100+ yr old SAN FRANCISCO Sourdough Starter | Passed down from my Great Grandfather who was a baker at Fisherman’s Wharf | Easy to follow instructions | Includes detailed instructions and recipe |

Decided to give this a go because my former starter got moldy from neglect! Couldn't imagine how starter sent in the mail would be good, let alone activate after being shipped. Wowza, was I surprised! Directions to re-activate the starter were easy and so successful. Her new name is Beula and she's a bute! I made 2 loaves today. A traditional sourdough round and a croissant style loaf. Haven't tried a croissant loaf... well it's a treat! Grate a cold stick of butter and add it to your stretch and folds. Keep the dough in a cool place so the butter stays in grated pieces, even to rest before cold proofing in the fridge. Make it just like a traditional loaf, baking time and all. Delish!The larger loaf on the photo is the croissant style loaf.I highly recommend this starter. Super active and made fabulous bread!

We had the best experience with this starter. The starter is very active, the smell is great, the instructions are easy to follow, and the resulting sourdough bread tastes great. I started on Saturday and followed the instructions for the starter but decided to use the first discard for a pizza dough. I changed my mind at the last minute and made a small loaf of bread. I have never made sourdough bread nor worked with sourdough starter before now but the taste is similar to Goldminers bread at the first loaf, the crust is excellent, the smell is great, and I had to start placing the starter in the refrigerator on Monday because it was growing so fast. Based on how active the starter is, I am certain that if I had made the bread per the instructions, it would have had the iconic sourdough texture too. The texture in the small loaf was similar to some of the good sourdough breads we bought. I can see the more iconic texture on the wall of the starter jar though. We call our starter Sofia since this is the starter's original name and we felt that we should not change the name. I highly recommend this starter and recommend that you follow the instructions for activating the starter and making the go-to sourdough bread. Note that if you are as new to this as me (not in terms of eating sourdough, just making it), the discard is the starter too so use it in bread recipes. You just do not need it to keep the starter thriving. Note also that our kitchen is typically around 72 degrees F but goes up when cooking. I also recommend a larger starter jar. Ours is a 34 oz jar. Our starter triples fast (about 8 hours) and continues to grow so the 16 oz jar is not large enough to let the starter peak. Maybe I am not estimating 3 tablespoons correctly because the tablespoon of starter does not like to separate from the rest of the starter.

Item arrived earlier than expected, actually 4 days ago. I am following the very clear and easy instructions. The starter revived vigorously, and yesterday, I baked my first loaf using the first discard. Worked great. Three more days of daily feeding, then into the fridge. I keep the discards in the fridge and, like the loaf of bread, will use them rather than toss them. Sourdough pancakes on the menu this weekend. I cannot emphasize how nice and sour this starter culture is. If you want to start working with sourdough items, this is the one to get. Highly recommended!

I made my own homemade stater from scratch and have been babying it for about two months. I realize that is extremely young in the life of a starter and hope that it will continue to grow stronger as it ages. I have had a few mostly successful loaves that have good flavor, but the texture was quite dense for my preference. I bought this starter with no great expectations, mostly just to see how 100+ year old starter would compare to my baby starter. I actually forgot about it and left it in the mailbox for several days before I even picked it up. Then, once I got it home, I forgot about it for a couple days more as it got left in my car. When I finally got the poor thing in the house and fed it, it was impressively robust. After the second feeding (day 2), I had to transfer it to a larger jar, because it pushed the lid off of the 1/2 liter Weck jar and oozed out the top. It has been four days now of consistent and quick doubling after feeding, so I decided to make a loaf of sourdough today. I prepared my leaven this morning with a 5/5/1 ratio, and within two hours it had already doubled. I used the leaven to make a loaf, and now have it in the refrigerator proofing for baking in the morning. It doubled in size in about 3 hours, and has since continued to grow in the refrigerator. My homemade baby starter has never been this aggressive, and I am so excited to bake this thing in the morning to see how it turns out. I was getting discouraged with my sourdough journey up to this point, and I'm hoping this will be the difference for a lighter and less dense loaf. I also made sourdough pancakes with the discard yesterday, and they were amazing - such rich flavor and great texture! So . . . if you've read this far, let me just say, this thing is a great starter, and based on my experience with it so far, I highly recommend it!Edited to add: First loaf looks fantastic straight out of the oven. Taste test confirms, it’s a winner! Texture is awesome, taste is awesome!

I had tried making my own starter. After 3 weeks it had slowly died.I decided to try this Starter. I love the West coast sourdoughs and it wasn't really that expensive.It came to life right away, I followed the instruction perfectly. The starter doubled and tripled every time and smelled so good! . I fed it 2X a day for 3 days, daily for 3 days and then made my first loaves.One loaf I baked right away, the other is in the refrigerator for 2 days before baking.The first loaf I just tried and it's very, very good bread.I really do recommend this starter.