If you want to bake unbelievably delicious and nutrient-rich artisan bread that is transformative to your mind, body, and spirit, then it’s essential to START HERE.
Taking care of a sourdough starter can feel like a huge pain that isn’t worth the effort. However, when you consider the transformative effects a sourdough culture/starter has on bread (and other baked goods), it just makes good common sense to take just a few minutes a month to feed this living organism.
Being that sourdough has become such an important part of artisan bread in my home, I HAD to find a way to make it easier. Although I come from a large family of landscapers and gardeners, I can kill a cactus…so if I can do it, YOU can do it.
Learn to care for a sourdough culture the EASY way, and lay the foundation for arguably the only kind of bread we should all be eating.
THE LEGEND OF SOURDOUGH
Some historians believe that sourdough bread originated in Egypt sometime between 4000 and 3000 B.C. Legend says that a woman was making the unleavened bread of that time (meaning bread with no yeast) and she forgot a portion of the dough and left it outside near the warm, humid Nile River. Later, she found the dough and discovered it had greatly increased in size, so she added it to the next batch of dough. Thus, sourdough was born.
Whether or not this story is true, it makes sense that this natural fermentation process would be discovered by accident.
WHAT IS A SOURDOUGH CULTURE?
A culture (aka a mother or starter) is created from a natural fermentation process from wild yeast and wild bacteria. Wild yeast and wild bacteria are present in our air, water, and flour. When flour and water are combined and fed more flour and water regularly, the fermentation process can begin, resulting in an active live culture that can be used to ferment bread and make it rise. Another name for sourdough bread is naturally leavened bread.
WHY IS A SOURDOUGH STARTER SO IMPORTANT TO BREAD?
The sourdough process is one that has been all but lost in most commercial and home kitchens since the industrial revolution and the invention of dry instant yeast. For the sake of convenience, we have shifted to dry yeast that ferments bread in record time.
However, at no point did anyone stop to ask, “Is this actually healthy for us?”
Bread was NEVER meant to be the fast food it has become today, hence the reason it has become such a problem for millions of people.
Here are just a few reasons why a sourdough culture is transformative to bread:
- A sourdough culture BREAKS DOWN GLUTEN, making it easier to digest. A bread that has fermented with a sourdough culture anywhere from a few hours to 24 hours has basically been pre-digested for you. The longer a bread ferments, the healthier it gets, and the easier it is to digest. People with gluten intolerance have likely (their entire lives) been eating mass-market bread and processed food without a sourdough culture that has only been fermented for 2-4 hours. The way bread is made in modern times is a recipe for disaster for our digestive system, even if you don’t think you have a “gluten intolerance”.
- Lactobacillus, the bacteria found in a sourdough culture, breaks down and neutralizes phytic acid. Phytic acid is an organic compound that is found in the outer layer of grains, hence the part where all the nutrients are. All whole grains, even gluten free grains, contain phytic acid. The irony of phytic acid is that it blocks absorption in your intestinal track of the very nutrients found in the outer portion of the grains such as calcium, magnesium, copper, zinc, and iron! Luckily, the lactobacillus found in a sourdough starter helps to neutralize phytic acid making it possible for your body to ABSORB KEY NUTRIENTS. One of the biggest problems of the American diet is that we are overfed and undernourished. I believe eating bread (especially whole grain bread) that hasn’t been treated with a sourdough culture and allowed to slowly ferment is a key reason this problem exists.
- Using a sourdough culture instead of dry yeast requires a longer fermentation time in your bread. And this is really great news for your digestion! By comparison, one gram of a sourdough culture (one billion bacteria) is less active and has less fermentative power than one gram of commercial yeast (10 million bacteria). In order for sourdough bread to have enough rise, the bread needs to ferment for a longer period of time, resulting in the creation of even more beneficial enzymes that aid in digestion. Again, it’s all about the digestion and bioavailability of nutrients!
- A sourdough starter gives your bread MORE flavor. Beyond all the important nutritional aspects of consuming sourdough bread, it simply tastes better.
- Sourdough bread has a longer shelf life! Breads that have been fermented with commercial yeast will mold within a few days. With sourdough bread, you can leave it on the counter for longer, sometimes up to two weeks, depending on the bread. When it dries out, don’t throw it away. Instead, make croutons! Many ancient recipes call for soaking the old sourdough bread and adding it to another batch of dough, eliminating bread waste.
Now, you can certainly start a sourdough culture at home with flour and water. To activate the fermentation process from scratch, a starter does really well being fed whole grain flours like rye or whole wheat flour. This process can take about five days and the starter needs to be fed twice a day in order to get going. It’s sluggish at first, but the more it’s fed on the front end, the better it will be to use in sourdough bread.
But you want the EASY way, right? Well, I find the simplest way to start your own starter at home is to purchase a small portion of live starter from someone else. By all means, start a starter at home yourself, but considering how much you have to feed it the first week to get it going, you might be scared away from the process.
