109 Year Old San Francisco Sourdough Starter Culture | Est. 1916 by our great-grandfather | Easy to follow instructions | Includes detailed instructions and recipe |

Utterly amazing starter. Easy to follow, thorough directions produced great results. It’s fascinating watching it mature because it’s growing so fast it seems to double almost every time I turn around. I have yet to make bread with it but I did use the first discard for sourdough waffles… and even as young as it was it imparted wonderful flavor!

I have only had one other starter which I managed to kill. Just so everyone knows that I am not an expert, (LOL).My first starter was a dried granulated culture which had to be reconstituted and cultivated for weeks. It did not produce a good loaf of bread until six or seven months. I managed to kill it this summer with severe neglect, and I am glad I did! I ordered Sophia from Heirloom Sourdough because I wanted to know if a liquid starter would develop more quickly. She was supposed to arrive on a Wednesday, but she arrived on Tuesday. My husband neglected to tell of her arrival until ten p.m. I was just too tired to deal with anything after the day that I had. Don't Judge! We have all had those kinds of days! I was afraid to be disappointed when I fed Sophia following the included instructions because of the delay. Surprise, surprise! Sophia doubled within five hours. I had to feed her one more time before going to bed that evening. In the morning, I noted that she had tripled during the night. So glad I use large starter jars or she would have been on the counter. I fed Sophia three times again that day! It was scary how quickly she would peak because my old starter never grew that fast. Sorry, I know I am rambling. The real point is that I was able to make a great loaf of bread on day three of receiving this starter. I live in the hot and humid South, I know that probably helps when the kitchen is 77 F with a humidity of 48%, but I am really impressed! Also, I grew up in the bay area and the taste of this sourdough is spot on with my memories of great bread ( you know the B word bakery?). I rarely write reviews, but I think this starter is the real deal for taste and also performance. I hope more people give this company a chance for an amazing product and their detailed instruction for use.

Excellent product. I got the live starter going and it was doing really well. Unfortunately, I moved house in the winter, and it is not doing so well since. I think needs feeding more than I gave it during the move shenanigans. Nevertheless, get this if you want a good sf tasting sourdough. I lived there for 11 yrs and it has that distinct tang. Recommended.

I purchased this liquid starter after trying a dehydrated starter, and struggled to get much activity. This starter was absolutely wonderful! Came with easy instructions to feed, and more than doubled with the first feed. After 3 feeds, was tripling within 6 hours, and smelled great (yeasty). Baked my first successful loaf ever, after 3 days. Highly recommend!

The delivery was delayed by a few days, but Sofia arrived. I was worried that it wouldn't work out, because at first the starter didn't develop much, but after two days Sofia proved to be healthy and quite active. Congratulations, the product is truly fantastic.

I made my own homemade stater from scratch and have been babying it for about two months. I realize that is extremely young in the life of a starter and hope that it will continue to grow stronger as it ages. I have had a few mostly successful loaves that have good flavor, but the texture was quite dense for my preference. I bought this starter with no great expectations, mostly just to see how 100+ year old starter would compare to my baby starter. I actually forgot about it and left it in the mailbox for several days before I even picked it up. Then, once I got it home, I forgot about it for a couple days more as it got left in my car. When I finally got the poor thing in the house and fed it, it was impressively robust. After the second feeding (day 2), I had to transfer it to a larger jar, because it pushed the lid off of the 1/2 liter Weck jar and oozed out the top. It has been four days now of consistent and quick doubling after feeding, so I decided to make a loaf of sourdough today. I prepared my leaven this morning with a 5/5/1 ratio, and within two hours it had already doubled. I used the leaven to make a loaf, and now have it in the refrigerator proofing for baking in the morning. It doubled in size in about 3 hours, and has since continued to grow in the refrigerator. My homemade baby starter has never been this aggressive, and I am so excited to bake this thing in the morning to see how it turns out. I was getting discouraged with my sourdough journey up to this point, and I'm hoping this will be the difference for a lighter and less dense loaf. I also made sourdough pancakes with the discard yesterday, and they were amazing - such rich flavor and great texture! So . . . if you've read this far, let me just say, this thing is a great starter, and based on my experience with it so far, I highly recommend it! Edited to add: First loaf looks fantastic straight out of the oven. Taste test confirms, it’s a winner! Texture is awesome, taste is awesome!

I’ve always wanted to make sourdough bread. After researching how to make your own starter and all the failures I read about, I decided to order this sourdough starter culture in early December. It arrived within 3 days. I meticulously followed their directions about feeding it and I had a perfect starter that had doubled within the first 12 hours. I religiously fed it everyday for 10 days before I attempted my first rustic loaf. It came out perfectly! I’m now on my 8th loaf and I’ve never had a failure. What a great company and perfect product. I highly recommend it and would gladly buy it again.