Cultures for Health San Francisco Sourdough Style Starter Culture | Homemade Artisan Bread | Heirloom, non-GMO | Live Culture Bread Mix | Easy to Follow Recipe

The quality of the culture is GREAT! Directions are not accurate on how to properly start the culture on the packaging. BE SURE TO CHECK THE WEBSITE for proper activation of your sourdough starter! Be prepared to read the directions and plan for what to do with the discard. You definitely don't want to waste it! It does take some work and dedication to get great results but it's worth it. Be SURE to PREPARE before embarking on the starter "journey". It's like having a baby in the house or a new puppy. You have to be sure you have the time to watch it and attend to it for many days before use. We are first time starter makers and now we have a ton of discard to use and share with friends! The company is very attentive and responds VERY quickly to support your sourdough journey... EVEN THO it's just kind of disappointing to start a culture with the packaging directions that are not together, The folks at, "Cultures For Health", are going to address the packaging directions, so I give them 5 STARS! This company has a lot of other really great fermentation options like Kefir and more to choose from as well. A good resource for folks looking for quality! WE LOVE CULTURES FOR HEALTH!

Final update: Seller had actually sent a message saying “reply to this message with ‘full refund’ if you would like a full refund.” I replied as such. Seller asked for details about my sourdough process. After multiple back and forths and my prompting they said they actually were not issuing a refund because I’m still working on my starter… what? lol. Huge waste of time and personally I’m never ordering from them again. Update: Seller gave me a refund :,( I feel terrible but I did try my best with it. I’m going to buy it again so I can hopefully get it started and give this five stars. I’ve been really hesitant to write a review, because it could be something on my end. However, I feel I’ve tried EVERYTHING and haven’t gotten this starter to work. I followed the directions exactly and didn’t have a working starter after a week. At a certain point (after the week) I added less water so it could hold bubbles better and I could see if it was growing. I’ve since tried two different bottled waters, mainly spring, multiple flours, including whole wheat and multiple methods of warming the starter. Currently I’ve been using unbleached AP at a 1:1:1 ratio, with the proofing setting on my toaster at 85 degrees and feeding consistently at either the 12 hour mark or the 24 hour mark (trying to figure out when it would like to be fed). It bubbles a little bit and bubbles reach the surface eventually, say around the 12 hour mark and by that point it’s basically more liquid than solid, I can pour it like liquid into the trash when it’s time to discard (starts out like thick pancake batter). However, in that 12 hours it grows maybe a fifth (and that’s after like 6 hours and also where it stops). I’m now adding rye to see if that will get it going. Anyways, POINT IS: It’s been over a month now and even if it eventually starts growing properly (which I’m hoping it will) I can’t say the starter I originally purchased had anything to do with it. I’m pretty sure I just created my own starter for $13. One thing I will say is it never went through the early doubling phase that happens when starting your own starter and it never smelled bad. So maybe it was alive, I don’t know - but it didn’t work as advertised and I’m pretty annoyed at this point thinking I probably could’ve had more luck starting my own fresh starter three weeks ago… I don’t know.

This was easy to get started, and I was able to make my first loaf within a week. My first loaf was a bit too dense, but with a few adjustments I had a near-perfect second loaf. We are also having a blast with making discard recipes. Excited for the tang to develop in the coming months! A great beginner-friendly product.

Best Sourdough starter ever. Makes perfect Sourdough Culture. I love it and so does my family. Very easy to use.

The culture did not grow in spite of following the directions exactly for several days. The packet has a sell by date of Jan 1, 2027 so it should contain cultures that would be activated. I'm going to request the manufacturer to send me a replacement. I'm not going to spend more money on a potentially non-functional product. Photo shows sourdough culture after 3 days incubated at 78 degrees F. I will modify review if I obtain a replacement that is functional. I notified the seller of my issue with the culture not growing as expected. The seller responded within a day and offered possible reasons for why the culture may have not performed and offered to send me a replacement at no cost. In all fairness, I did continue to feed the culture as directed and in three more days the culture did begin to grow normally. So, for those who do not get rapid growth, I suggest just giving the culture a few extra days with the standard feeding process and temperatures. Once I receive the replacement culture, I will run a test comparison between using our well water and the recommended bottled natural spring water to determine if the water source was the issue. At this stage, I'm still leaning toward the dehydrated sourdough culture as having a lower than standard viable cell density. Because of the fast response, helpful suggestions, offering a no cost replacement culture and fact that the culture did ultimately grow and produce good bread, I'm revising my rating to 4 stars.

This starter worked great and I am now successfully baking whole-wheat and einkorn sourdough bread and sourdough pizza. It took about a week to get active because my kitchen is on the cool side (18C). When I saw it was slow I resolved by placing a bottle of hot water in the same cupboard of the starter and keeping a towel around the starter itself to keep it warm. Great product!

Excelente producto

Used this brand for last two years but the last two cultures i bought were dead and didnot rise. Culture this expensive should work Never buying this again

Made lots of loaves so far

I have the San Fran sourdough and now this one. Homemade starters are only as tasty as the bacteria in your kitchen environment or present in your flours, and modern kitchens are so full of cleaners and are so infrequently used for baking etc that they just don't have what it takes to make a great starter. The same goes for modern flour mills. There is a reason that artisanal bakers will travel the world and pay a lot of money for a brilliant tasting culture. Homemade starters may add sourness, but they will never give as complex a flavour. These ones are not like an expensive European import, but they are consistently very tasty, and I'd recommend them to any home baker.