For the flavor-inclined, sourdough bread is one of the greatest creations to ever come out of an oven — slightly pungent and salty with so many varied textures in one single food item: crispy, chewy, airy, and even a little fluffy. Sourdough starter is somewhere between a classic culinary technique and an at-home science experiment. Making sourdough starter the traditional way may seem like a daunting task, even a bit scary. You just leave it out on the countertop at room temperature? But won’t it go bad? Not if you do it right, but you need a little patience and some know-how. One ingredient, however, can give you a leg up, and it’s not even cheating (like simply adding yeast). Set the stage for super healthy yeast growth by adding some yogurt to your sourdough starter.
The addition of yogurt to your sourdough starter, when first developing yeast growth, will help drop the pH level of your flour and water mixture, thanks to the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) it contains. The low pH is what gives sourdough its sour flavor and establishes environs that are less conducive to mold and bad bacteria growth — making your starter less likely to spoil, right off the bat. Using yogurt also promotes faster wild yeast colonization. So, you can take some of the stress out of sourdough with a natural probiotic.
How to use yogurt in your sourdough starter
To make your sourdough starter with yogurt, you can simply add a couple of tablespoons to a traditional sourdough starter recipe, or start with equal parts yogurt and flour, then add water until it makes a loosely packed, wet dough. From there, you follow all of the next steps of a regular starter recipe. While the additional yogurt ingredient will get you off on the right foot and create an environment for a starter that’s less likely to go bad, it will take about the same amount of time to ripen — about seven days to two weeks.
Much like you shouldn’t use chlorinated water straight from the tap or bleached flour, because they may kill the natural yeast, you should only use all-natural yogurt, free of added gums, sugars, and thickeners. Greek yogurt or any other plain yogurt will work great, but definitely use something with live cultures. Once fully colonized with yeast, if you take care of it with regular feedings, you’ll have a delicious sourdough starter that will produce for years to come — you can even pass it down as an heirloom starter for generations. If you know how to do it, you can freeze your sourdough starter, and the acid created in fermentation means you can store your homemade sourdough bread for up to five days.
