How To Do A Monthly Sourdough Reset

I love to do a monthly sourdough reset at the beginning of each month, or at least at the beginning of each new season to make sure that I’m setting myself up for sourdough success. Sourdough is a continuously evolving process which changes with your skill level, seasons and weather, age of your sourdough starter etc. Keeping an eye on the parts of the process that are more fluid will give you the flexibility and tools to ensure you have sourdough success at any time of the year.

A reset is a chance to see what’s working and what’s not and to “clear the decks” for the month ahead. You could also choose to do a seasonal sourdough reset to check on things as you move from spring and summer into cooler temps of autumn and winter.

I've put together a list of the things that help me to stay on top of my sourdough baking and ensure that things don't get too out of hand in my kitchen! I hope that this helps you with your sourdough journey too. So let's get started on your monthly sourdough reset!

A photo of a woman adding flour to a glass mixing bowl that is sitting on a digital scale in a kitchen. She is making sourdough bread.

Check The Fridge!

My refrigerator is a very important part of my sourdough baking process. I use the refrigerator to hold my dough in a state of cold fermentation so that I can bake my sourdough at time when it's convenient for me. Rather than being a slave to my sourdough. You can read more about using your fridge for cold proofing here.

So when it comes to doing a sourdough reset, I like to make sure my fridge gets to be a part of it by:

Checking the temperature (my kids have a habit of playing with the temperature buttons on the front of our fridge). You might also need to adjust the temperature of your fridge as the seasons change.
Replenishing any sourdough starter back ups I've left in the fridge (or at least making sure they aren't looking too hungry).
Giving my dough proofing fridge a quick wipe out (the flour from the bannetons can make a mess over time).

Give Your Starter a Reset Feed To Reduce Acid

I like to give my sourdough starter a nice rebalance at the start of the month to help reset any acid build up and rebalance everything. I do use my sourdough starter every day and I'm feeding it regularly too, but even so, things can get a little bit off balance when you're busy.

To give your sourdough starter a reset, you want to give it a feed with a higher sourdough starter ratio, so something like a 1:5:5 or 1:10:10. For example, take 20g of sourdough starter and feed it with 100g of flour and 100g of water. Allow this to bubble and rise. You can repeat it again in 12 hours if you feel you need to. If you were to do 1:10:10 you could do 10g of sourdough starter to 100g of flour and 100g of water.

The purpose of this reset feed is to reduce the acid and ensure that they don't break down the gluten networks in your dough too quickly during bulk fermentation. This can cause problems during shaping and cold fermentation and give you a less than ideal loaf once baked, so it's well worth doing if you have the time.

You might also find this post on how to revive your sourdough starter helpful too!

A photo of a woman (Kate from The Pantry Mama) pouring water into a glass jar that is sitting on a scale. She is feeding her sourdough starter.

Dehydrate a Portion of Sourdough Starter

Now you don't necessarily have to dry sourdough starter every month, however I find it's a handy habit to get into for a few reasons. Not only does it ensure I never have to worry about losing my sourdough starter, it also ensures that I always have packets of dried sourdough starter on hand whenever anyone asks me for some. I've always got a few packets in my purse and in my car because generally when I'm out and about the conversation always turns to sourdough! Funny that!

If you ever find that you have too much dehydrated sourdough starter on hand, you can grind it up and use it dust your bannetons (instead of rice flour or semolina) or you can add it sourdough shortbread cookies.

A jar of sourdough starter with a sachet of dried sourdough starter standing in front it.

Clean Bannetons

I love using bannetons to support my dough during the proofing stage. I have a lot of bannetons in my kitchen, probably too many (but hey, who's counting). I don't tend to clean them between bakes as my dough doesn't stick (you can find out my secrets to stopping dough from sticking to your banneton here). But when I'm resetting things, I do like to give my bannetons a clean.

I don't wash them, but I do get a stiff bristle brush and give them a dry clean to get any dried flour or pieces of dough and then I leave them out in the sunshine for a morning (I generally do this in summer or spring rather than winter or fall).

Replace Lame Blades

This is something I do at the start of each month so that it's always clean and sharp when I go to score my loaves. I buy the blades for my lame in bulk (my lame is actually just a craft knife I bought at the hardware store).

It's a myth that you need to put oil on your blade or wet the blade to help it glide through the dough. A sharp blade glide through your dough with no issues at all, as long as your dough has been fermented and shaped with good technique. You can read more about how to score sourdough bread here.

A loaf of sourdough bread being scored with a red handled lame.

Clean Dutch Ovens

Cleaning your Dutch Oven might not be something you need to do every month, particularly if you don't use an enamelled Dutch Oven. I currently use a cast iron bread pan so I don't find that I need to clean it as much. I just empty out the excess crumbs and flour as needed.

When I do use my enamelled Dutch Ovens, I give them a good scrub once a month. I use a product called Bar Keepers Friend to do this. It doesn't always get them completely clean (especially my lighter color Dutch ovens) but it definitely gives them a good scrub and removes a lot of the stains and debris.

A photo taken from above showing the inside of a Dutch Oven. Inside the Dutch Oven is a jar of Bar Keepers Friend as well as 2 scrubbing brushes and a magic eraser.

Clean Your Oven

Cleaning the oven is no one's favorite job, but I find that doing it once a month means it's never a huge task. I have an oven dedicated to bread so I make sure that this oven is kept free from crumbs and flour dust (I use semolina to line my bannetons and it creates a lot of mess).

So once a month I vacuum out my oven and give it a good wipe over to keep it in good working order. It doesn't take much and ensures that everything stays nice and clean.

Something that can happen when you are using your oven to bake sourdough is that if you have something spilled in your oven and then you turn the oven to 230C to bake your sourdough it can cause your oven to smoke which is never good! So keeping your oven clean and sparkling is always going to be a good option!

Stocktake Your Sourdough Ingredients

Stock take flour, salt and other ingredients necessary for your sourdough recipes. There's nothing worse than going to make sourdough and realising you've run out of salt (yep, I've been there and now I buy salt in bulk so I never run out).

You might also like to take into account seasonality when you're doing your ingredient stock take to account for things like pumpkin spice in the fall or thyme in the winter (I love adding thyme to my sourdough chicken pot pie).

I hope these tips help you to create some monthly sourdough reset routines in your own kitchen that ultimately move you closer towards your sourdough goals and finding your own natural sourdough rhythm.