Cultures for Health Rye Sourdough Starter | Heirloom Style Dehydrated Culture for Baking Artisan Bread | DIY English Muffins, Noodles, Waffles, & More | Non-GMO Prebiotic Sourdough Bread

Not having a successful experience with this product. I followed the direction . No rise in bubbling. Tonight I read 1 reviewer who said try 100 degree water bath. I’m trying to that now. 2 suggestion use warm water 3 suggestion add water first. This company must think everyone lives in warm climates. I live in Ohio and I am struggling. Our weather has been terrible cold . I’m going to ask for my money back if this product does not work.save your money if you live in north east Ohio.

Final update: Seller had actually sent a message saying “reply to this message with ‘full refund’ if you would like a full refund.” I replied as such. Seller asked for details about my sourdough process. After multiple back and forths and my prompting they said they actually were not issuing a refund because I’m still working on my starter… what? lol. Huge waste of time and personally I’m never ordering from them again. Update: Seller gave me a refund :,( I feel terrible but I did try my best with it. I’m going to buy it again so I can hopefully get it started and give this five stars. I’ve been really hesitant to write a review, because it could be something on my end. However, I feel I’ve tried EVERYTHING and haven’t gotten this starter to work. I followed the directions exactly and didn’t have a working starter after a week. At a certain point (after the week) I added less water so it could hold bubbles better and I could see if it was growing. I’ve since tried two different bottled waters, mainly spring, multiple flours, including whole wheat and multiple methods of warming the starter. Currently I’ve been using unbleached AP at a 1:1:1 ratio, with the proofing setting on my toaster at 85 degrees and feeding consistently at either the 12 hour mark or the 24 hour mark (trying to figure out when it would like to be fed). It bubbles a little bit and bubbles reach the surface eventually, say around the 12 hour mark and by that point it’s basically more liquid than solid, I can pour it like liquid into the trash when it’s time to discard (starts out like thick pancake batter). However, in that 12 hours it grows maybe a fifth (and that’s after like 6 hours and also where it stops). I’m now adding rye to see if that will get it going. Anyways, POINT IS: It’s been over a month now and even if it eventually starts growing properly (which I’m hoping it will) I can’t say the starter I originally purchased had anything to do with it. I’m pretty sure I just created my own starter for $13. One thing I will say is it never went through the early doubling phase that happens when starting your own starter and it never smelled bad. So maybe it was alive, I don’t know - but it didn’t work as advertised and I’m pretty annoyed at this point thinking I probably could’ve had more luck starting my own fresh starter three weeks ago… I don’t know.

Excellent product and the perfect sourdough flavor! Within a few days of activating this starter I was using it to bake up basic sour dough bread, pizza dough, breakfast calzones, and even sourdough banana bread. It gives the breads a delicious and delightful moist flavor. I am using it in some no-knead recipes from "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day" also with success, even though those recipes have added yeast. But no added yeast in anything else, for this starter has developed into a starter that has a hefty lift. For the first couple of weeks I fed it at least twice a day to build it. It mildly bubbled and foamed the first several days, then suddenly I woke up that morning to find an overflowing starter all over my kitchen counter (see picture). I realized then it was ready to "roll". I also made a homemade starter using rye flour initially at the same time so I could compare the two. This SF one from Cultures for Health is superior in flavor and strength. It was definitely worth the money! Already I have dried some out and frozen it to make sure I don't accidentally lose this starter. It lives in the refrigerator now in its liter sized Fido jar. If I leave it out on the counter for more than an hour I make sure there is a bowl under the jar as it will suddenly over flow if it has been fed that day. I need to name it because it is almost like a pet. At least two to three times a week I take it out of the refrigerator and feed it. I shudder at the thought that it might ever form hooch if ignored too long. Definitely frequent feedings keep it strong, healthy and vital. Also, I am very particular about only using filtered water and making sure my utensils and jars are kept clean. A couple of coffee filters over the jar top work well to help protect it. Mostly I feed it with King Arthur's Bread Flour, but periodically I will use some whole wheat and that keeps it versatile. It is rare that any starter goes down the drain here. I use it to keep a tub of pizza/calzone dough going in the refrigerator so it is always available and ready. I highly recommend this starter! The flavor is certainly reminiscent of the Bay Area breads and much better than my homegrown starter.

This is a best seller for a reason. Made great tasting sourdough that me and my kids worked on together. I let them take the lead and it was easy for them to follow the steps. Bread came out perfect. Like it was straight out of our local bakery. Looked perfect and the best part is that we can make batch after batch for a fraction of the cost of buying it at the store. Have you seen the price of bread these days???

