Question about Reactivating Dried Starter

lilikoiknits

Aloha from Hawaii!

I'm trying to get back into sourdough baking after a few year hiatus. My previous starter was from a friend, but now I've moved (used to be in California) and don't know anyone local I can get one from.

After some searching on the web I found a recommendation for Carl's starter, which I sent off for. I just got it yesterday, and am following the instructions provided on their site to reactivate it. It is bubbling well and smells great. However, for the second day they recommend adding potato water or dried potato. We don't really eat potato in our house and I'd prefer to not have to buy some just for this. Anyone have any advice about if I can leave that out or something else I should do to compensate?

Thanks in advance and hopefully I'll have some bread to share with you soon.

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celia's picture
celia 2009 April 26

Hi Lilikoi, loved your knitting blog btw. The cube is very cute!

I bought my dried starter from Teresa at Northwest Sourdough - she has detailed instructions on reactivating dried starter which you might find useful :

http://www.northwestsourdough.com/activation.html

I've always just reactivated the starter with flour and water.

Cheers and welcome!

Celia

Millciti's picture
Millciti 2009 April 26

I was reading somewhere about the reason for potato starch. Since carl's starter is an old one it probably follows an old techniques. I think I was reading something about potatoes on something that Dan posted. Check this out...

http://sourdough.com/bread/people/danlepard/bookofbread_aust.jpg

But I am with Celia on this, you can do it with just flour and water. If for some reason the culture has been fed potato starch it will adjust in a few days.

Have fun and welcome to this forum! Sounds like everything is going well!

Terri

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