How to Make a Sourdough Starter

Learn how to make a sourdough starter from scratch, how to maintain it, as well as all of the science behind your starter and it’s health benefits.

I’m very excited to bring you this post – all about how to make a sourdough starter! Recently I have jumped into the world of everything sourdough and you could say I’m a little obsessed. Well technically, this is my second time jumping on the sourdough bandwagon…the first time was about three years ago, and I got so frustrated by the (what I thought was very confusing) process and I threw in the towel. This revival stemmed from my newfound desire to embrace homesteading and get back to basics…so I decided to try my hand at it again recently, and let’s just say things are going much better this time around!

SOURDOUGH EXPLAINED

First, what is sourdough? The science behind it (and nutrition/digestion implications) are downright fascinating, so let’s just get right into it. Sourdough is technically fermented flour, water, and salt. It is used to bake sourdough bread, which does not require a leavening agent, as the fermentation of the dough takes care of that for you. This is what our ancestors used to bake bread and other baked goods before packets of isolated yeast at the store were even a thing. So cool!

THE STARTER

In order to make any kind of sourdough anything, you first need a sourdough starter. This concoction will be used as a base in all of your sourdough recipes (and sometimes all by itself!) and is responsible for actually leavening your sourdough as it contains wild yeast. Your starter is essentially a colony of symbiotic microbes, or bacteria, in a jar of flour and water. It is alive! There are two main components that make up this colony in your starter, and they work with each other:

• Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) – they will produce organic acids, which will go on to change the taste, nutritional value, and digestibility of the sourdough product. They create an acidic environment, which is ideal for yeast, as it is acid-tolerant.
• Wild yeast – your starter will capture wild yeast found in the air of our environment, and thanks to the LAB hard at work, they have an ideal environment to reproduce and go about their business which includes producing enzymes. Amylase and maltase work to break down the complex starches in the flour into simple sugars for the LAB to then feast on. Invertase facilitates the fermentation of simple sugars to CO2, which creates the bubbles and therefore the rise in the sourdough product. Phytase breaks down phytic acid in the grains, which increases the bioavailability of the nutrients within the grains, and also improves digestibility.

PHYTIC ACID

As we now know, the enzyme phytase within your starter will work to break this compound down. I want to provide a bit more background on this particular acid as I think it’s important to understand and may help you connect to dots when it comes to sourdough and its benefits.

Phytic acid is an antinutrient, meaning it decreases the absorption of nutrients in food from our intestinal lining into our bodies. This acid is naturally present in grains, beans, and nuts – nature’s way of keeping them from spoiling. But here’s the thing – it’s likely our bodies were never meant to consume large amounts of phytic acid. This intolerance is probably why our ancestors always soaked or fermented their grains prior to consuming them, as this helps to break down the phytic acid.

This practice has for the most part been lost though in more recent years, meaning phytic acid is plentiful in these foods. And now, we see more and more people who cannot tolerate grains. Interesting, huh? This is one of the reasons why sourdough is easier to digest than commercially leavened bread.

HOW TO MAKE A SOURDOUGH STARTER

Day 1: In a glass jar or bowl, mix 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour until fully combined. Let rest in a warm spot until the next day. (*do not use metal bowls/utensils as they can react with starter)

Day 2: Add 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour, stir to fully combine. Let rest in warm spot.

Day 3-6: Remove and discard half of your starter. Add 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water, stir to fully combine.

Day 7: Feed your starter same as before, let it bubble up, and now it is ready to use! Either leave it out on the counter (and feed daily) so it’s always ready and available, or keep it in the fridge, feeding once a week or whenever you are taking it out to use if that comes sooner. When you take out starter for a recipe, remember to always leave some starter left behind, and add the appropriate amount of flour and water to refresh. For example, if you have about 1/4 cup starter left over, add around 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup water.

How you know it’s ready: If you starter is not getting very bubbly & doubling in size in the first 1-4 hours after feeding it, it has not quite reached “maturity.” Seven days is a ballpark – mine took close to ten days to reach this point, and I continued along with the same schedule to get there. This is when you have the go ahead to start using it in recipes!