The culture did not grow in spite of following the directions exactly for several days. The packet has a sell by date of Jan 1, 2027 so it should contain cultures that would be activated. I'm going to request the manufacturer to send me a replacement. I'm not going to spend more money on a potentially non-functional product. Photo shows sourdough culture after 3 days incubated at 78 degrees F. I will modify review if I obtain a replacement that is functional. I notified the seller of my issue with the culture not growing as expected. The seller responded within a day and offered possible reasons for why the culture may have not performed and offered to send me a replacement at no cost. In all fairness, I did continue to feed the culture as directed and in three more days the culture did begin to grow normally. So, for those who do not get rapid growth, I suggest just giving the culture a few extra days with the standard feeding process and temperatures. Once I receive the replacement culture, I will run a test comparison between using our well water and the recommended bottled natural spring water to determine if the water source was the issue. At this stage, I'm still leaning toward the dehydrated sourdough culture as having a lower than standard viable cell density. Because of the fast response, helpful suggestions, offering a no cost replacement culture and fact that the culture did ultimately grow and produce good bread, I'm revising my rating to 4 stars.

All I can say is trust the process. I think most give up on day 3 saying the starter is dead or it didn’t work for me. This is my first time making starter for SD. Here what i would do different. 1. it’s important to mix the starter with water first. Add the tbsp of flour slowly and mix. I did it backwards and got clump of dough so i added more water. 2. on day 3 it will look like glue. Don’t give up. 3 day 5 1(/2 cup stage), place the starter jar in a 100degree warm bath. you will start to see the webbing effect slowly. 4. Cut in half discard and feed 1:1:1 by day 7 Do this daily to get a strong sour starter. 4. If you get Hooch, it’s a good thing. I’m now on week 2 and finally figured out the proper ratios so my bread is light and fluffy.

It took a LONG time for me to get this starter going. I had to troubleshoot and make a few adjustments that the instructions don’t mention, which they should: -Your starter should be stored in an area that doesn’t dip below 74-78 degrees. -You will have MUCH more success feeding with whole wheat flour vs any other flour as it has a higher nutritional content than other flours that the bacteria in the starter prefers. Had this information been included in the instructions, it wouldn’t have taken me weeks of trial and error to get my starter ready for use, and probably would have earned this a 5 star review. Otherwise, once I got it going, I was able to produce a beautiful loaf on my 2nd go around. My first loaf was ugly and dense but I couldn’t say for sure if it was because the starter was still not ready to bake or because of my first-time baking sourdough errors.

I had been researching this seller's site; they only sell fermentation products and seemed to be experts. When I saw this starter in Amazon, I gave it a try. You get a cardboard box the size of a sandwich bag, but inside there's only a packet the size of a restaurant packet of saccharin. The instructions have you adding, in the first day, 1T. of flour to 1T. of water to the packet's bare teaspoon of contents. Next day, 2T. flour and 2T. of water. Starting with such minuscule amounts is just silly and also frustrating; making a starter needn't require all that measuring. Make your own, instead. I started this along with a DIY recipe from Google; the DIY starter began to bubble sooner, was more robust, and made a lot more. Like politics, all yeast is local, so a DIY starter produces a sourdough in tune with your climate and locale. Be sure to use a permeable top with a rubber band and a quart size glass (nonreactive) jar, to keep out flies but allow the yeast access. (Flies like to lay eggs in starter, yeast exists everywhere in the air.) Use purified water without chlorine, which can kill yeast. And be sure to use wholegrain flour rather than regular unbleached, as it contains a lot more of the nutrients needed for the yeast to grow. (Try rye, spelt, or other grains, it doesn't have to be wheat.) Start with 1/4C. of flour, an equal amount or a little less of warm water, and 1/4t. honey; stir vigorously to aerate well--you want a consistency like pancake batter. Next day, increase by the same amounts of flour & water, adding no more honey. Take out about half every day, adding in new in equal amounts as before, to give the yeast fresh food. After several days, you'll begin to smell that fresh yeast aroma, almost fruity--that's good news. Just stir the yellow fluid on top right back in and keep going, taking out the old before adding new. Keep your jar about half full--when the starter bubbles up to double its size, it's ready to use. If you can't get to it every day, refrigeration slows the process. Or use any DIY starter recipe you find on Google. If you really feel you just can't do without a commercial starter, King Arthur sells a fresh WET starter for just $8.95. (King Arthur also has recipes for the discard amounts, so you needn't waste it.) Save yourself the $14. This product was a complete disappointment.

This starter worked great and I am now successfully baking whole-wheat and einkorn sourdough bread and sourdough pizza. It took about a week to get active because my kitchen is on the cool side (18C). When I saw it was slow I resolved by placing a bottle of hot water in the same cupboard of the starter and keeping a towel around the starter itself to keep it warm. Great product!

Excelente producto

Used this brand for last two years but the last two cultures i bought were dead and didnot rise. Culture this expensive should work Never buying this again

Made lots of loaves so far

I have the San Fran sourdough and now this one. Homemade starters are only as tasty as the bacteria in your kitchen environment or present in your flours, and modern kitchens are so full of cleaners and are so infrequently used for baking etc that they just don't have what it takes to make a great starter. The same goes for modern flour mills. There is a reason that artisanal bakers will travel the world and pay a lot of money for a brilliant tasting culture. Homemade starters may add sourness, but they will never give as complex a flavour. These ones are not like an expensive European import, but they are consistently very tasty, and I'd recommend them to any home baker.