How to Rehydrate Dried Sourdough Starter

You may have found this blog post from the back of one of my dehydrated sourdough packets, and if so, thank you for your support. I have been making our own bread for over 35 years, and with sourdough, I aim to keep it as simple as possible.

In this post, I will tell you how to reactivate that precious dried starter. Why is it so precious? I’ve been feeding and baking bread, cookies, pies, even noodles, from this sourdough starter for over 3 years. When the store shelves were empty in the spring of 2020, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find flour to keep feeding my sourdough starter, so I dehydrated some on the lowest setting of my dehydrator, so it would remain alive with the beneficial wild yeasts and bacteria that create the bubbly goodness and rise in sourdough breads. It is basically sleeping and needs to be woken up. That is what I will tell you how to do today. In 2-4 days, depending on your kitchen and temperature, it should be ready to make into your first loaf.

But, the cool thing is, with a little help from you, you can keep this starter going for years of delicious sourdough breads. I started this original sourdough starter from scratch years ago. That means, for 4-6 weeks, I fed it twice a day (feeding means I stirred flour and water into the paste looking mixture,) hoping to capture wild yeast and start the fermentation process. Sometimes people have a hard time with this step, because it does take time and you can’t refrigerate it until it’s fully active. Once it’s active and the bacteria and wild yeast are doing their dance, it won’t mold unless you do something like totally forget about it or feed it the wrong flour. By starting with an active dehydrated (yet sleeping) sourdough starter, you have almost a fool proof way to get started.

It does take a little patience, just like waking up in the morning, if you are the type that has to swing your feet out first, then touch the floor, gradually come to a sitting position…that’s what we are going for here. If you try to do this too fast, it’ll actually slow down the process. Weird, I know.

Some other particulars, ideally your kitchen temp is between 70-75 degrees F, but to be honest, I’ve never checked my kitchen temperature. If you are wearing a down coat, hat and gloves to cook, then your starter will not be terribly happy. Use that as a guide. I’ve written these instructions for friends of The Little Red Farm in Nebraska, who stocks my dried sourdough starter.

Day 1
Step 1: Empty the contents, 30 grams, (if it’s from Prairie Woman Arts) of dried starter into a clean, wide mouth pint jar. You can reuse the zipper packet in the future if you decide to dry your own starter.
Step 2: Add room temp filtered water to cover the flakes, about 1.5 Tablespoons. If your water has chlorine, you will kill your starter, so use filtered.
Step 3: Allow the sourdough flakes to absorb the water for a few minutes, then with clean measuring spoon, add 1 T. unbleached or bread flour, stir it into a paste and cover loosely with cling wrap or a damp cloth. The goal is not to let it dry out or allow flies in. You can transition it to other flour in the future, but to wake it up from it’s slumber, unbleached is the easiest. See notes below.

Day 2
You may or may not see a few bubbles. Uncover the jar, add 2 T. flour, (same as before) and 1 T. water. Stir, trying to keep contents off the rim of the jar. Cover again and set where you won’t forget it. I know this seems like a lot of work, but trust me, it’s 4-6 weeks fewer feedings than you’d do if you were starting from scratch!

Day 3
Oh, the day you have been waiting for. If you are seeing a good amount of bubbles and it has that pleasant sourdough smell, you can give it a full meal of 1/3 cup flour (same as before) and 1/4 cup filtered water. If it’s still looking like it’s having a hard time getting out of bed, repeat day 2.
In my kitchen, because I bake often, I can rehydrate and feed a dried starter and make bread 24 hours later. If that happens, and your starter is super happy in your kitchen and you are experienced with sourdough, go for it. Feed it and bake bread.

There you go. Your sourdough starter is ready to give rise to all kinds of sourdough breads, cookies, waffles, pancakes and more. If you have never used sourdough starter before, and this is all new to you, then you’ll want to join my free email list and let me help walk you through it.

Thank you for being here! I hope you fall in love with simple sourdough!

Anne Dovel
@prairiewomanarts