Have you ever found yourself staring at your sourdough starter, wondering if you really need to feed it before baking? Or maybe you’ve been tempted to skip a step and just see what happens? Well, I put that curiosity to the test—and the results may surprise you.
In my latest video, I baked two loaves of sourdough bread side by side: one made with a freshly fed, active starter, and the other made with an unfed (aka dormant or sluggish) starter pulled straight from the fridge. No pre-feeding, no coaxing—just straight into the dough.
To keep things fair, I used the exact same recipe, flour, salt, water, and fermentation times for both loaves. The only difference? One loaf had a lively, bubbly starter that had been fed a few hours earlier, and the other used a cold, unfed starter that hadn’t seen flour in over 24 hours.
This experiment was not only fun—it was kind of eye-opening. Sometimes, baking “rules” are more flexible than we think. If you’re a sourdough baker who’s ever forgotten to feed your starter, don’t panic—you might still end up with a pretty great loaf.
Let me know in the comments: have you ever baked with an unfed starter?
Print your Sourdough Bread recipe here:
Sourdough Bread
- 310g of water
- 100g of healthy strong fed or unfed starter
- 460g of bread flour
- 11-12g of salt
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- Throw everything into a stand mixer and mix on low until it’s well combined. Move to an oiled vessel with a loose lid.
- Set a timer for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes perform stretch and folds.
- Now repeat steps 2 for a total of 5 stretch and folds (or 2 1/2 hours total).
- Place dough with loosely covered lid in a warm place with no drafts and bulk ferment until the dough has risen about 30%. For reference it takes about 5 hours at 80 degrees.
- Sprinkle flour on the top of the dough and turn out onto a clean counter.
- Stretch your dough in all directions then roll up like a cinnamon roll. Turn the roll 90 degrees and roll using the tuck and tug method. For bread shape: Seal your ends then pull dough towards you to tighten the top. For boule shape: do not seal ends, instead pull the dough towards you in a circular motion hiding each end as you create tension.
- Allow dough balls to rest for 5-10 minutes. If they stay in the shape you’ve given them without flattening to a pancake, then you are ready to move on. If they flatten out too much, do another rough or two of shaping, following step 7 again.
- Place seam side up in floured banneton and cover loosely. Place in refrigerator for 6-12 hours but up to 36.
- Preheat your oven to 450F before you get your bread out of the refrigerator
- Turn your cold dough out onto a piece of parchment and score. Place scored loaf into the bread pan of your choice, your Dutch oven, or right onto a preheated baking stone.
- Mist your loaf with water and cover. Bake 30 minutes covered then remove the cover and bake another 20-30 minutes or until the desired color is achieved.
- Cool on a baking rack before cutting.
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