San Francisco Style Sourdough Starter for Sourdough Bread - All Natural Ingredients, Includes Sourdough Starter & Instruction Booklet - Vegan & Non-GMO by Home Cultures

Delighted! I absolutely loved using this sourdough starter. It’s such a brilliant little kit – simple, natural, and it got going beautifully. The instructions were super clear and really helpful, especially if you're just getting started with sourdough. Sure, you can find info online but it makes life so much easier having everything you need all in one place – and this just makes it feel easier to follow.It would actually make a lovely gift for anyone who enjoys baking – even as a thoughtful stocking filler! I found it perfect as it is, and it was really fun getting my first loaf on the go!Yes, sourdough takes a bit of love and patience, but that’s part of the fun – like growing something from scratch. This kit gave me the perfect head start, and I’m genuinely excited to keep baking with it.Highly recommend – I’d absolutely buy it again for a friend. Simple, effective, and you feel accomplished with a golden hot loaf fresh out of the oven!

I've been baking bread for over 40 years, as my dad who was a patisserie chef and baker taught me when I was a young child. I have been making sourdough for at least 15 years, using my homemade starter. So when this Home Cultures San Francisco Style Sourdough Star Kit came up for review, I jumped at the chance to see how it compared to my own starter.On arrival it comes in a little branded packet. Inside the packet, is a instructions leaflet and the packet of the starter. Where this review loses its first star is that the text size is rediculasly small. I consider myself to have good eyesight, so how anyone who might have a sight impairment is going to read the instructions is beyond me. Thankfully, I knew what I needed to do to get the starter activated and ready for us. From activation to being able to use the starter takes around a week of daily feeding with flour and water. I have just baked my first loaf using the kit, and it came out brilliantly. As you can see from the photos, the starter is quite lively in the jar, and it does make the dough rise. The loaf using the starter developed a nice chewy crust with a lovely soft aerated centre. The flavour does have a classic sourdough taste to it as well. I will certainly keep feeding and using this and see if it can last as long as my homemade starter. Talking of which, this brings me to the other reason why I took off a 2nd star, you can make starters far cheaper (or free) or purchase off Amazon other starters cheaper than this Home Cultures starter, which at the time of review is £7.99

Didn’t do anything (yes I followed all the instructions). Pointless product, best avoided!

I managed to produce an active starter using it

Great bit of kit, defo recommend. Bread turned out perfect, 5 star from me!!!

I bake sourdough regularly and my current starter is over 3 years old. It's super easy to make your own - there are loads of good guides online, but broadly you need some flour (ideally wholemeal, personally I like to use rye flour), tap water, and a jar. You feed it like a pet and it grows. If you use it at the right time in its growth cycle and get your baking process right, it will make bread rise.A sourdough starter is a living colony of yeast, so I was interested to see what this 'San Francisco style' sourdough starter would be like... particularly since it says it's made in the UK. Fun fact: what makes San Fran sourdough unique is the varieties of yeast that naturally occur only in that part of California. Similarlly, a starter made in London is different to one made in Manchester, which is very different to one made in San Francisco. Even if you bring some live starter from San Francisco to the UK, within a few feeds that starter will be propagating yeast found in the UK. Eventually it will resemble nothing like what it started as and anything you bake with it will taste identical to a loaf baked with a 100% British starter.Long story short: anyone selling you 'San Francisco' starter, or these really old ones marketed online are not able to give you sourdough like it's made in those places (or times, in the case of 200 year old sourdough cultures!). You can absolutely use dehydrated starter (as this product is) to jumpstart your own starter. It'll save you a few weeks of daily feeding and monitoring that is needed when making a starter from scratch. But be aware that convenience is all you're paying for, everything else is just marketing!Other, better value (often free), and just as good quality options include finding a sourdough baking friend/kind stranger/even local artisan bakery to give you a small amount of their own live starter. Just put it in a jar, feed it, watch it grow, and use it. It will deliver the same results in your baking. If you're struggling to get it right, it's almost certainly because you've not yet nailed your timings or process (sourdough bread is a fickle beast) rather than the quality of the starter!

The package came so quick - I was so excited for the arrival. It did not disappoint, it made it so easy and any one could do it. I am not the best cook but for sure helped me make amazing bread. Thanks again can’t wait to re-purchase