Sourdough Banana Bread (Starter Discard Recipe) - Umami Girl (2024)

FAQs

How much of your sourdough starter should you discard? ›

Experts recommend feeding a starter twice daily. And at each feeding, you hold onto 1/2 cup of your original starter, discard the rest, and then add its same weight in water and flour. With this schedule, you'd discard almost a cup of sourdough starter every day.

Tips and Tricks To Making A Sourdough Starter

Consistent feedings of the starter at the same time every day will ensure proper starter growth. Temperature control the environment and the water for feeding. A moderate 80°F (26°C) is optimal.

Sourdough discard is the unfed portion of your sourdough starter that you remove before you add fresh flour and water.

The acidity of the sourdough discard helps prevent tough gluten strands from forming. This results in tender and moist baked goods! When discard is coupled with a long ferment, it can aid in digestion and help the nutrients to be more bioavailable to our bodies.

It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.

You can use 1-2 week old discard in “discard recipes”… think cookies, brownies, muffins, non-yeast breads, tortillas (pretty much anything that doesn't require active starter (aka wild yeast).

The temperature of the water will affect the activity of a sourdough starter. The ideal temperature for a sourdough starter is between 24 - 28C (75 - 82F). Particularly if you are working in a cold climate, feeding your sourdough starter with warm water will help to boost the activity of the bacteria and yeast.

Place the jar at room temperature for 24 hours, until you begin to see the mixture bubbling up. It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening.

By creating a sourdough starter, you are nurturing a colony of bacteria. Those bacteria have an ideal temperature to thrive in – that's between 20 and 24 Centrigrade, 70 and 75 Farenheit. The closer you can keep your sourdough starter to this temperature, the quicker and easier building it up will be.

I left my sourdough discard out at room temperature for a few days. Is it okay? As long as your kitchen isn't too warm (I'd say 78°F or higher) your starter/discard will be fine stored at room temperature for at least a few days without feeding. The flavor will get more acidic the longer it sits.

How to tell if sourdough discard is bad? ›

So if you see, like, orange or pink streaking in your sourdough discard, that's bad bacteria, and you don't want to eat that, so it's time to throw that one away. That's really the only reason that you're looking for.

Yes you can use sourdough discard straight from the fridge, you don't need to let it come to room temperature if you don't want to. What is this? If you are using it straight from the fridge it may be a little stiff or thick, so you'll need to ensure you mix it really well.

After day 7, do I keep discarding half of my sourdough starter? Nope! Once the sourdough starter is established on day 8, all you have to do is just give it flour and water. You no longer need to discard half of it.

Discarding half is wayyyy LESS wasteful than keeping it around or “sharing” the other half with a friend because… The sourdough starter is not a viable starter until 3 to 5 days old and sometimes longer. It takes that long for the organism balance to get established.

It's usually pretty obvious when your starter has gone bad. You will either see mold or discoloration (generally pink or orange). If you see either of these things, you will need to toss your starter. The smell is usually a big give away.

stir your starter in between feedings - try stirring it twice in between feedings and really give it a chance to get oxygen into the mix. This will help to activate your starter without too much effort.