1 May, 2020
Dried Starter Diary: Day 3
The longest video so far, partly because I end up doing a lot of extra mixing and unnecessary transferring between various containers. Make sure your preferred mixing utensil is actually going to fit into your 32oz container! It will save you trouble.
Today, Day 3, we are doing our first feeding. Our yeasts are waking up, and we want them to have plenty to do for their first couple days. So we give them more food and water and make sure they’re in a big enough jar:
For anyone who doesn’t want to (or can’t) watch the video, it’s steps 6–8 from our Sourdough Starter Care & Feeding page. But 6 & 8 are more things to watch for rather than action steps, so it’s kind of just Step 7:
- You should see bubbles in the starter goo within 32 hours from step 1.
- We did see bubbles, and smelled good starter smell, at the 24hr mark, so we’re good to go.
- When you see the level of the starter rise by an inch or so, move it into a 32oz jar, and add another 100ml (3oz) water and 100g (2/3C) flour. Don’t dump any starter out this time!
- It hasn’t risen a full inch, but that’s OK. It looks and smells active and that’s really all we need to see.
- 12–18 hours after feeding, you should see the overall level of the starter rise even more, with more and larger bubbles throughout.
- Check out the 24hr pseudo-timelapse at the end. We definitely get that!
This step is where your starter goes from a little question mark of a science experiment to a fully active sourdough culture/colony that you can keep alive for as long as you want. We’re almost at the end of this little diary, I hope it’s been helpful.
On Day 4, you’ll have enough starter that you’ll have your first batch of ‘discard’, after you scoop out a couple tablespoons to feed. And that will keep you going. Tomorrow you can put your freshly fed starter in the fridge if you’re not baking right away, or you can start your first loaf of bread…
