Sourdough Starter Might Be the Secret Weapon for Your Garden—Here's How (2024)

FAQs

Is sourdough starter good for your garden? ›

If you've been looking for organic fertilizer to help your garden flourish this spring, you might need to look no further than your kitchen cabinets. Sourdough starter is an easy way to give your plants a well-rounded fertilizer that will help them grow and even prevent diseases.

The secret to sourdough is simple: water. The more water you add to your dough will affect how open the crumb (bigger holes and softer texture) will be once it's baked.

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!

All-Purpose Flour: All-purpose flour, which is a blend of hard and soft wheat, is a popular choice for feeding sourdough starter. It provides a good balance of protein and starch, which promotes a healthy fermentation process. Bread Flour: Bread flour has a higher protein content compared to all-purpose flour.

There is no single best ratio, but I've found a ratio of 1:5:5 fed twice daily at 12-hour intervals to produce a sourdough starter that's strong and healthy. This ratio corresponds to 20% ripe starter carryover, 100% water, and 100% flour (a mix of whole grain rye and white flour) at each feeding.

Storing Your Sourdough Starter In The Refrigerator

This reduction in hydration helps the starter hold up extremely well in the fridge. Take out a new, clean jar with a lid.

Think of sourdough starter as a natural leavener, and in many cases, a way to cultivate the wild yeast that exists naturally in flour and in the air, and convert it to something that you can use to make bread (or whatever else) rise.

The World's 'Oldest' Sourdough Starter Was Made With 4,500-Year-Old Yeast. There's no bread quite like sourdough. In addition to being tasty as a sandwich bread, delicious as sourdough croutons, and even great just toasted with butter, sourdough's production process is decidedly unlike other breads.

Baking soda or bicarbonate of soda can be used in sourdough bread to create a less sour loaf. Added after bulk fermentation, but before shaping, it can help to create a lighter, more fluffy loaf of sourdough.

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.

Can I leave my sourdough starter out overnight after feeding it? ›

Can I leave my starter out overnight after feeding it? Yes, if you have just fed it.

As part of the feeding process, most bakers discard some of their sourdough starter before adding fresh flour and water to the jar. This is done to refresh the acidity levels (think sweet vs. sour smell) and to manage its overall growth in size. This technique is crucial for successful sourdough bread.

Myth 2: Sourdough starter requires fancy water

The key to sourdough starter success is using water without chlorine, which can cause the starter to die. While bottled water is chlorine-free, you can also use filtered tap water for our sourdough starter recipe.

If you do not have whole wheat flour, just use all purpose flour instead. The starter will be fine. I switch to all purpose flour for the feedings because it's reliable, inexpensive and practical for everyday baking (remember, a portion of your starter is removed, discarded, or used for something else).

When you overfeed a starter, the culture will multiply more quickly, leading to a stronger and more active starter. It's important to note that overfeeding can also have negative effects on a sourdough starter if done excessively or too frequently.

Teaming with good bacteria and microbes your soil and plants will love, your fermented sourdough starter could be the best homemade fertiliser you've ever used! You can use sourdough discard in your garden in the following ways: Use diluted sourdough discard as a liquid nutrient boost.

With this in mind, we gathered some ideas and recipes to use your sourdough discard in ways that can help the planet, your community and your own household! Throw it in the compost! Unused starter is actually great for the compost pile.

While it's most commonly used to make the type of bread we know as sourdough, you can use a sourdough starter instead of yeast or baking soda to make delicious pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, and cookies.

Simply empty the discard into a new, clean jar, add some water to the old jar, swish it around, pour it into a watering can, and use that rinse water to water your plants. This is gonna give your plants a nice boost of nutrients. to help them continue to grow strong.