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Make Sourdough Bread Starter in a Luvele Yogurt Maker
Create your very own bubbling jar of life!
Until the invention of baker’s yeast less than 200 years ago, sourdough was the only way to make bread rise. This simple mix of flour, water, and wild microorganisms creates the volume, texture, and signature tang of sourdough bread.
In this post, we’ll show you how to make your own sourdough starter from scratch, or activate a dehydrated starter using the steady water bath of the Luvele Pure Plus Yogurt Maker. With the right temperature, good flour, and a little patience, you’ll be on your way to baking real sourdough at home.
Making sourdough starter in the Luvele Pure Plus Yogurt Maker takes the guesswork out of temperature control and helps you establish a strong, healthy starter. Be patient, feed it regularly, and soon you’ll have a bubbling jar of life that can bake beautiful loaves for years to come.
The Magic of Sourdough
A sourdough starter is a living culture of flour, water, wild yeasts, and bacteria. When fed regularly, these organisms thrive, producing carbon dioxide to leaven bread and giving it that unmistakable sour aroma.
Once you have an active starter (often called the “mother”), you never use it up completely. Instead, you refresh it with flour and water so it can continue its life indefinitely.
Three Ways to Start a Sourdough Starter
Make one from scratch: With just flour, water, and time, you can grow your own culture. This method usually takes 7–14 days before it’s strong enough to bake with, but it’s an incredibly rewarding process.
Use a dehydrated starter: Available online or in specialty shops, a dehydrated starter reactivates in just a few feedings. You’ll usually be ready to bake within 3–5 days.
Get a gift from a friend: A spoonful of someone else’s active starter is enough to grow your own. With this method, you can be baking sourdough within 24 hours.
Temperature: The Key to Success
Of all the factors that affect sourdough, temperature is the most critical. A starter will thrive in a range between 20–35°C (68–95°F). Cooler temperatures slow fermentation and can cause an imbalance of yeast and bacteria, while heat above 35°C can kill the culture altogether.
Why use the Luvele Pure Plus Yogurt Maker?
This is where the Luvele Pure Plus Yogurt Maker is a game changer. The water bath ensures that your starter stays at a consistent temperature without fluctuations. Set the temperature to 25°C (78°F) and place your jar inside with the cover lid on top. A wide glass jar works best so it won’t topple over in the bath. Simply refresh the water every few days and reset the temperature at each feeding.
Flour, Water and Oxygen
The flour you choose makes a big difference to the strength of your starter. Rye and whole wheat flours are nutrient rich and encourage lively fermentation, with rye being especially reliable for beginners. Once your starter is established you can switch to other flours or even combine them, although you may notice a short adjustment phase as the culture adapts to its new food.
Always use filtered, chlorine-free water because chlorine inhibits yeast activity. And remember, your starter needs to breathe. Cover the jar lightly with a lid so that air can flow in and out. The Luvele tall glass containers with the valve removed are ideal for this, and the yogurt maker’s cover lid also allows airflow.
Young vs. Mature Starter
If you’ve created your starter from scratch, it will be considered “young” for the first few weeks. During this stage it may not behave consistently, but with regular feeding it will grow stronger. A mature starter is months old or more, and it displays a predictable rhythm of bubbling, rising, and developing its classic sour aroma. With maturity, the culture becomes resilient and easier to maintain, and the bread it produces develops a deeper flavour.
Feeding and Caring for Your Starter
To keep your starter healthy, it needs to be fed regularly with fresh flour and water. Most bakers use a simple 1:1:1 ratio by weight — equal parts starter, flour, and water. This is the easiest way to keep the microorganisms in balance and maintain the right consistency. Always remove some of the starter before feeding so that it doesn’t grow too large and unmanageable.
Where you keep your starter depends on how often you plan to bake. If you bake every day, leave it at room temperature and feed it every 12 hours. If you only bake once or twice a week, it’s better to store it in the refrigerator and feed it once a week to keep it alive. When you’re ready to bake, bring it out, feed it, and allow it to become bubbly and active before using it in dough. For longer breaks you can freeze or dehydrate your starter, then revive it with several feedings when you’re ready to use it again.
Troubleshooting
Sourdough is forgiving, but there are a few things to watch for.
- Strong, nail polish-like smell: Your starter is hungry—feed it.
- Liquid on top (hooch): Normal. Pour it off or stir it in, then feed.
- Pink/orange or furry growth: Contaminated. Discard and start again.
- No activity after 7 days: The flour, water, or environment may be unsuitable. Start fresh.
STEP BY STEP HOW TO MAKE SOURDOUGH FROM SCRATCH
When you make a sourdough bread starter from scratch you are cultivating wild yeast and bacteria from just rye flour, water and the environment. The process will take 1-2 weeks. If on some days, it doesn’t grow don’t assume it’s dead, just continue feeding. Over the feedings, bubbles will appear, and a tangy smell will develop.
Set Up: Find a secure place in your home where you can leave your yogurt maker, scales and flour. There is no risk using your yogurt maker continuously, although do reset the temperature and time at each feed and refresh the water every few days.
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