I’ve been using the Kensington Sourdough 150 Year Old San Francisco Sourdough Starter for a few months now and wanted to write a little post about my experience with it. The sourdough starter is available from the Kensington Sourdough website and can be shipped to you anywhere in the world.

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You can get freeze dried 150 year old San Francisco sourdough starter delivered to your door.

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The story goes with this particular starter that it traces its roots back to the San Francisco gold rush but has been living and mingling with Kensington Markets eclectic denizens for the past several years, and has now mutated into its own beast! it’s been in continuous use since 1850 providing people with great tasting bread for all these years.

The starter is over 150 years old and it actually comes from legendary bakery Parisian in San Francisco (whose claim to fame was originating San Francisco sourdough) and survived the 1906 California earthquake. California sourdough has an excellent reputation and a history that dates back to gold miners in the California hills carrying crocks of starter from place to place.

Although this one is 150 years old, there have been reports of Egyptian starters dating back 4500 years!

The starter arrives in a small freeze dried packet in an envelope along with details of the history of the sourdough starter. Also included is a list of instructions on how to re-hydrate the starter and (more importantly) how to care for the starter. The care is key because this is a living thing and so regular feeding is a must. Make sure to feed your starter according to the instructions and it will last you for a long time.

Once you are up and running as per the instructions (which takes around a week in total) then you need to keep good care of the starter. Remember, a 150 Year Old San Francisco Sourdough starter needs extra care and so feeding regularly is the important point. If like me you bake at weekends and every so often in the week, then keep the starter in the fridge. Take it out the night before and feed. You will work out a routine that works best for you eventually. For my, I work regularly and so baking is only a hobby. See my sourdough during the working day post for timings on what works best for a typical 9-5 job.

A feed once or twice a week will keep it happy. Try and keep a regular schedule though for best results. Mine gets fed on Wednesdays & Saturdays and is kept in the fridge the rest of the time. Consistency is key here and I wanted to make sure this worked before doing any Kensington sourdough reviews that I got consistent results.

By using an elastic band it is possible to see how quickly the starter is rising after feeding. Optimum use is just at the point when the starter has doubled in size.

A part of the feeding process involves disposing of old sourdough starter (usually half at a time) and then topping up with fresh flour and water. So some folks – me included – it seems a bit of a waste of food. So I found a way to make the most of the leftover starter.

The starter can be mixed in a bowl with some salt and pepper (plus any additionally seeds/grain/flavours you might want) and then spread thinly on a baking sheet. Then it can be baked for around 30 minutes into crackers. Really tasty with cheese!

It’s a really simple way to get rid of any leftover starter from your 150 Year Old San Francisco Sourdough Starter mix and also it can be frozen. So if you don;t get enough for crackers in one throw away, then save it in a box in the freezer, adding to it each time you throw away. As long as you defrost it in one go when ready to eat it (for food safety reasons do not refreeze afterwards).

Take a look for yourself at the Kensington Sourdough Starter in action at the top of this post. This time lapse footage of my gold rush Kensington Sourdough San Francisco Sourdough Starter was filmed over the space of 5 hours from start to finish. It more than doubled in size in that time and was like this after a feed in the morning.

Following the starter being used, I can show you some of the breads which i have made over the past few months. All of them tasted great and look fantastic too. Depending on how you score your bread will determine the way the crust splits and opens up on the top.

For a San Francisco sourdough starter recipe you can check out the breads section of my site and be able to fit making a sourdough in and around your day.

You can make your own Kensington Sourdough San Francisco 150 year old sourdough using this freeze dried starter. What’s even better, with code WHATCOOKS15 you get 15% off your order

I have had some great success with this 150 Year Old San Francisco Sourdough Starter. It makes writing Kensington Sourdough reviews so fulfilling because the proof is in the (bread?) pudding. My results are consistently good and providing the starter is cared for and treated as one of the family almost, it will keep on providing good results.

There is something about the story which I love and having a bit of history in the bread made gives it something extra. It is really obvious just how active the starter is once it gets going. Get yourself over to the Kensington Sourdough site and order a pack.

Who knows? But what we do know is this one comes from the gold rush era (mid 1800’s). We also know that there are some that date back to Egyptian times – some 4500 years old.

This starter is around 150 years old and still going strong. Arriving to you in a freeze dried packet, all you need to do is follow the instructions contained and within a week you will have a feisty starter ready for action.

Starters that are mature are generally those which have been around for a few years. The more mature the more tang and “sour” in the bread. It’s common place in some areas for starters to be handed down generation to generation with some reaching 50 + years old without being freeze dried.

While not invented as such, it is synonymous with producing a starter which began during the gold rush times. The star of this starter is a yeast called candida milleri and a local bacteria called lactobacillus. It’s all natural.

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