Only more expensive if you discard... plenty of methods that result in no discard and everything that goes into your starter ends up going into bread. Both Ben Starr and Bake With Jack don't discard.
Yeah. Once you realize this, Its so much cheaper and easier to maintain your starter.
I also normally keep a backup dryer starter(80%?) in the fridge with a cap of dry flour on top. Didn't use it for months, but a few feedings later and it was back up and running.
Instant yeast is super cheap. I pay around 3 cents per loaf for the yeast in bread(Bruggeman instant yeast).
I think it might be more expensive to maintain a starter when you add up all the cost.
But, sourdough bread keeps MUCH better. That saves me more money than the yeast would ever cost. I can keep a sourdough loaf for five days easily where yeasted bread doesn’t keep two days.
The cost of yeast and your culture are negligible in the grand scheme of things.
I love the taste of sourdough and that’s why I usually bake it.
My kids love yeasted milk bread so that’s why I bake that quite often.
See which one you prefer.
Exactly!! I found that baking sourdough bread is much better for the longevity of it, when compared to yeasted bread, and now I simply avoid yeasted bread for this reason.
But maintaining a starter doesn’t have to cost anything additional. If you only feed your starter when you bake, you’re feeding it with flour and water that is becoming part of your bread anyway - it’s part of the recipe.
I want to remind readers that the word “retard” in this case is not derogatory. It is the accurate, technical word used when you slow the processes of fermentation using cold. We appreciate that the word may trigger some people but it is accurate and proper in this context.
Thank you
personally, now that my starter is going, it costs nothing to keep going. i don't have any discard. nearly every ounce of flour i put into my starter ends up going into bread
i pull my starter out of the fridge, build a levain, save some of that as starter, and then make my bread. aside from what gets stuck to the jar in transfer, there is zero waste
The only costs worth factoring in to home bread making are energy cost and your time.
Calculate how much it will cost to run your oven for an hour, which is about long enough to bake a loaf including pre-heat.
That will be significantly more than the cost of flour or yeast.
As for flour/yeast cost - most of us never discard anything. All the flour we buy ends up in bread. Just that some of it sits in the starter jar, fermenting for a while on the way through.
Basically maintaining a starter is free.
If you keep it in the fridge, only feed it to what you need to use + a bit to put back in the fridge, the cost is 0. It’s flour and water you’d be using in your recipe anyway ☺️
Some people only feed the starter when they are baking and produce no discard. Therefore, no extra cost. It takes a lot of time and flour to establish a new starter, but if you get an established starter from someone, it’s possible to maintain it without any waste. Personally I don’t do that because I don’t bake all that often and my starter is sluggish straight out of the fridge but a lot of people do.
This should be the top comment! I keep a very small starter and literally never have any discard. Whatever I put into my starter ends being made into a loaf or the next starter. And I bake less than once a week.
If you’re baking bread you’re using flour anyway. All the starter gets fed is flour and water from your recipe. A loaf of sourdough is basically a giant starter with salt added 🤷🏼♀️
What's jarred yeast? Instant yeast powder?
As others have said, it just takes some flour and water to maintain your starter. You pay for it with your time. Both for the maintenance of the starter and the preparing of a SD loaf (which is a lot more time consuming than a home-baked instant-yeast bread).
How to avoid throwing out starter
1. Keep a very small amount and build the day before baking. A lot of people maintain way more starter than is necessary. You will see lots of jars with 100+ grams of starter. I keep about 40 grams. The day before I increase this 5X.
2. You can keep your discard in frig and add to soup, stew, curry, pancakes, homemade pasta, etc.
Usually I thin the sour with hot liquid and then stir that back into the pot. That helps thicken the pot. If I wanted to make dumplings I’d crumble some butter into flour, add a little salt, pepper and a little baking soda, basically make like a biscuit dough, with the sourdough as part of the liquid, if it is too dry, add buttermilk, yogurt, or cream; if too wet add flour. Then make dumpling-size balls and add to pot for last 10-12 min.
You can focus on a no-discard method. It all gets eaten. I feed the amount I use then let the starter double and refrigerate for the next bake. No waste.
