Give Your Sourdough Starter A Head Start With One Single Addition

The beginning phase of a sourdough starter is arguably the most crucial, as the bacteria you are trying to cultivate haven't yet matured enough to fully ward off competitors trying to ruin the starter rather than help keep it alive. If you're struggling with this beginning phase, there's a simple ingredient you can add to your sourdough starter at the beginning that will help it push through. We spoke to Jamie Saechao, a sourdough blogger at Ginger Homemaking, to find out more.

To get the suspense out of the air, the ingredient in question is yogurt. The foolproof method for making sourdough starter from scratch typically involves combining flour and water — and that's it. However, Saechao says yogurt can help. "Yogurt can be used to encourage a sourdough starter to grow more quickly and create an environment that discourages the growth of mold and bacteria," she explained. Mold is a surefire sign that you need to throw the sourdough starter away lest you make yourself sick, so keeping it at bay is crucial.

The basic idea is that you're adding the yogurt as a source of food for the good bacteria you're trying to cultivate, which helps it establish its roots in the starter faster. "Once the starter is established, it will function in the exact same way as a traditional starter," Saechao explained. In other words, this won't affect your sourdough bread recipe in any way since we're just using the yogurt at the beginning; this isn't a tip for making yogurt sourdough bread.

The inclusion of yogurt in your sourdough starter will only take place during the first week. As Jamie Saechao explained it: "Add the yogurt to the sourdough starter when you begin building your starter. On day one, you will add flour, water, and yogurt to your container. After day seven or eight, you can stop using yogurt and begin feeding your starter a 1:1 ratio of flour and water."

It's worth pointing out that different recipes will offer other avenues for adding yogurt to a sourdough starter. Some recipes follow Saechao's method of adding flour, water, and yogurt in equal proportions together. Other recipes will replace the water entirely with yogurt for the first week and then switch over to water once the week has passed. Feel free to experiment with the two methods and decide for yourself which one you like best.

As for what kind of yogurt to use, Saochao had this to say, "You want to use yogurt that has live active cultures, is plain in flavor, and has no thickeners or sweeteners added. You can use homemade yogurt, Greek yogurt, or traditional styles of yogurt." Of course, if all of this sounds too complicated, you could always purchase a sourdough starter from a bakery, in which case the starter will already be established and mature — which means you won't need to add yogurt at all.