Sourdough Starter

I began my sourdough journey back in 2023 and have been loving it ever since!

I think making bread is a skill that everyone should learn, as it can be one of the most profitable hobbies. To begin you need a strong starter, you can either make your own starter or you can purchase one online or even from me! 

How to make a Sourdough starter 

• ½ cup warm water or 60 grams

• Roughly ½ cup all purpose flour 60 grams

• One jar (mason or even a old cleaned out spaghetti sauce jar) 

• Paper towel or cheese cloth and a rubber-band 

  
  

It is that simple! All you have to do is mix flour and water together until it reaches the consistency of thick pancake batter or muffin batter. Once mixed you cover with cheese cloth or paper towel and secure that with a rubber band. Place in a room temperature dry environment away from direct sunlight

Sourdough starter is fed off of bacteria, as this mixture sits on your counter and you “feed it” every day it will begin to accumulate some of the bacteria in your environment. This bacteria “feeds” on the flour and water and creates gas as a by-product which makes your sourdough rise. This is similar to how yeast works in traditional bread but instead sourdough can be more beneficial to your gut’s microbiome. 

Feeding the starter 

Everyday you need to feed the starter. What we feed it is flour and water, so once a day you can discard about half of the mixture and add 60 grams or about 1/2 cup water mix until its closer consistency to water and then add tablespoons of flour until you reach the desired consistency again. 

Cover and let sit again for another day. We repeat this step until you begin to notice bubbling or gas building up in your starter. As stated in the picture above sometimes your starter can have a "false rise" or begin to behave like a mature, ready to use starter but it may not be quite ready yet. If this occurs, keeping discarding and feeding your starter until it passes a float test or it doubles in size

What is the float test?

The float test is a way that you can assess if your starter is at its peak. Now its important to mention that float test does not always indicate how "strong" your starter is. The longer you feed your starter the more strength it develops, the strength of the starter helps increase the success of your future loafs!

To test, spoon out a small teaspoon size of your starter when it appears to have reached its peak and drop it into a glass of room temperature water. If it floats like the image above, this is a great indicator that your starter is at peak!

Once you have an established sourdough starter you can keep it in a larger vessel ( I keep mine in a large glass flour jar) and continue to feed it daily if you leave it out on the counter.

If you wish to preserve the starter you can place the jar in the fridge and feed your starter every week to every other week. If you notice the starter develops a grey/clear liquid on top of the starter , this is called "hooch", this liquid is a alcohol that is actually completely normal and a byproduct of the bacteria , it's scent is similar to alcohol and it in fact is alcohol! You could drink it but I don't think it'll go down easy!

If you notice this on top of your starter you can either drain it off the top or you can actually mix it into your starter prior to feeding it.

In another post I will go more in depth with the world of discard and all the wonderful ways you can use this superfood to add into baked goods!

Failed Sourdough Starter

Some times sourdough starter can fail , and that's okay! Two of my attempts at first failed, the way you tell if this has failed is if the starter begins to grow mold.

If you see any signs of mold discard the entire starter and start again. It is unfortunate but the starter cannot be saved after there has been signs of mold. If you find that you consistently are having difficulty you can always purchase a starter or even try using filtered water!