What is Sourdough Discard? - Amy Bakes Bread (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between sourdough and sourdough discard? ›

When you feed sourdough starter, you must remove a portion of the starter to make room for the flour and water you're adding to the mixture. Sourdough discard is the portion of starter that gets removed as part of its routine maintenance.

Culinary-wise, sourdough discard can be used in various recipes such as pancakes, waffles, muffins, sourdough pasta and quick breads like sourdough banana bread to impart a tangy flavor, reduce food waste, and add complexity of flavor to your baked goods.

Sourdough discard: If you don't sourdough discard saved up, feel free to use active sourdough starter. If you don't have a strater, add 56 grams of flour and 56 grams of water to your dough.

I recommend keeping sourdough discard for about one week, but I do know others who keep it for much longer. After one week, there is a higher risk of mold or bad bacteria growing on the discard.

Sourdough discard recipes not only reduce waste but also offer health benefits, making them a wonderful addition to a balanced diet. The fermentation process of the sourdough starter increases the availability of certain nutrients and can help improve digestion.

Experts recommend feeding a starter twice daily. And at each feeding, you hold onto 1/2 cup of your original starter, discard the rest, and then add its same weight in water and flour. With this schedule, you'd discard almost a cup of sourdough starter every day.

I would say the best way to differentiate between discard and active starter is that active starter is starter that has doubled and peaked whereas discard is any starter that is not the main starter and is not being used in an active sourdough recipe as a leavening agent.

Even when refrigerated, sourdough discard will eventually go bad. It is important to always check your sourdough discard for signs of spoilage in order to prevent adding an unpleasant flavor to foods — or worse, consuming harmful pathogens. Be sure to examine your discard with your senses of sight and smell.

Before using it, let it thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature, never in the microwave.

Depending on how fresh the discard is, sourdough discard tastes acidic, sour, and tangy. If recent, it may have a yeasty taste or smell to it and still be bubbly. On the other hand, the older the sourdough discard is, the more acidic it becomes.

How do I activate sourdough discard? ›

Refeed all of the discard. If you used up most of your starter to make bread and only have a little bit left you can refeed all of your discard to reactivate the starter. Refeed some of the discard and save some of the discard.

A clear liquid on top of a starter that has vigorously risen and fallen and was covered with bubbles (which have subsided) is hooch. If you see hooch on your starter, discard and refeed. A clear liquid on top of a starter that has not vigorously risen and fallen is water separation.

Both active sourdough starter and sourdough discard is a mixture of flour and water that has been fermented. Sourdough discard is any portion of the sourdough starter that is not used to make bread or to sustain your mother starter.

At room temperature (70 F), sourdough discard should last about 1-2 days. Beyond that, it won't go bad necessarily, it will just become more acidic as time goes on (especially in warm weather). Not ideal for sweet recipes. In the fridge, it will keep for about a week or so, and in the freezer it will last indefinitely.

Approximately 12-24 hours after the starter was refreshed, or 6-12 hours after it became active, the sourdough starter becomes discard . At this stage, the starter has fallen to a smaller volume, looks like a thick liquid, may have some very small bubbles, and has a more sour smell or overripe fruit.

Absolutely you can! Active starter can be used in the same way as sourdough discard in sweet or savory baking. You can add active sourdough starter to any recipe you would add discard to following the same calculation.

Just feed your starter with enough flour and water to create as much as each recipe calls for. Your starter won't have a strong flavor, but it will work perfectly in each recipe. Can I use sourdough discard to make a new sourdough starter? Absolutely!

A “fed” sourdough starter is ripe, has fermented for several hours, and is ready to be used in a bread-making recipe. An “unfed” sourdough starter has not been fed in a while and is essentially considered sourdough starter discard.