Certified Organic Live Sourdough Starter, Very Old and Mature - 46 year old Lake District Starter, Bread Starter - 80g for all types of flour with printed instruction by Kombuchaorganic®

Update: 3 months later: starter still going strong, alive and well. Feeding once a day now or even less and it’s continuing to make fantastic bread! Wanted to try making sourdough after baking my own bread using my Panasonic bread machine for the past 8 months or so. I did not have the energy or time to cultivate my own culture so I bought this starter from Amazon. It arrives in a small plastic sealed bag, as other reviewers have mentioned. Its quite watery on arrival. When opened, the intense smell of sourdough bread made me realise that this is the real deal and the bread would turn out with amazing flavour! Instructions could do with a bit of improving. Searching online I fed the starter with 100grams of Wholefood Earth Organic Wholemeal/Dark Rye Flour and 100 ml of boiled and cooled down to room temperature water and stirred into a plastic container. Within 2-3 hours the starter had almost doubled in size and retained its volume for a good 12 hours or so. I then used the first 100grams to make a sourdough bread with white bread flour in my bread machine which turned out amazing! Used its sourdough programme, removed 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour from the base bread recipe and replaced with 100 grams of starter. It has a bit less rise than yeast but the flavour and texture was out of this world and a massive step up from the yeast type. Good open air bubbles in the bread, chewy and a very crunchy crust. Fed the starter again on the same day with another 100 grams of flour and water and it doubled again within a few hours and retained its strength. The culture is certainly very active and eats up the flour at an astonishing rate. Now I will split the culture in two and have one as backup in case I do something wrong and kill one of it. Have just prepared also a couple of pizza's to try tonight! Looking forward to tasting them and see whether they are like the Franco Manca sour dough pizza which I love! Highly recommended, the flavour, smell and rise is excellent!

Amazing. Absolutely no issues. Also a nice instruction provided.

I have been working with this starter for 3 months now. It is amazing and SUPER active! Don’t let the teeny little bag of goo fool you when you receive it! It is very very active. I have even left it for over 2 weeks in my fridge while away on holiday and it was no problem at all. One feed and it was ready to go! I have gifted portions of it to friends and family. Can’t even imagine starting from scratch. Thank you!

First time I’ve ever made a successful sourdough loaf. Failed multiple times after making my own starter previously, so I had stuck with instant yeast for years to avoid flat rock-like loaves. I fed this as instructed for a couple of days first to build it up, and boy did it build. Let’s just say this is very much alive! I shall be looking after and feeding this diligently, though there isn’t much to do as it seems very forgiving. Currently it is my favourite pet so my cat will be disappointed. I spend far more time scouring the web or my book supply for new recipes to use it in, this will keep me happy in my kitchen for ages. Also, the flavour of this loaf is fab. Not too sour, and the texture is very good. I used my usual ‘no knead’ recipe (3 cups flour - 1/2 spelt and 1/2 white bread flour, 1 1/2 cups water, 1 1/2teas pink salt, 1/4teas instant yeast), but added 1 and 1/4 cups of fed starter instead of the 1/4teas yeast, and added 1tbls runny honey. I added the salt after 20mins of the dough resting to give the starter time to get going. I mix in the evening then leave it overnight to rise before shaping, but this one spilled out of the bowl. I use a Dutch oven to cook mine in to get the crisp rise. I didn’t follow the given instructions for how much starter to add to my loaf, probably because I have had horrid sourdough result before, but I think I could easily get away with only using 1 cup. The instructions are good and clear by the way, but I haven’t checked out the website yet. Can’t be more pleased with the results. Sourdough garlic and coriander naan breads next... Update: 3/4 cup of starter is plenty for my recipe. Also does a beautiful half and half whole meal sourdough with 1/4 cup of vital wheat gluten added.

Fresh, organic sourdough starter that works well once going, though the instructions could be clearer. The sourdough starter arrived sealed and fresh with printed instructions. I didn’t find the instructions very clear, but with a little trial and error it activated well. It wasn’t visible in Amazon’s tracking system, which was unexpected, though the seller did give a delivery date and it arrived on time. Once fed with flour and water, the starter doubled in size and showed it’s a genuine live culture, not a freeze-dried version. A reliable organic starter with a long heritage. Clearer instructions would make it even better, but once active it’s a supply for life. Pros: • Genuine live sourdough starter (not freeze-dried) • Fresh, organic, and reliable once active • Strong culture that doubled in size quickly • Heritage starter with long-term value Cons: • Instructions could be clearer for beginners • Package not visible in Amazon’s tracking system

Do not buy this sour dough mother. It’s sent in a vacuum bag and is very dead by the time it arrives. The instructions sent with it are photo copied, so bad you can’t read half of it. I hate leaving bad reviews, I brought two others, one dried and one fresh. This was so bad after a 4 days of feeding it’s still not going anywhere and the other two are producing great sourdough loafs now. Yes I’m using a good flour the same for all 3.

This was a steep learning curve for me as I'd only dabbled in the odd white loaf using my Morphy Richards Fastbake breadmaker in the past. (I only mention the model in case anyone else wants to use one with this product.) It has taken about 4 or 5 attempts to make the perfect loaf (to our taste at least) and today's bake was fully proved and deliciously chewey. Every previous attempt was to sloppy or too sticky, or resulted in being too dense or uneven. So this is my process.... Ingredients (updated after experimentation) 250 warm water 300 starter 400 flour 1 tsp brown sugar 2 tsp salt 0. I oil the bread tin with olive oil as the dough can be sticky, causing uneveness 1. Tip the warm water into the bread tin 2. Add the starter and mix with the water 3. Add the flour 4. Add the sugar and salt 5. Use the dough setting (mode 8) to mix the dough (I stay with it for a few minutes and use a silicon spatula to make sure it doesn't stick and loosen the flower that sticks to the bottom) 6. When finished 90 minutes later, pull the dough to the side and remove the mixing paddle 7. Cover the tin with a damp cloth or tea towel 8. Leave to prove for at least a couple of hours, preferably in the oven if it has a proving setting (35 degrees C), or even over night if at room temperature, otherwise it will be a denser loaf 9. Finally, put the tin back in the bread maker and cook (mode 12) for an hour I have always been addicted to Warburtons Toasty but I'm now a convert, and don't suffer the bloating and water retention that comes with processed white bread.

I can not give any star as I don’t like how was delivered in a plastic foil. Not sure if I want to eat plastic. Many people love it so must be good, but this bag doesn’t look attractive and there is no instructions how to keep it no expiry date, bit confused.