The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Sourdough Starter

Welcome to my ultimate guide to creating a sourdough starter! Sourdough products have been gaining popularity in recent years, although it’s been done for generations! Today I want to share that homemade sourdough can be accessible to everyone, not just the best of bakers! Keep reading to find out more about sourdough, and how to be able to make your very own sourdough starter!

What is a sourdough starter?

Sourdough starter is a fermented dough. It’s filled with natural wild yeast and a type of bacteria known as lactobacilli. So your sourdough is a beautiful living thing! When fed and cultivated properly, your sourdough can continue to live for years and years! You can even pass some of your starter down through families for generations!

Why you should get into sourdough!

• You know exactly what’s going into your food
• You can always have a way to make baked goods, even if you can’t buy yeast in stores
• Sourdough is better for your gut health
• Your homemade bread has a longer shelf life
• You can make beautiful artisan bread
• The accomplishment!

What you’ll need:

• Flour – Most flours will work other than bleached. Just remember that whatever type of flour you use to create the starter is what you should continue feeding it moving forward for the best results.
• Water- Some places may advise using bottled, or even alkaline water. In my experience, this is completely unnecessary. Your tap water should work absolutely fine.
• Something to keep the starter in – A lot of people use large jars, I personally keep mine in a big bowl. Just keep in mind that it has to be big enough to allow your starter to rise, small enough so you can keep it comfortably in your fridge, and put it into something you won’t want to be used for other things in the future.

That’s all!

A very small list of things you’ll need, and now on to the simple steps!

How to make the sourdough starter :

Making your sourdough starter is a super easy process, but it takes place over a week. To simplify, I will break the steps up day by day.

Day 1:

Put one cup of flour and one cup of water into your container. Mix until smooth. Place a tea towel over your container. Leave to sit overnight in a room temperature spot, not too hot or cold.

Day 2:

Discard half of your mixture from the container. Then add an additional one cup of flour and one cup of water. Mix this until smooth, and once again cover with your towel, and leave to sit overnight.

Day 3 – 5 :

For days 3-5, you are going to refer back to day 2s instructions and repeat the exact steps.

Day 6-7 :

Days 6 and 7 are exactly the same as what you’ve been doing on days 2-5 but with one difference. Instead of doing this process just one time over the 24 hours, were going to do it twice. So follow the same instructions, but make sure to do it two times each day.

Soughdour Starter Complete!

By the end of this process, you should now have a beautiful, bubbly sourdough starter! So what now? Below I’ll tell you how to maintain it so that you can have it for many years to come, and ways to use it.

Maintaining your sourdough starter :

Sourdough starter can basically last forever. You may have heard of people receiving starters from their grandparents etc. For you to have a long-lasting starter, however, you’ll need to take the steps to maintain it.

1. Keep it in the fridge between uses
   • To keep all the goodness in your starter alive, you need to keep feeding it. If left out on your counter you would have to keep feeding it every single day. That would just result in way too much starter for anyone to handle! To slow the process, keep it in the fridge.
2. Feed it once a week, and or 2 hours before use
   • If you’re not someone who finds themselves baking often, just make sure you feed your starter once a week to keep it happy. If you are baking more, a good rule of thumb is to take it out of the fridge and feed it about two hours before you plan to start a recipe. This will give it a good amount of time to “wake up.”

Troubleshooting Q and As:

• What does “feeding your starter” mean?
  • Feeding is referring to adding more equal amounts of flour and water to your starter
• What if there’s water that is separated on the top?
  • This can happen if you added a little bit too much water. No worries though! Just dump the water on the top, give it a stir, and you’re good to go!
• Can I use the initial discard for something?
  • Technically yes. You could decide to incorporate it in some recipes, but the yeast and bacteria haven’t balanced out yet. Your results would not be true to the recipe. I just compost the discard until it’s reached maturity.
• Why do I need to discard it at all? Cant I just add the same amount without discarding it?
  • If you weren’t to discard at all you would have to add more flour and water each day to accommodate for feeding all those microorganisms! It would get insane very quickly!