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This has been on my list of things to try for a while now. Kombucha is rich in beneficial yeasts and bacteria so I’ve been fairly certain it would make an excellent sourdough starter. Score! It does indeed make an excellent sourdough starter.
I’ve made native sourdough starter using organic grapes, pineapple juice or even nothing but a good stir and yeast from the air. These methods worked great, they just took a good week to establish a bubbly starter. But I want sourdough now! Using kombucha in place of water kick starts things so you have a bubbly starter usually ready within a day. Awesome for when I’m impatient.
The best part about this method is how easy it is to restart it. I’m notorious for forgetting about my starter and letting it die. This can be pretty horrible when I spent $13 or so on that starter. But if I let my kombucha sourdough kick it, it’s no trouble to just start a new one.
For the flour, you can use your favorite flour, gluten free or gluten full. I use an inexpensive rice flour for the starter part and a I save my more expensive gluten free mix for the rest of the flour in a recipe.
To make the starter simply take an equal part flour to kombucha and mix them together. Let set in a warm place until nice and bubbly, which for me was about 12 hours near my crock pot.
The bubbles are just starting to form in this batch.
I will be posting a few sourdough recipes in the coming weeks but if you are antsy to try it out, here are a few recipes:
- 4 No Wait Sourdough Recipes from GNOWFGLINS (these are gluten full but I’ve made them gluten free by just subbing gluten free flour for regular flour).
- Wardeh’s excellent book Sourdough A-Z has a great section on gluten free sourdough baking and most of the recipes are easily converted.
- Orange Spice Dutch Baby Sourdough Pancake, so good! I have to make two of these when I bake it. It’s the perfect use for discarded starter.
- Gluten Free Sourdough Bread This recipe has a bazillion different flours but I just use a gluten free baking mix and it turned out lovely. 3 1/4 cups of gluten free bread flour (Pamela’s GF Bread Mix).
**Just a side note, I don’t have any experience with wheat flour sourdough bread making. While I know this works with wheat, all of my sourdough advice comes from a gluten free stand point.
Kombucha Sourdough Starter
- 1/2 cup strong kombucha (strong but not too strong)
- 1/2 cup flour (I use white rice flour)
In a jar, blend kombucha and flour well. I let mine rise in a Pickl-it jar but it’s not totally necessary. If you live in a warm place prone to mold, a Pickl-it would be helpful. A loose covered jar is fine.
Set in a warm place to rise for about 24 hours. You can use it at this point or you can feed it to give it a stronger sourdough flavor.
To feed your starter, mix 1/2 cup starter, 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 water. You can build your starter by mixing an equal amount of starter, flour and water. If you need 2 cups of starter for your recipe, you’ll want to combine at least 1 cup starter, 1 cup flour and 1 cup water. Make sure your container is large to handle expansion. It can double in size or more, pretty quickly (check out this sourdough explosion).
You can either keep your starter on the counter and feed daily (twice daily for wheat starters) or you can take a break and place it in the fridge. It’ll keep refrigerated for a week. Longer than that and you’ll want to feed it. To get it active after refrigeration, just feed and keep warm for 12-24 hours.
Don’t have kombucha but do have water kefir? Water kefir works just as well. KerryAnn from Cooking Traditional Foods shows how to do it here: How to Make a Sourdough Starter
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I have been meaning to try it with kombucha! I make mine with milk kefir whey (half whole wheat white and half bread flour) and it tastes great. Has a great, not too heavy, texture. It’s spongy, moist and keeps so much longer than regular homemade wheat bread. Don’t think I’ll ever go back to regular bread again. I have read that the yeasts eat up most of the gluten and even gluten intolerant people can sometimes eat it.
Sourdough can be tricky for gluten intolerant peeps. Personally I don’t recommend it at all unless someone has done a good 2 years on the GAPS diet or similar gut healing protocol. Someone with Celiac disease should never try it. The gluten is still present but supposedly it’s more easily digestible. I’ve tried it myself and it’s a definite no go for us, at least at this time. Boo! Good news though, GF sourdough is infinitely better than any other GF bread I’ve made. Yay!
Thank you! Have been wanting to do sourdough bread but have no starter! this makes life easy!!
[...] Kombucha Sourdough Starter [...]
Thanks for this. It is exactly what I have been looking for…. when you say you let yours rise in a Pickl-it jar do you mean with the air lock etc in it or just the rubber bung?
I do use an airlock with mine but I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. If you have trouble with sourdough molding, I would definitely use an airlock.
This is awesome! I have an abundance of kombucha, but haven’t tackled sourdough yet. I’m also impatient when it comes to waiting! Thanks!
I’m brewing my first couple of batches of kombucha now…how do I know if it’s “strong, but not too strong”???!?!? New to this world, LOL…
Pretty vague, huh? Strong just means it’s quite sour but not a full vinegar. If you let kombucha go too long, it will turn into vinegar (a very good vinegar though).
That’s MUCH clearer…I was thinking how strong the starting TEA was as opposed to how long you let it go!! Thanks!
[...] Kombucha Sourdough Starter [...]
Hey if you have an extra SCOBY you could send my way it would be awesome! I am anxious to try brewing Kombucha. We are out at Holloman AFB and I cannot source one here anywhere.
Shelby
You can make your own SCOBY. If you get some raw Kombucha and put a bout a cup in a jar and allow to sit out on cupboard, covered with a cloth. In a week or so you will see one forming on the top. When it is about 1?4 inch thick you can remove it and start brewing. I made mine this way.
Before I started using the Pick-it jar for my sourdough starter I was able to ward off mold by using water kefir instead of plain water. I would imagine that kombucha works the in the same way by providing useful bacteria to get the ferment moving along quicker.