We post your sourdough starter at 40% hydration. This means that the starter has a high flour to water ratio and is really a small piece of dough when shipped. It's packaged in a glass jar and then recyclable material to protect it whilst posting. We only post our our sourdough starters Mondays - Thursdays to ensure that your starter can get to you within 48 hours (latest) we aim for 24.

Fresh Sourdough Starter:

For long term storage of sourdough starter we recommend that you keep your starter in the fridge (we keep ours at +4 to +7 degrees celcius). This slows down the yeast and bacteria activity which means that it gives you more flexibility and time in terms of how often you need to feed it.

Once you are ready to bake, take out how much you need from the fridge and feed. Leave your sourdough starter on the counter overnight and then use once you are ready.

Dry Sourdough Starter:

Keep this is a cool dry place until you are ready to use. We don't recommend a fridge since it can be quite humid.

When you are ready to bake (the night before) feed your starter and leave it to rise overnight on the counter.

We include your first feed/ refresh ingredients (flour that matches your chosen sourdough) in the package.

You will also find instructions for your first feed and levain and longer term instructions for keeping your sourdough starter healthy.

Check out our blog 'How to care for your sourdough starter' for the details.

Whilst techinically you can freeze sourdough starter and then revive it, we don't recommend it.

We have tested several times with our own fresh sourdough starters and have had mixed results in terms of bringing the sourdough starter back to life.

If you want to preserve your starter, lets say you aren't using it right now we recommend mixing a small portion of your starter with a lot of flour until it makes little crumbs (we do this in a food processor). Store this in a airtight jar or bag in the fridge until you are ready to use it again.

No, you can bake any sourdough recipes with our starters. People simply prefer certain starters because of the taste associated with Rye and Spelt. Rye is also naturally low in gluten so might be a more attractive option to those who are avoiding it.

It is highly unlikely that your sourdough starter will be 'dead' if you receive it and feed it within 72 hours of it leaving us. It may be a little slow, so if you are seeing that your starter has not doubled after the first feed, continue feeding it once every 12 hours. It should be back to peak within a day or two.

We are sourdough nerds here at GetSourdough. We ensure that we use the best quality ingredients because flavor comes first. We hand mix and pack each sourdough starter with care to ensure that it gets to you in the best condition possible. For us that means that your sroudough starter is healthy and active and can be used in as little as a few hours.

Our aim is for this to be your last sourdough starter, so we include in depth instructions with each of our sourdough starters. If you have any questions we are here to help and even point you to some of our favorite content creators if needed.

We regularly bake with our own sourdough starter to ensure that it still performs how we would expect. All the baked goods and sourdough starters you see on the website are the real images of the sourdough starters we sell or the baked goods we have made with our sourdough starters.

Drop us an email at care@sourdough.co.uk and we can get your refund processed.