How to Make A Sourdough Starter
Now you can choose whatever flour you want. Just remember that bleached and bromated flour is evil.
Heres what I recommend to start. Half white all purpose flour and half whole wheat. You can absolutely use one or the other but I recommend a mixture for two reasons. You’re going to get a lot of nutrients and natural yeast that comes off of the whole wheat flour. Its going to make your starter very strong and will increase your chances of success greatly. The other reason is that once you have established your starter, it then can become either a whole wheat starter or an all purpose white flour starter. You can also continue feeding it both types of flour through out its life but I promise you, that will get old quickly. So when you’re following the recipe below, just remember its total flour. So if I say 50 grams of flour that would be 25 grams white and 25 grams whole wheat.
Day One
Take 50 grams of flour, and 50 grams of water and mix them together completely in a container. Don’t be gentle, make sure its mixed together very well. I recommend a glass mason jar but any vessel will suffice. Just remember that this is going to grow. So don’t be fooled by the small amounts at first. I recommend an 8 or 16 ounce mason jar. That size should allow for growth and easy stirring and storage. Once you mix the 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour take a clean dish towel, cheese cloth if you have it, or paper towel and place it over the top of the container. Secure it with a rubber band, or if you’re using a mason jar screw on the band lid, on top of the cloth or paper towel. You don’t want a tight seal at all just yet. You can use almost anything to cover the container. The cloth or paper towel is really just to prevent any particulates like hair, crumbs, dust, etc. from getting into your would be starter.
Place that mixture near a window, near plants, or near fruit for 18 - 24 hours, to optimize your chances of wild yeast being captured. What I recommend is you go to the store and buy a bag of grapes. Place those grapes in a bowl next to your starter. You can eat them of course but it is my opinion that when I have fresh fruit next to my starter, particularly grapes, it grows very vigorously. Grapes are covered in wild yeast so that’s just my personal tip.
Day Two
So now you have 100 total grams of mixture that just sat for 18+ hours. Chances are you won’t see much activity, but if you do all the better. There is a chance that you will see a lot of activity. But at this stage set your expectations low. You could have wonderful results at this point or none at all. Now you’re going to add, 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water to that mixture. Stir it together well and again let it rest for 18-24 hours. Nothing is fast with sourdough, particularly this part. It’s going to take you almost a week to have a strong enough starter to make bread. So buckle up!
Day Three
You should see signs of life for the first time at this point. Bubbles on top, a decent rise, bubbles throughout the mixture. If you don’t, do not worry just keep following my instructions and you will have your very own starter soon enough. Now here is where you have to make a choice. I hate waste, and like I have mentioned before I started my starter at the height of global pandemic and I just couldn’t bring myself to throw out flour. However traditionally speaking you are supposed to throw away at least half of what you have accumulated so far. In this case, if we were going with tradition, you are supposed to throw away at least 150 grams of the starter you have created thus far. Here is a general rule of thumb with sourdough starter. You need to feed your starter its weight in flour and water. So on day one we had 100 grams total of water and flour, on day two we had to feed it 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. So the total weight of your starter at this point should be 300 grams. So today if you don’t discard, you have to feed it 300 grams of flour and 300 grams of water. That means your total weight would now be 900 grams. As you can see after a while this will begin to get exponential. This is why you traditionally discard, so you can properly manage your starter. Unless you’re baking quite a lot of bread there is no need to have over 1000 grams of starter at any time. Maybe if you want to try my sourdough discard recipes, but that will come later. Bottom line is you’re going to have to discard at some point, otherwise the starter will inevitably take over your kitchen if you don’t. Make sure you have a vessel large enough to hold the starter. So if you don’t discard you’re going to add 300 grams of flour and 300 grams of water. If you do discard half, you’re going to add 150 grams of flour and 150 grams of water. Mix it all well, cover, and again wait 18-24 hours.
Day 4
At this point the activity in your starter should be clear. It should have doubled in volume, the top should be very active with bubbles, and if you are looking at it from the side, you should see bubbles proliferating throughout the entire mixture. It is now time to discard. I know it seems so wasteful but to be honest with you, it is a necessary evil. Here is the good news. You don’t have to throw it away. You can place it in another container and put it into your fridge. You can put it in pancakes, waffles, banana bread, cakes, or anything you want to add an extra lift and tangy taste. I made the mistake of not discarding and the result was I had a Tupperware bowl full of sourdough starter. I eventually found recipes (crackers, pretzels, and bagels oh my) but if I am being honest it was still wasteful. Making a sourdough starter is somewhat wasteful at first. But once you get into a feeding schedule it actually becomes very efficient, and whatever you end up using to feed your starter ends up in the final breads that you make.
So at this point I say you NEED to discard. Assuming you didn’t discard on day three, you’re going to discard 600g of starter and freshen up the mixture with 300g of flour and 300g of water. If you did discard you’re going to discard 225 grams and mix in 225grams of flour and 225 grams of water. Mix it all well, cover, and again wait 18-24 hours. As you can see its probably wise to discard on day three. Because if you don’t you’re going to be wasting much more in the long run.
Days 5-7
Over the next few days you’re going to repeat this process again and again. However on day 5 your starter might be strong enough to bake bread. If you feed your starter and it more than doubles in volume you can absolutely use it to make bread. However it’s around day 7, where the real magic begins. From its conception, those first 2-5 days, your starter is going to smell in the range from sweet to alcohol. I have heard people describe the smell as paint, paint thinner, rubbing alcohol, and a litany of other not necessarily appetizing smells. These smells are perfectly normal and are a part of the fermentation process. However after seven days your starter will begin to smell sour. The lactic acid will begin to assert itself in your starter and you will begin to have sour-dough starter. The older your starter gets it will begin to smell funky. Ranging from beer, vinegar and cheese, or a mixture of all three. This is the desirable sweet spot where you will not only get a great rise out of your bread but it will impart fantastic flavor that is synonymous with sourdough bread.
So if you have followed my instructions at this point you should have a sourdough starter ready to bake with. Congratulations!