How to Make a Sourdough Starter From Scratch
Alright, let's talk creating your starter - the first and most important step! If you have a few minutes a day, you too can have a sourdough starter.
I'm gonna do things a little differently here. Most people start out with a bunch of words, and then make people scroll to the bottom of the recipe. I don't want to do that. So, for each of these, we'll start with the recipe and if you wanna read more, feel free to scroll! That said, let's get into it.
SOURDOUGH STARTER RECIPE
YouTube Video Available Here: How to Make a Sourdough Starter
Ingredients
Flour (See below for types of flour)
Water
Tools
Clear Jar with lid
Spatula
Rubber Band
Scale
Instructions
1. DAY 1: Before you start, record your jar's weight without the lid. In your jar, combine 150g lukewarm water at 85 degrees F with 100g of flour. Mix with a spatula until combined, cover the jar and wrap a rubber band around the exterior of the jar to track the rise and fall of the mixture. Wait 24 hours.
2. DAY 2: 24 hours later, discard (aka throw in the trash) all but 70g of your starter. Since you weighed your jar yesterday, you know what that number is so you add 70g to that and get rid of the rest. To your jar, add 115g of lukewarm water at around 85 degrees F and 100g of flour. Mix with your spatula until combined, cover your jar and wait 24 hours.
3. DAY 3: (Repeat the process from day 2)
4. DAY 4: Repeat the process from day 3, but this time, only add 100g of water instead of 115g. You may begin to see activity at this point, and if you do, you should move to twice a day feedings for the next several days (every 12 hours). If you don't - that's ok! Sometimes it takes a little bit longer depending on a million factors. Keep going.
5. DAY 5: (Same as day 4)
6. DAY 6: Discard all but 50g of your starter and feed using 100g warm water and 100g of flour. Hopefully you're seeing some action by now, but if not, it's still ok! Keep going.
7. DAY 7: This is your feeding from here on out. Once I get to day 7, if I have bubbles and rising and falling, I start twice a day feeds for a week to ramp up the activity. Once things are moving along, I'll drop back down to once a day or if I'm not going to bake for a while I'll stick it in the fridge and pull it out when I'm ready (I've left my starter in the fridge for as long as 4 weeks with no issue). So for this day, you combine 15-30g starter, 100g warm water and 100g of flour. Voila! You've got yourself a sourdough starter. Don’t forget to give it a name, mine is Bread Astaire :)
*TIPS*
FLOUR: You can feed with any type of flour you like, but I use 70% bread flour and 30% rye flour
WATER: Make sure it's warm but not so hot that it burns your flour
TEMP: The temperature of the air matters, so if possible try to store in a warm place
FEEDING YOUR STARTER
So let’s talk about feeding your starter. You should invest in 4 or more jars. I say four or more because I’m a crazy person and I transfer jars everytime I feed so if you’re like me you wanna have a few on standby. I also recommend washing the jars IMMEDIATELY because that s*** hardens like concrete.
After you feed, you do NOT want to clasp the lid. You’re creating gas and if you trap it, it will explode.
For the water, you always want it to be warm but not hot - 85 degrees is great, but if it’s a little over that’s ok too. Just not too hot that it will burn your flour.
When you feed, put a rubber band around the outside of the jar so that you can track it's movement until it's rising and falling like clockwork.
I personally feed my starter with 100g of warm water, 70g of Bread Flour and 30g of Rye Flour. I find that the mixture helps with the activity.
MAINTAINING YOUR STARTER
When feeding, I start by placing the jar on the scale, adding the starter and then the water and stirring. I like to dissolve the starter in the water because I found it’s easier to mix in the flour that way, but you do you.
When I started, I was feeding it every day, twice a day - once in the morning and once at night - and I did that for several months. I was going through SOOOO much flour and I felt like I was legit throwing money into the trashcan. Even with all of the sourdough recipes and sourdough discard recipes (more on that to come) I still had way too much, more than I could ever use or want. So what I started doing, and continue to do, is I feed my starter after using it and then once it gets to a point where it’s risen to it’s peak - you’ll know by keeping an eye on yours and monitoring day after day, I kept a journal for the first few weeks to track progress - I put the clasps on my jar and stick it in the fridge. I’ve found that it’ll last a while, I actually went out of town and was gone much longer than I expected, almost a month, and I came back and it was fine! I usually pull it out once a week to either bake or feed, and then stick it back in. Do what works for your schedule.