There are plenty of reputable companies that feed their starter every day and sell it so that you don’t have to worry about starting it from scratch. My favorite company to buy a sourdough starter from is King Arthur Flour. The little container of starter you see above is shipped right to your door, and all you have to do is feed it a few times, then it’s ready to use. They have been feeding their starter for over 100 years, so it’s really cool to buy a culture with a bit of history. It might take a few days to get to your door and you will need to refresh it by feeding it, so allow for at least 7-10 days before your starter will be ready to use in your bread at home.
Once your starter is ripe, it’s ready to be put in the fridge or freezer to be preserved…more on that in a bit!
SOURDOUGH STARTER FROM AMAZON
Breadtopia Live Sourdough Starter: Breadtopia’s starter may have slightly different directions on how to get started with their starter, so be sure to read them first.
WHAT KIND OF FLOUR SHOULD YOU FEED A STARTER?
The flour you choose to feed your starter depends on the flavor profile you want in your culture. I knew I wanted a whole grain starter because of the earthy aroma and added nutrition. When I got my starter from King Arthur Flour, I started feeding it 100% organic whole wheat flour. However, I found some Organic Sprouted Spelt Flour at Sprouts’ Market, which I’ve never seen in any other grocery stores, and I jumped on the chance to buy some because of the benefits of spelt flour. Spelt is an ancient form of wheat that hasn’t been hybridized as much as modern wheat. So now I have a spelt flour culture that I am loving!
If you want to have a lighter sourdough starter, you can certainly use all purpose flour.
Buying flours online can be expensive because of the shipping. You save the most money by buying a pack of 6 small bags. Here are a few affiliate links, otherwise check your local grocery or health food store.
MEASURING FLOUR + WATER
A digital kitchen scale is the perfect tool to measure your flour and water because it ensures that the measurements are equal and you don’t have to use measuring cups, which speeds up the process too. For instance, if you weighed out 50 grams each of water and flour, the flour (depending on the type) would be about 1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp, and the water would be just a smidge under 1/4 cup. You want to get as close to the same measurements as possible to ensure you have sufficient “food” for your starter to eat each time. It’s pretty annoying having to measure out 1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp., so save yourself the trouble and get a scale…no measuring spoons or cups needed. I have had the scale you see below for 5 years now and it works like a charm. It makes measuring ingredients SO much easier and precise, and you can measure in grams and ounces. You can use a digital scale when baking in general too!
Are you still with me?! Although it might seem like quite a process, feeding a sourdough can take as little as a few minutes a week or month. Below are detailed photos and instructions for how you feed a starter once you receive a live culture in the mail.
DAY 1
When your sourdough starter arrives in the mail, you can pop it in the fridge for up to one day if you aren’t ready to get started. I like using a small mason jar, but the only thing I had was an extra large mason jar for this photo shoot. Use a bowl to mix the starter with water and flour, but transfer it to a jar so you can watch it rise and see fermentation in action. You should feed it for the first two days twice a day, about 12 hours apart. Once in the morning, and once at night. It should literally take just a couple of minutes each time.
The King Arthur Flour starter measured in at 20 grams.
Add the starter to a bowl with 50 grams lukewarm water + 50 grams flour. Mix until combined and add to a glass jar. Make sure just to sit the lid on top of the jar. The starter likes to have a little bit of airflow. Place it in your kitchen in a warmer spot if you have one. I’m choosing to just measure very small amounts because I don’t like waisting all the expensive flour!
Below is what the starter looks like right after the first feeding. You can see there is no bubbling action just yet.
EVENING OF DAY 1
You can see in the photo below the starter has risen quite a bit and there are some bubbles starting to form already. This is really because of the whole grain flour adding extra minerals to the party.
Now each feeding we have to discard most of the starter and reserve a small portion of it to the new mix. This is because it will help to balance the ph, and will keep your starter from being the size of a skyscraper! Anytime you discard some of the starter, you can easily add it to a muffin mix, pizza dough, waffles, etc. It won’t have any effect on the dough unless you ferment the batter for a bit. There will be some easy recipes coming your way for the discarded starter!
So now, measure out 20 grams of the starter and discard the rest.
Mix the starter with 50 grams lukewarm water + 50 grams flour. Cover loosely with a lid and let set on your counter overnight. Below is what it looks like right after feeding.
MORNING OF DAY 2
Again, below we can see how much it rose overnight.
And you can see some nice bubbles below.
Below is what it looks like overhead. We still want a bit more bubbly goodness at the top, but just one more feeding and it should be ready. If your starter isn’t bubbling, just feed it once a day for one to two more days and it should be ripe for bread-baking.
CONT’D FEEDING DAY 2
Now that you can see the action, just feed it one more time on the morning of day two.
Same deal: Measure 20 grams starter and throw away the excess (or add it to some muffin batter if you want).
Mix the starter with 50 grams lukewarm water + 50 grams flour.
USING YOUR SOURDOUGH STARTER TO BAKE
At this point after the feeding on the morning of day 2 it needs to ferment for 4-12 hours before it’s ready to use in a bread dough.
