1 May, 2020
Dried Starter Diary: Day 4
Welcome to Day 4, the last day in our step-by-step Alaskan Sourdough Starter video diary. We’ve seen our Big Feeding double in size on Day 3, and we’re ready to scale it back down to our 100g + 100ml regular feeding size, and make sure it’s ready to double in size in 12 hours or less.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re pretty much guaranteed to succeed with Day 4. Everything is lined up and ready to go, we just want our little yeast colony to get an extra day to rev up to full speed, because the rise in Day 3 is usually a little slow or otherwise underwhelming.
For anyone who doesn’t want to (or can’t) watch the video, it’s step 9 from our Sourdough Starter Care & Feeding page. There’s a step 10 too, but that just tells you to contact us if you have any remaining questions or problems (which is still valid here, but hopefully not necessary!):
- At this point, take two tablespoons of the bubbly starter, put it back in the first jar, and add another 100ml water & 100g flour. Assuming it puffs up to at least double its size within the next 8–12 hours, you’re ready to move on to Ongoing Care & Feeding!
- You don’t actually need to move back to your small jar. You can pour the big batch of starter out, and use the residue that sticks to the 32oz jar to do your Day 4 feeding.
When you’re done with the feeding, whether you’ve set your big starter container aside still full or you’ve poured it into a mixing bowl, you now have a big bunch of starter that you’re probably not excited to throw away (since it’s your first one and all). And just this once, I promise you definitely don’t have to. Eventually you’ll get jaded, but not today.
Google “sourdough starter discard crackers” and try two or three different recipes out. You’ve got plenty of starter to play with today, so you can figure out which recipe you like the best. Olive oil? Melted butter? Fresh herbs? Dry seasoning mix on top? Go play, while your Day 4 feeding works on doubling itself for that first loaf of bread.