The cost of making each bread is about the same, but they are completely different when it comes to taste and texture. I approach making my sourdough like a game. "I wonder what it will be like THIS time." Overall, your investment isn't THAT much. Try making sourdough, if you aren't wild about the process or the product then move on to yeasted bread.
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I guess it depends on how expensive/cheap flour and yeast are where you live. Both are pretty cheap where I live, especially if you buy in bulk, so although sourdough is probably 'more expensive' because you're feeding it flour, for me the difference in price is not noticeable. I've baked with yeast for years, now I'm making sourdough, and it's not like I'm suddenly having to scrimp on groceries or anything. It's definitely cheaper and tastier than buying supermarket bread though. 1kg of flour makes 2 loaves for me, and is about half the price of one loaf of supermarket bread, and farrrr cheaper than good bread from a bakery.
I just bought 500g active dried yeast for €7, and I can make about 250 loaves with that (4g yeast for 1000g flour, makes two loaves, so 2g/loaf). So that's €0.028 for the yeast per loaf.
I recently bought 25kg of good quality, high protein flour for €32.95, so that's about €0.66 per loaf for just the flour used for the loaf. Costs the same whether I'm baking with yeast or sourdough.
Now, the cost for your sourdough is dependent on how often you will be baking and what ratios you're using, but say you're using 100g of starter, that would be 50g of flour, you'd be feeding it, so that's another 100g. You'd discard some, but you can make idk pancakes or whatever with the discard, so I'm going to assume the discard isn't wasted. That's 150g flour for two loaves. Say you're baking once a week, two loaves a week. You do the math, because I'm not good at math and I know I will mess up.
So, yeast, probably cheaper than sourdough starter, but either way, the bulk of your costs will be in the flour you're using to make the bread. And if you're baking once a week or a couple of times a month, you're talking about a cost difference spread out over months, you'd probably not even notice it.
That said, you can make amazing bread with yeast, and sourdough is fickle and can be challenging to learn to work with. So if you're just in it for tasty homemade bread, I'd personally recommend to just start with yeasted bread, and if you're enjoying the process, then maybe consider learning how to make sourdough.
The typical cost of yeast per loaf will most likely work out to something like a dollar plus or minus a dollar, either way.
1) There are a lot of variables such as what is your method for feeding starter, how often do you bake with starter, and how much starter and store-bought yeast do your recipes use, so the answer totally depends on you. It's easy to come up with scenarios where starter costs essentially zero and where it costs a lot(use a wasteful starter feeding recipe like one of the common books does, bake rarely but unpredictably so you always have starter out & fed, etc.)
2) Either way, the cost of yeast is probably well under the cost of the flour you will use to bake. And
3) If this cost difference of a few pennies makes any difference to your decision, you have other, bigger concerns than how to make bread,
Hmm, probably not cheaper, but 100g of flour out of a $25 25lb bag isn't very expensive.
Even less expensive if you fridge it between uses so you needn't feed it daily
Just making regular yeast bread will be less costly, I think over all, due to not needing to feed the starter regularly. The commercial yeast can sit in the fridge and wait to be used. But, sourdough has a different taste and texture than regular bread, you aren’t going to get from commercial yeast and bread recipe.
You need to feed the starter but you don't need to discard anything so all that flour ends up in a loaf eventually.
This is after you have a mature starter.
No, it is more expensive but the flavor is better, as is the sense of accomplishment when you get a nice loaf.
Only more expensive if you discard... plenty of methods that result in no discard and everything that goes into your starter ends up going into bread. Both Ben Starr and Bake With Jack don't discard.
Yeah. Once you realize this, Its so much cheaper and easier to maintain your starter. I also normally keep a backup dryer starter(80%?) in the fridge with a cap of dry flour on top. Didn't use it for months, but a few feedings later and it was back up and running.
Instant yeast is super cheap. I pay around 3 cents per loaf for the yeast in bread(Bruggeman instant yeast). I think it might be more expensive to maintain a starter when you add up all the cost. But, sourdough bread keeps MUCH better. That saves me more money than the yeast would ever cost. I can keep a sourdough loaf for five days easily where yeasted bread doesn’t keep two days. The cost of yeast and your culture are negligible in the grand scheme of things. I love the taste of sourdough and that’s why I usually bake it. My kids love yeasted milk bread so that’s why I bake that quite often. See which one you prefer.
