Skip the two weeks of feeding flour paste.
Our starter has been alive since 1974. We dry it, you wake it up with flour and water, and it's strong enough to bake with in about 48 hours. Everything else for your first loaf is in the box.
Fed at 9am, doubled by 3pm
Everything for your first loaf
Except the flour and the oven. We tried shipping flour once. The post office had questions.
Dried starter
20 grams of our 1974 culture, dried slow so the yeast survives the trip.
Glass jar
Wide mouth, loose lid, rubber band to mark how high it rose.
Bowl scraper
The tool you'll use most. Food safe and stiff enough for wet dough.
Recipe card
One loaf, by weight, with times for a warm or a cold kitchen.
Help line
Text a photo of your starter to a real baker. We answer within a day.
You can. Here's the difference.
From scratch
- Daily feedings, discarding half each time
- Smells like nail polish around day 4. That's normal, but it's grim.
- Often goes flat in week two and you're not sure why
- About 2 kg of flour before your first bake
Wildrise starter
- Two or three feedings and it's doubling reliably
- Mild, yogurty smell from the first day
- Same culture we bake with, so we know how it behaves
- Under 300 g of flour to get going
Box on Monday, bread on Saturday
Wake it
Starter, 20 g flour, 20 g warm water. Lid on loosely.
First feed
Small bubbles. Feed twice, morning and night.
It rises
Should double within 6 to 8 hours of a feed.
Float test
A spoonful floats in water? It's ready.
Mix dough
Evening. Four sets of folds, then into the fridge.
Bake
Straight from the fridge into a hot Dutch oven.
Fridge it
Starter goes in the fridge. Feed it once a week.
Sent in by people who'd never baked bread
I killed two homemade starters in lockdown. This one was bubbling the next morning. First loaf was dense, second loaf my partner asked if I bought it.
Texted a photo on day two because it smelled weird. Got an answer in two hours from someone named Hal who said it was fine and to feed it warmer water. He was right.
Starter is great. Recipe card assumes a warmer kitchen than mine, so my timings were longer. The cold kitchen notes on the back helped once I found them.
It wakes up, or we fix it
If your starter isn't doubling by day four, text us a photo. We'll work out what's going on, and if it's the starter, we'll ship a fresh one the same week at no cost.
Things people ask
What flour do I need?
Any unbleached all purpose or bread flour works. Bleached flour slows it down. For feeding, a spoon of whole wheat or rye makes it noticeably livelier.
I go away a lot. Will it die?
Very unlikely. Fed and kept in the fridge it's fine for three or four weeks. It'll look sad and grey on top, which is just hungry. Two feedings brings it back.
Is it really from 1974?
It came from a bakery in Brevard, North Carolina that opened that year. The baker's daughter gave us a jar when they closed in 2016 and we've fed it ever since. The yeast in it has probably shifted a bit over 50 years, but it's the same line.
Can I give it as a gift?
Yes, and the two-kit pack is cheaper for that. It keeps dry in the packet for about a year, so it doesn't matter if they get to it late.