly but not runny water. Any suggestions?