Living Dough - 900 Year Old Sourdough Starter Culture - Active & Live Organic Sourdough Starter for Baking - For Artisan Bread, Pizza Dough, Waffles & More

I’ve had a wonderful experience with this sourdough starter. It activated well, was easy to maintain, and produced delicious sourdough bread with great flavor and texture. One of the things I enjoyed most was using the discard for other recipes. I’ve made pancakes and several other baked goods, and everything turned out fantastic. The instructions were clear, and the starter has been very reliable. Highly recommend for both beginners and experienced sourdough bakers! 🍞

I couldn't help but be curious about a long living starter! I decided to go with the oldest one. It shipped promptly, and arrived sooner than expected. It was well packaged. The seal on the jar was intact. When it hissed open I was met with a rich aroma. I got roughly 60 grams of starter and fed it at 1:1:1 with unbleached bread flour. Very quickly I was seeing activity and a healthy rise. There was lots of active bubbling to be seen! The first time around took about 6 hours to peak, give or take. Every 1:1:1 feeding after that had it doubling and then peaking in less than 4 in my warm kitchen. I fed it peak to peak 3 times before I baked with it. The first loaf turned out beautifully! The rise in the dough was quick and consistent. I did have medium rye for 1/6th of the flour and the rest bread flour, all King Arthur Organic Unbleached. The rye does get a faster rise, but this is my usual blend and this rose noticeably faster. The dough smelled heavenly. It did have its own distinct characteristics in smell. It was fascinating to see how this starter behaved in comparison to my previous starter. Even during the long cold proofing my loaf rose a bit more with this strain. Everything looked and felt good. Definitely had a distinct higher performance. I finally got my loaf into the oven. The oven spring on the loaf was very good! The crumb was lovely. Even though I served it before it fully cooled it was still fluffy and light. The bread had delicious and distinct aromatics! This starter certainly has character. I asked the seller about this strains origins and history. They responded quickly with some really interesting information! I was so jazzed to read about it. This strain in particular is in a European Sourdough Museum (Belgium, I believe) . I'm going to look into that museum to see if I can see what details their testing found. Since this strain has some early origin lore in Wales, I had to think of a proper name. Since legends say that's where Merlin came from, I felt I needed to honor that. Since I already have a strain named Sir Lanceloaf (Since I use King Arthur flour mostly) i had to tie it all together. As I watched the starter rising it occurred to me. I named it Excalibread. If you're even the mildest bit curious, or just starting your own Sourdough Journey, I cannot recommend this brand enough. I can't recommend this strain enough! It's a powerful and healthy little starter! I was so pleased with my loaf that I decided to let Sir Lanceloaf take a fridge vacation and I'll be maintaining Excalibread on the counter for the foreseeable future. It was such a great experience all around. So, allow me to be the little Amazon devil on your shoulder, add to cart!!!

I am absolutely OBSESSED with my San Francisco sourdough starter from The Living Dough! As someone brand new to sourdough, I was nervous to start, but this starter has been amazing and so active. I lovingly named her Doughreen 😂🍞 She’s actually inspired an entire social media series for me called “No Oven, No Problem,” where I experiment with making sourdough recipes in my air fryer because the oven in our travel trailer doesn’t work. I never expected a sourdough starter to become part of my personality, but here we are lol. The flavor has been incredible, the instructions were easy to follow, and it’s been such a fun hobby to dive into. If you’ve been thinking about starting your sourdough journey, this is your sign!

This starter comes hydrated, which makes it much easier to get started, unlike dehydrated starters. It smells great! Mine began to double after the first feeding. By the second feeding, it had more than doubled in size, and I took my chances at baking a loaf with it. It was delicious!!! Light, airy, beautiful crumb, great rise, and perfect crust! The method I used was to let it bulk rise in the oven with the light off and on for a few hours, and then in the fridge overnight. For the second rise, it was on my counter for about 3 hours. Of note, my house does not stay at a warm temperature because I run my AC at night and throughout the day, so I kept my starter in the pantry during feedings. I fed it bread flour and filtered water. After feeding my starter the third time, it was a monster and began to push through the cloth I had secured over the jar! I had so much starter that I baked a second loaf, as well as three 12-inch pizzas! I won't be ordering pizzas from anywhere anymore. Making them at home from this is now the only way to do it!

I was able to make my first loaf of sourdough after the third feeding of the starter. I'm using the King Arthur flour bread machine recipe with either whole wheat or white bread machine flour to make my bread. Both of them produce really tasty loafs. My first loaf didn't rise well, but the bread machine yeast was old and when I got a new jar of yeast everything turned out perfectly. I can either let the bread machine do it all, or I can have it do the kneading and rising functions, then bake the loaf in the oven. It seems to stay fresh and relatively soft with a crunchy crust for 4-5 days in a wooden bread box. If you want to make your own sourdough, I definitely recommend this for maintaining your culture.

Bought a dehydrated starter in powder form. This stuff was unbelievably difficult to work with. I eventually decided sourdough baking wasn’t for me and gave up. I had a good experience buying kefir grains from Amazon so as a last ditch effort I decided to buy this starter from Amazon. If it didn’t work I truly would have never attempted sourdough again. THIS STUFF IS AMAZING. It is SO FORGIVING, I have used it now for so many different recipes and all come out PERFECT. I am no longer exasperated by sourdough baking but excited and relaxed by it. This starter is strong, I baked my first loaf within 3 days. The rise is phenomenal. Even when it is hungry and needs to be fed I can still make an incredible springy loaf with it. Instructions are great. Thank you!!!!

Great for when your starting out but I found its way cheaper to make your own fast delivery

Strong starter! Perked up within hours of feeding it and started making sourdough bread the next day. I had struggled to get a good starter going, fussing with it too much, probably, so this was a good way to get a starter I could actually use while getting through the learning curve. It's not fussy at all. I save a couple of tablespoons from each batch and put it into the fridge, pull it out when I want to use it, feed it the amount of flour and water I need for the recipe and a few hours later, it's ready. It's not as sour as I'd like, but it's reliable and delicious.