Why do you not recommend distilled water for feeding sourdough starter?
This it from What to do if your starter is sluggish or “dead”
For your starter to thrive, you should be using:
2nd bullet: unchlorinated water, filtered or bottled (not reverse osmosis, not well water with treatments, not distilled)
Not because it’s bad per se but rather because it lacks minerals which is good for a starter.
In my experience, there is no difference between distilled water and other bottled waters when maintaining a starter or developing a new starter. None. I use whichever is less expensive (on sale).
My experience has been it does not make a noticeable difference if using tap water to feed an established, healthy, and mature starter, at least for a short while. Where I live, using tap water has zero effect on making bread with packaged yeast, none whatsoever, compared to using bottled/filtered or distilled water.
Distilled water might seem like a good option, but it’s actually not great for your little yeasty friends. They need some minerals and stuff that are usually filtered out in the distillation process. So go for filtered or bottled water instead, and your starter will be living its best life in no time.
Commercial filtration of water is now so much more thorough than it used to be. There is very little difference between filtered water and distilled water. I am not sure but the minerals you are concerned with may be in what is called ‘spring water’. There is a brief explanation of spring water here:
You might be able to use ‘mineral water’ to get the minerals you want for your starter.
1 Like
Thanks for your info!
Thanks for your reply!
Learn something new everyday, Thanks!
My information may be out of date so I apologize for any confusion. I got this from an old book my Mom had and let me emphasize the old lol