Making Your Own Sourdougn Starter From Scratch

Have you ever wanted to bake your own sourdough, but you don’t know how to start?

The first thing you need is a sourdough starter. Once you have that the recipe is pretty simple. Today I will walk you through making your own starter so you can begin your sourdough journey!

Supplies Needed

First things first, what do you need to create a sourdough starter? You will need the following:

• High Quality Unbleached Flour – I use Unbleached Hudson Cream Flour that come from the Stafford County Flour Mill.
• Filtered Water – You can use spring or distilled water. I have this water filtering system at home so that I don’t have to buy water continually.
• Mason Jar & Ring– you can use any glass jar with a lid. I like mason jars because I can choose to put muslin over the top for fermenting on the counter or a solid lid for when I keep my starter in the fridge between baking.
• Cheesecloth or Muslin – You will want this to cover your jar while it is fermenting on the counter to keep things from falling in it.
• Spatula – I like the silicone ones because if the starter dries on it, its easy to clean.
• Scale – exact measurements are important for maintaining a quality starter. I use this one because it has an option for grams.
• Jar – I use a gallon pickle jar for storing my flour.

Making Your Sourdough Starter

Day 1

In the morning, measure out 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water into your mason jar. Mix well with your spatula. Cover with the muslin and jar ring. Set on your counter to ferment.

In the evening, do NOT discard, and add 50 grams more of flour and 50 grams more of water to your jar and mix well. Cover with the muslin and jar ring. Set on your counter to ferment.

Days 2 – 7

In the morning discard down to 50 grams of starter. Then add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water and mix well so that there are no clumps of flour. Cover with the muslin and jar ring. Set on your counter to ferment.

***Do NOT use this discard to bake with, there is not enough wild yeast formed yet and you are risking potentially bad bacteria in your food by using your discard before your starter is mature. I recommend putting it in your compost pile or diluting down with water and watering your plants with it.***

In the evening, discard down to 50 grams of starter. Then add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water and mix well so that there are no clumps of flour. Cover with the muslin and jar ring. Set on your counter to ferment.

Days 8 – 13

Choose whether you want to feed your starter in the morning or evenings based on what works for your schedule. I typically feed mine at night after the kids are in bed, because mornings can be hectic getting kids around for school.

Whichever time you choose, discard down to 50 grams of starter. Then add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water and mix well so that there are no clumps of flour. Cover with the muslin and jar ring. Set on your counter to ferment.

By day 8, you should be seeing your starter rising consistently, it may not double yet, and that’s okay. You will have an early false rise where it typically doubles for 1 or 2 days and then it doesn’t rise as well the next couple days. This is to be expected and just part of the process.

Day 14

If by this time your starter is doubling when it rises consistently, then you can try making a loaf of sourdough. I shared my sourdough bread recipe here. You can use these to start making a loaf. Just a piece of advice, do not be disappointed if your first loaf doesn’t turn out. My first loaf did not rise at all in the oven. I was very disappointed, but I kept trying and now my loaves are consistent with a good rise and a good crumb!

The reason for this is because your starter just isn’t strong enough to give your bread a good rise. It took me almost two months or so to get a good loaf of bread.

At this point you can continue to feed your starter once a day and leave it on your counter or you can store it in your fridge between feedings, I will explain how to do that below. Just always ensure you discard down some of your starter, so you do not need to use as much flour and water to feed it.

Name Your Starter

Now that your starter is mature and ready to bake with, be sure to give your starter a name! I know several who have given their starters funny names, but I chose to name mine something different.

I named my starter “Micah” from the Bible verse Micah 7:8 where it says: “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” It is a reminder to me to always get back up and try again and that God is always with me regardless of what is going on.

Maintaining Your Sourdough Starter for Weekly Baking

Keeping your starter on your counter is convenient for baking when the mood strikes you, but it can get expensive to be feeding and discarding daily. What I do to simplify is to keep my starter in the fridge between bake days.

Method:

If Bake Day is Sunday then, Thursday night, pull starter out of fridge and feed 1:2:2. Friday morning, Feed again - you can discard if needed but I typically don't. Friday night mix your dough and save a portion of starter to feed and put in fridge.

Thursday Night

I take my starter out, discard and feed it at a 1:2:2 ratio, cover it with muslin and the ring and let it do its thing. This means for 25 grams of starter you feed 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water. This gives it the jump start it needs coming out of the fridge.

**By using a small amount of starter for your first feed you have minimal discard. If you have a planned use for it discard isn't bad but ultimately if you don't plan a use for your discard, you will be wasting money when you get fed up with it sitting in your fridge during clean out and decide to throw it out. I may have done this once or twice, haha. Small initial feeds also allow you to not need to discard depending on what you are baking. For example if I feed 25:50:50, which gives me 125 g starter and I plan to bake bread, scones, and noodles on bake day. Then I would need a total of 520 grams of starter plus a little left over to feed and put in the fridge.

Friday Morning

Feed a 1:2:2 ration again. You can discard if needed but I rarely do.

For our example I need 520 grams of starter and I have 125 grams. If I feed at 1:2:2 ratio I would do 125:250:250 which would give me 575 of starter - leaving me 55 grams to feed and put in the fridge.

Friday Evening

I mix up my dough and let it start the bulk fermenation process. Then I take the starter left, place it in a clean jar, typically if you would have 55 grams left - that won't all make it into the jar. I usually try to put 25-30 grams in the jar, and feed it at a 1:2:2 ratio, then cover it with the solid lid and place it in the fridge til next week.

After bulk fermentation for your recipe is finished, shape and place your dough in your banneton, cover and place in fridge for up to 48 hours.

Sunday

I preheat my oven, pull my dough out, score, and bake it. I store my baked loaves sliced in the fridge so that it stays fresh longer. Then I just pop the slices in the toaster to warm them up before eating.

Tip

***Sometimes while storing your starter in the fridge for extended periods of time, it will get hungry and develop “hooch” on the top of your starter. This does not mean it has gone bad. You can do a couple things with it; you can pour it off the starter or you can mix it into the starter.

When you mix the hooch in it creates a more sour taste in your sourdough. So keep your taste preferences in mind when you decide what to do with the hooch.

Backup Sourdough Starter

I always recommend keeping 60 grams of starter frozen or 5-10 grams of dehydrated starter. This is because you never know when an emergency will pop up and you won’t get your starter fed for several days on the counter and it molds or dies on you. In the fridge you have several weeks before it will go bad on you. You also don’t know what might fall in your starter. This is why I keep mine covered at all times. With kids anything is possible. So it is always great to have a backup so you don’t have to start at square one again.

I do offer dehydrated starters for sale.The benefit of using a mature dehydrated starter is that it only takes 7 days to be able to bake with it compared to the 2-6 weeks it takes to get a mature starter that produces a quality loaf from scratch.

Let me know how creating your sourdough starter goes for you!

What did you name your starter? I would love to have you share your starters and loaves of bread with me either in the comments here or on our Facebook page Lucky Duck Acres.

Til next time, keep livin’ that farm fresh life!
~ Megan Taylor