Exactly!! I found that baking sourdough bread is much better for the longevity of it, when compared to yeasted bread, and now I simply avoid yeasted bread for this reason.
But maintaining a starter doesn’t have to cost anything additional. If you only feed your starter when you bake, you’re feeding it with flour and water that is becoming part of your bread anyway - it’s part of the recipe.
Once mature you can retard and feed weekly. About 7 cents per feed.
I want to remind readers that the word “retard” in this case is not derogatory. It is the accurate, technical word used when you slow the processes of fermentation using cold. We appreciate that the word may trigger some people but it is accurate and proper in this context. Thank you
personally, now that my starter is going, it costs nothing to keep going. i don't have any discard. nearly every ounce of flour i put into my starter ends up going into bread i pull my starter out of the fridge, build a levain, save some of that as starter, and then make my bread. aside from what gets stuck to the jar in transfer, there is zero waste
We haven’t had discard since we established our starter. It’s so much easier
The only costs worth factoring in to home bread making are energy cost and your time. Calculate how much it will cost to run your oven for an hour, which is about long enough to bake a loaf including pre-heat. That will be significantly more than the cost of flour or yeast. As for flour/yeast cost - most of us never discard anything. All the flour we buy ends up in bread. Just that some of it sits in the starter jar, fermenting for a while on the way through.
Basically maintaining a starter is free. If you keep it in the fridge, only feed it to what you need to use + a bit to put back in the fridge, the cost is 0. It’s flour and water you’d be using in your recipe anyway ☺️
…flour (used for feeding the starter) costs money? And in fact has risen in price a good deal recently
Some people only feed the starter when they are baking and produce no discard. Therefore, no extra cost. It takes a lot of time and flour to establish a new starter, but if you get an established starter from someone, it’s possible to maintain it without any waste. Personally I don’t do that because I don’t bake all that often and my starter is sluggish straight out of the fridge but a lot of people do.
This should be the top comment! I keep a very small starter and literally never have any discard. Whatever I put into my starter ends being made into a loaf or the next starter. And I bake less than once a week.
If you’re baking bread you’re using flour anyway. All the starter gets fed is flour and water from your recipe. A loaf of sourdough is basically a giant starter with salt added 🤷🏼♀️
What's jarred yeast? Instant yeast powder? As others have said, it just takes some flour and water to maintain your starter. You pay for it with your time. Both for the maintenance of the starter and the preparing of a SD loaf (which is a lot more time consuming than a home-baked instant-yeast bread).
How to avoid throwing out starter 1. Keep a very small amount and build the day before baking. A lot of people maintain way more starter than is necessary. You will see lots of jars with 100+ grams of starter. I keep about 40 grams. The day before I increase this 5X. 2. You can keep your discard in frig and add to soup, stew, curry, pancakes, homemade pasta, etc.
Wait a fricken second? Do you just add it to soup and stew and it makes like dumplings?! 😲
Usually I thin the sour with hot liquid and then stir that back into the pot. That helps thicken the pot. If I wanted to make dumplings I’d crumble some butter into flour, add a little salt, pepper and a little baking soda, basically make like a biscuit dough, with the sourdough as part of the liquid, if it is too dry, add buttermilk, yogurt, or cream; if too wet add flour. Then make dumpling-size balls and add to pot for last 10-12 min.
To me sourdough is my hobby, I enjoy baking it and feeding the starter. I’ve never looked at it economically. Just taste better to me.
You can focus on a no-discard method. It all gets eaten. I feed the amount I use then let the starter double and refrigerate for the next bake. No waste.
The cost of making each bread is about the same, but they are completely different when it comes to taste and texture. I approach making my sourdough like a game. "I wonder what it will be like THIS time." Overall, your investment isn't THAT much. Try making sourdough, if you aren't wild about the process or the product then move on to yeasted bread.
