If you have stumbled across this article, chances are you are going through what a lot of Sourdough bakers experience: a weak, inactive Sourdough Starter. Friend, be assured that it happens to the best of us. And I am here to tell you that this is not the end of the road. Read on to find out how you can resurrect your weak sourdough starter and resume your sourdough journey!
How come my sourdough starter is weak?
A weak sourdough starter is not the end of the world, let alone your sourdough journey.
The truth is, the activity of your sourdough starter can vary from week to week, depending on the humidity, temperature, how often and how much you feed your starter.
During the winter months, when the temperature is cooler, the sourdough slows down and does not feed as ravenously. Warmer temperatures activate the starter, making it feed more and become stronger.
How often you feed your starter also determines how bubbly it gets. Sourdough starter loves to be fed frequently, and a LOT. The more it is fed, the bubblier it gets.
A couple of weeks back, I neglected my sourdough starter, which caused it to become weak and inactive. I was not treating her right. I would use a portion, but not replace it with food (flour and water), instead sticking the starter straight back in the fridge.
The thing is, taking care of a Sourdough Starter requires reciprocation. If you take from her, you HAVE to give back, every time, otherwise she will get sluggish and she will not perform for you.
How do I know if my sourdough starter is weak?
Flat Bread
I knew that my sourdough starter had weakened when every bread loaf I baked turned out flat and dense, regardless of how precisely I measured my ingredients, managed the temperature, and proved for the correct length of time.
Instead of puffing up almost to the top of the Dutch Oven, the loaf would linger humbly around the half-way height. The crumb was less buoyant and was a lot denser.
The Dough Breaks
The bread dough was weaker. I could tell, because when I did the stretches and folds, it would tear and not stretch as high.
I know that this is all due to the strength of my starter, because all other ratios were precisely measured as I have always done.
Now that my sourdough starter is bubbly and strong once more, I can stretch my dough to lofty heights, and it jiggles and jives almost like jelly. It meets the windowpane test, every time.
The starter looks lifeless
Other than failed bread and weak dough, you can tell just by looking at a starter that it is weak. It won’t have any bubbles and it won’t rise very much after feeding. It will look lifeless.
An active, bubbly starter, on the other hand, looks alive. It will rise and it will be foamy and bubbly. It will smell yeasty and slightly sour (not just sour).
Can I make bread with a weak sourdough starter?
I would not recommend making bread with a weak sourdough starter. As I said earlier, all my bread loaves turned out flat and dense when I used my weak sourdough starter.
Although edible, this bread is not the best way to use your weak sourdough starter. If you are wanting to revive your starter via constant feedings, then do not make bread with the discard!
I will share plenty of recipes below you can make when you are feeding your sourdough starter. Do not waste it on a flat loaf of bread!
Should I throw away my weak sourdough starter?
No, you definitely do not need to throw away a weak sourdough starter! Unless it actually has mold forming on the top of it, your weak sourdough starter can be brought back from the brink.
If you throw away a sourdough starter every time it gets weak, then you will be missing out on a vital step in sourdough breadmaking: learning how to care for your starter through thick and thin.
Your starter gets better and better the older it gets, even if it goes through bouts of weakness. If you chuck it out and start again every time it gets weak, then you are missing out on the benefits of an aged starter, a starter that has withstood the test of time.
Your sourdough starter is as unique as the particular yeasts in your home environment. Just as you have a microbiome in your gut, so too does your home have a microbiome. Your sourdough starter picks up the yeasts from your specific environment, so the longer your sourdough is living in your home, the more tailored to you it gets.
Even if you chuck it out and manage to get hold of a starter that is equally as old, or older, that starter will not be adapted to your environment.
But hey, if you have no other choice, then some starter is better than none at all.
How can I fix my weak Sourdough Starter?
Alright, now we can get down to business: how to actually fix a Sourdough Starter that has weakened.
A sourdough starter has weakened through neglect and underfeeding, and will only get strong again through attention and regular feedings. No refrigeration, please, until you notice it starting to get bubbly again.
Here is how I strengthened my sourdough starter across one week: I fed it every day, and left it on the counter. I did not put it in the fridge until I could see that it was starting to bubble again.
Feeding it every day sounds like a drag, doesn’t it? Especially if you do not like to waste that discard and need to find recipes to use it up (because even weak discard is still useful).
I tell you what, there was a LOT of discard that week. This is because a starter will feed the best, and most hungrily (and produce more bubbles) if the ratio of food to starter is about 3:1. That is, 3 parts food, 1 part starter.
So every time I fed my starter, I was discarding most of it and replacing it with food of flour and water. I would discard about 1 cup every day, and replace that with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of flour.
After 5 days, my starter perked up, became bubbly and started overflowing again (I took that for granted before!).
The best recipes to resurrect a weak sourdough starter:
Since resurrecting a weak sourdough starter requires a lot of discard on a daily basis, I had to use sourdough discard recipes that used up a lot of discard. I’m talking at least 1 cup of discard.
I steered clear of bread, because my recipes only use about 1/2 a cup of starter per loaf, and I was not going to force myself to chow down loaves upon loaves of dense bread!
Sometimes I had to make multiple discard recipes in one day to use up enough discard. I made cakes, bagels, biscuits (scones), tortillas and pancakes. Here are the links to my FAVOURITE sourdough discard recipes for these:
- Sourdough Discard Apple Cake
- Sourdough Discard Chocolate Cake
- Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake
- Sourdough Discard Caramel Latte Cake
- Sourdough Discard Pineapple Cake
- Sourdough Zucchini Pancakes
- Sourdough Tortillas
- Sourdough Biscuits
- Sourdough Bagels
And the best thing is, these “by-products” of my sourdough starter resurrection journey, were all delicious! I loved the challenge of having to bake something every day with my discard. This journey fed us morning, noon and night.
And guess what? Now my starter is beautifully bubbly and alive, my bread is grazing the top of my Dutch oven, and I feel like I can look myself in the eye once again.
