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Sourdough Starter

Living culture of wild yeast and bacteria for leavening.

Line drawing illustrating sourdough starter
A living culture of flour, water, wild yeast and bacteria that leavens bread.

A living culture of wild yeast and beneficial bacteria (primarily lactic acid bacteria) that naturally occurs in flour and the environment. It's maintained by regular feeding with flour and water and used to leaven bread instead of commercial yeast.

Put this into practice

Related Tool

Starter & Levain Studio

Build a levain, feed your starter by ratio, plan multiple stages, scale a dough, and learn your own peak timing.

Open Starter & Levain Studio →
Sourdough Starter Guide

Use the starter guide for maintenance, recovery, feeding, and common starter problems.

Open Starter Guide →

By Henry Hunter · Updated

Henry's notes from the bench

  • Name it! You're more likely to feed something called 'Herman' than 'that jar in the back of the fridge.'

Connected terms

FeedingDiscardLevain

Watch it at the bench

Why Isn't My Starter Doubling? How to Rescue a Sourdough Starter That Won't Rise
Your Sourdough Starter Isn't Dead. She's Just Dramatic.
My Starter Was Drowning in Hooch. Here’s How I Brought It Back.
The Only Sourdough Starter Guide You'll Ever Need (7 Days to Bread Magic)
Report a correction for this termCorrection inbox owner: Henry Hunter · Reply within 7 days

Go deeper

BakingGreatBread.blog
The Sourdough Starter Guide

Full article

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