WHAT KIND OF FLOUR SHOULD I USE
Sourdough starters are also finicky and work best with certain types of flour. I’ll link a video below about different types of flour if you wanna geek out from one of my fave YouTube guys - Alex! We don’t know each other, yet, but hey Alex!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfTkSeHZiH8
I only use one brand of flour. It is not cheap, so feel free to use whatever fits your budget or whatever is available to you, but I highly recommend at least using organic flour or even just unbleached flour. Do what you can for what works for you!
I used to feed my starter with only AP flour. When I discovered the flour I’m using now, I completely started over and I received some advice from my friend David Codney - he is my actual friend - about using bread flour and then a little bit of rye flour and I haven’t looked back since. When it’s fairly warm, my starter goes NUTS. Bubbles out of the jar. And that’s what I want. I want Bread Astaire to dance all night long. So I’ve found that 70% bread flour and 30% rye flour works best for me.
SOURDOUGH STARTER TOOLKIT
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So I want to start with some tools that were helpful to me - after a lot of trial and error and once I found things that worked. These tools are just for your sourdough starter… for bread making, that’s a whole nother story and i’ll talk more about those in subsequent posts. But JUST for your starter, I’ll tell you what I recommend and I’ll link everything below.
Kitchen Scale
Please don’t use the one that everyone in your family steps on. You can get super inexpensive kitchen scales, I like digital because I think they’re more active. This is the one I use!
Food Thermometer
Once again, don’t use the one that people are putting in their mouths or in their armpits or wherever people put thermometers. Get a food thermometer, I like this one!
Jars
When I started, I was using large mason jars. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE mason jars, but I read somewhere from someone (thank you, whoever you are!) about these jars and they are WAY better. They have a wide mouth so it’s easier to get in there when you’re feeding and stirring, and they are much much much easier to clean. And cleanup is a b**** so i’m all for anything that makes that easier. I honestly think cleanup is the most annoying part about sourdough anything.
Three Options: 4, ½ liter jars, 6, ½ liter jars, 2, liter jars
Silicone Spatulas
I DO NOT recommend anything other than total silicone, again, for cleanup purposes. Sourdough starter sticks to everything and hardens quickly, so buy a few in different sizes if you can. These are my favorite!
Pyrex Glass Measuring Container
This is one of my most used kitchen items. When I’m feeding my starter, I fill it up, stick it in the microwave and easily get it to the temp that I want.
RECOMMENDED, all three - 1C, 2C, 4C, OR 1C Only, OR 2C Only, OR 4C Only
Flour
So like I said I started this journey in January of 2020 which was right before the pandemic. Everything was going just fine and then Covid-19 happened and my life was ruined when EVERYONE suddenly started making sourdough. I couldn’t find flour anywhere. So after a bunch of google searching, I found this teeny tiny mill in Minnesota - Sunrise Flour Mill - that was making flour the old way. My boyfriend and I do our best to eat healthy so I’m always on the hunt for the healthiest option. Funny story - his mom is actually gluten intolerant and when I make her bread with this flour, she has no problems. Anyway more on that later. But! I love this flour. For my starter, I use a mix of bread flour and rye flour. I actually RESTARTED my starter with this flour when I discovered it and haven’t looked back since.
Water Filter
This is probably completely unnecessary but i’m fairly bougie so for me it’s a must. I truly love this filter. I’ve read a bunch about the different chemicals in water, and additionally how that affects fermentation - fluoride, arsenic all kinds of nasty stuff. We drink from this of course but this is the only water that my starter - and my bread - get. If you don’t wanna fork up the 300 plus buckos for this filter, I do recommend some type of filtered water, but I know people go without it so it’s not totally necessary.