Should you feed once or twice a day? This is a great question, and honestly it depends. Here’s why: if you look up instructions on how to start a starter, the directions will vary on whether or not to feed every 12 hours or every 24 hours. This is because there are many factors that can influence how quickly your starter ferments and needs to be refreshed again, such as temperature, type of water, type of flour, exactly how much it was fed, etc. The best thing to do here is to not follow the schedule to a T (so sorry to all my type A friends out there) and instead take cues from your own starter on when it should be fed. If it starts to smell very pungent like nail polish remover, it needs to be fed. If it smells like strong sourdough bread, it’s good at the moment. When I made my starter, I was following an every 12 hour approach, and my starter wasn’t really taking off. Remember, every time you feed, you are discarding half and therefore discarding yeast and bacteria. If you are feeding/discarding more than your starter can keep up, it will struggle to get fully established. I switched to feeding it every 24 hours (or really when it started to smell too strong) and it immediately took off.

Why do I have to discard? Another great question, and tends to cause a lot of confusion! The reason for discarding sourdough starter is strictly a logistical one. Sourdough starters will expand exponentially if you let them! For example, looking at our starter schedule: you start with 1/2 cup flour day 1, and add another 1/2 cup day 2, so now 1 cup. Day 3, you would need to add 1 cup flour / 1 cup water, so now you have ~2 cups starter. Day 4, you would need to feed 2 cups flour / 2 cups water, leaving you with ~4 cups starter, and so on. Once your starter is “mature” at ~7 days (it really takes 1-2 months to reach maturity, but can be used in recipes around the 7 day mark) you no longer have to throw starter out to keep a reasonable amount, you can actually start using it in recipes! Before this point, since it’s not a true starter, it won’t do well in sourdough products. If you really don’t want to discard, you can compost it!

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

TIPS & TROUBLESHOOTING

It can go dormant during days 3-6. This is probably my biggest tip – if this happens, it’s totally normal, do not give up! My starter went completely flat with zero bubbles during days 4-6 and I thought I messed it up. But after about day 6 it started to rebound (switching to feeding it every ~24 hours definitely helped too) and it was healthy as can be. Many people throw out perfectly good starters at this point, don’t be one of those people!

Hooch. Hooch is a light brown liquid that can be found on the surface of your starter. This happened to me a lot with my first starter 3 years ago, my poor starter was a mess back then lol. There is nothing scary about hooch, it’s just a sign that your starter is very hungry and needs to be fed. Pour off the hooch, scrape off the top, and feed your starter. If this continues to occur, you need to up the flour at each feeding since it clearly needs more food!

Smell. Your starter, when healthy and fed, should smell like strong sourdough bread. If it starts to smell like vinegar or nail polish remover, feed your starter.

Temperature matters. The warmer the environment, the faster your starter will ferment as bacteria love warmth. This is why you may find yourself feeding your starter more often in the summer months, or why you can feed your starter much less often when it is refrigerated.

Storage. A glass vessel is ideal – I started out using a 1 quart wide mouth mason jar, like this one. I recently switched to this half gallon jar as I like to keep a bigger quantity of starter on hand!

Flour. You can use unbleached all purpose, whole wheat flour, or even einkorn – these are all good options! Organic preferred.

Starters are resilient. If you forget to feed your starter and you are afraid it’s bit the dust, my guess is it’s probably not – it just needs some reviving. Give it a few feedings every 12 hours or so, keep it in a warm spot, and you should be back in business in no time! It was commonplace for our ancestors to pass down starters through generations (yes, generations!) I can only imagine how many times those starters needed reviving over all those years..don’t give up on them, they are stronger than you think!

DISCLAIMER

I want to share that when it comes to making, maintaining, and using a sourdough starter, my goal with it is not necessarily to bake artisan sourdough bread over here. I am in it more for the health benefits, learning experience, and fun! And honestly to make many more things than just sourdough bread. Sourdough bread is truly an art form, and can be very finicky. I think that was one of my biggest problems the first time around – I was discouraged by my failed attempts at sourdough bread, and didn’t even know there were so many other (less difficult) recipes I could try with my starter, to still get the benefits of sourdough without all the fuss. That being said, if you are looking for a more ‘technical’ approach to crafting and caring for a starter, I highly recommend this book. It is very thorough and very technical, and it’s fabulous, but just not for me lol. All of the weighing and the math and the precision just takes the enjoyment out of it for me. Maybe in the future I will want to really master this process, but for now I’m just having fun experimenting with all of the things I can make with my starter, and I can’t wait to share which recipes I’m loving as I go!