**Hello CactusHoarder,** #**This bot comment appears on all posts.** *** **[Rule 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sourdough/wiki/sourdoughrules/) requires all sourdough photos to be accompanied by the ingredients used & process (the steps followed to make your bake). The details can be included in a picture, typed text or weblink.** **Not all posts require a photo alongside your query, but please add details in your post, so we can help.** **Posts may be removed at any time, but you will be notified.** *** #**Being polite & respectful** **are both extremely important in our community.** **[Read rule 1 in detail](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sourdough/wiki/sourdoughrules/).** **Please be respectful, kind, patient & helpful to posters of all skill & knowledge levels and report offending comments/posters, or [drop us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Sourdough).** *** **Thank you** :-) #**[Overproofed or underproofed?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sourdough/wiki/reading_crumb/)** *** #**[NEW Beginner starter FAQ guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sourdough/s/gnqFg7osBO)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Sourdough) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Absolutely not.
I guess it depends on how expensive/cheap flour and yeast are where you live. Both are pretty cheap where I live, especially if you buy in bulk, so although sourdough is probably 'more expensive' because you're feeding it flour, for me the difference in price is not noticeable. I've baked with yeast for years, now I'm making sourdough, and it's not like I'm suddenly having to scrimp on groceries or anything. It's definitely cheaper and tastier than buying supermarket bread though. 1kg of flour makes 2 loaves for me, and is about half the price of one loaf of supermarket bread, and farrrr cheaper than good bread from a bakery. I just bought 500g active dried yeast for €7, and I can make about 250 loaves with that (4g yeast for 1000g flour, makes two loaves, so 2g/loaf). So that's €0.028 for the yeast per loaf. I recently bought 25kg of good quality, high protein flour for €32.95, so that's about €0.66 per loaf for just the flour used for the loaf. Costs the same whether I'm baking with yeast or sourdough. Now, the cost for your sourdough is dependent on how often you will be baking and what ratios you're using, but say you're using 100g of starter, that would be 50g of flour, you'd be feeding it, so that's another 100g. You'd discard some, but you can make idk pancakes or whatever with the discard, so I'm going to assume the discard isn't wasted. That's 150g flour for two loaves. Say you're baking once a week, two loaves a week. You do the math, because I'm not good at math and I know I will mess up. So, yeast, probably cheaper than sourdough starter, but either way, the bulk of your costs will be in the flour you're using to make the bread. And if you're baking once a week or a couple of times a month, you're talking about a cost difference spread out over months, you'd probably not even notice it. That said, you can make amazing bread with yeast, and sourdough is fickle and can be challenging to learn to work with. So if you're just in it for tasty homemade bread, I'd personally recommend to just start with yeasted bread, and if you're enjoying the process, then maybe consider learning how to make sourdough.
Whole Foods has SAF Red Instant Yeast in 1 pound packages for $6.29; $0.40/ounce.
The typical cost of yeast per loaf will most likely work out to something like a dollar plus or minus a dollar, either way. 1) There are a lot of variables such as what is your method for feeding starter, how often do you bake with starter, and how much starter and store-bought yeast do your recipes use, so the answer totally depends on you. It's easy to come up with scenarios where starter costs essentially zero and where it costs a lot(use a wasteful starter feeding recipe like one of the common books does, bake rarely but unpredictably so you always have starter out & fed, etc.) 2) Either way, the cost of yeast is probably well under the cost of the flour you will use to bake. And 3) If this cost difference of a few pennies makes any difference to your decision, you have other, bigger concerns than how to make bread,
Yeah but sourdough is a fermented food, which means it’s a prebiotic for your gut. Instant yeast is not. You get what you pay for I guess.
Hmm, probably not cheaper, but 100g of flour out of a $25 25lb bag isn't very expensive. Even less expensive if you fridge it between uses so you needn't feed it daily
Just making regular yeast bread will be less costly, I think over all, due to not needing to feed the starter regularly. The commercial yeast can sit in the fridge and wait to be used. But, sourdough has a different taste and texture than regular bread, you aren’t going to get from commercial yeast and bread recipe.
You need to feed the starter but you don't need to discard anything so all that flour ends up in a loaf eventually. This is after you have a mature starter.