For the best flavor and sourdough ripeness, use your starter in a bread recipe no more than 12-16 hours after you’ve fed it. It might be ripe after only 4 hours if it’s quite active and your kitchen is warm.
You can also let the starter go up to 24 hours (after a feeding) before starting your dough, but it won’t be as ripe.
Simply take out the amount of starter you need for your recipe, making sure to reserve at least 20 grams for your next feeding. Feed the reserved starter and set it aside. Now get to baking with your ripe starter!
Anytime you have a bake scheduled, make sure you adjust the amount of starter for your recipe. For instance, if you know you need 1 cup of starter for a recipe, then you will need to increase the amount of flour and water on the feeding before your bake so you will have enough for baking, and a small amount reserved for feeding.
Always remember to reserve 20 grams of starter whenever you use some to bake with!
PRESERVING YOUR STARTER
Ok, let’s be honest. The idea of feeding a starter every single damn day for the rest of your life may not sound so awesome, am I right or am I right? Well, we can actually slow down the fermentation quite a bit so that it only needs to be fed weekly from the fridge or a couple of times a month from the freezer, YEAH!
THE FRIDGE METHOD
When you are ready to stall your starter, make sure that you have just fed your starter. Let it hang out for 1-2 hours at room temp to get fermentation going, then pop it in the fridge. Again, don’t seal it too tightly. I love using my sourdough crock from King Arthur Flour pictured below because the lid lets a little air flow through, plus it’s really pretty and is a cool decorative piece when it’s on the counter. They also sell a sourdough crock set which includes the sourdough starter! Whatever kind of container you use, keep it in the front of the fridge because it can often get pushed to the back and be forgotten about. You can actually go as long as two weeks in between feedings but it will be more sour smelling.
When you are ready to bake with it, take it out of the fridge and stir it together as there will be some “hooch” most likely at the top which looks a bit oily. Give it two feedings in one day (about 8-12 hours apart), the next morning it should be ready to go.
If you want to bake consistently on the weekends take it out Thursday morning and give it two feedings. After the second feeding, you can wait until Friday night if that’s when you want to start baking and let your bread ferment overnight. You can get really creative and bake a few things in one weekend and have them for the month. Just remember, if you keep it out at room temp., you will need to feed it at the same time everyday.
THE FREEZER METHOD
This is a great way to take care of starter because it requires no effort at all. Although I haven’t had this problem as of yet, I’ve read that the freezer method can eventually kill your starter. If you are going on a trip and you want to freeze it once or twice a year, then you should probably be fine with the freezer method.
Once you have fed your starter, let it sit out for 1-2 hours, then pop in the freezer. I just use a plastic container and put the date on it from when it was last fed. Anytime you have fresh starter, make sure to save a portion in the freezer in case you forget to feed it and it dies. That way you won’t be starting from scratch. Replenish your starter once a month to be safe. Even if you don’t feel like baking that month, at least take it out of the freezer and give it two to three days before re-freezing to ensure it stays active.
Below is what it looks like frozen. To refresh it, thaw it at room temp, or in a bowl of warm water (which will speed it up).
Measure 20 grams out and discard the rest.
Mix with 50 grams lukewarm water + 50 grams flour.
Feed it twice in one day for it to be ready for the next day or just feed once a day for at least two days until you are ready to bake.
After it thaws, it will look like this below.
Then after I fed it just once, it looked like this below. Because I use a whole grain flour to feed it, it gets active much faster so this one was ready to use after two feedings.
HERE’S A RECAP
Does reading this post make you feel overwhelmed about trying to care for a starter? Ok, let’s take a deep breath together and just relax. Remember, if you don’t want to feed it but two to three times a month, keep some in the freezer. After feeding it a couple of times, then do a once a month bake for bread, muffins, pizza dough, waffles, even tortillas, and store everything in the freezer to have on demand throughout the month.
If you want to bake more often, you can keep it in the fridge and feed it weekly and do a weekend bake. But like I said, I found the freezer method to be just as fast because I used whole grain flour. If you are unsure about your starter being active enough for a bake, just feed it twice a day the first day out of the freezer, and once the next morning to get it going.
If your starter is looking sluggish out of the freezer after two or three feedings (meaning it’s not bubbling), just keep it out for an extra day or two and feed it once a day before freezing again.
TIPS FOR REMEMBERING TO FEED YOUR STARTER!
- Put a reminder on your phone! It’s so easy to forget about your starter in the fridge as it gets pushed to the back, and even more in the freezer. So make it easy to remember. Put it on your physical calendar or whatever online calendar you use regularly.
- Give your starter a name. I’m serious! In bread school, we gave our starters names like Sir Stinkypants or Pierre, but give yours a name that you will remember.
now let’s bake some bread!
Sourdough Honey Spelt Bread
Traditional Sourdough Bread Recipe & Video
No Knead Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Overnight Sourdough Spelt Biscuits
YOU CAN DO THIS!
If you have ANY questions about getting started or troubleshooting, please don’t hesitate to comment below!
Pin this post on Pinterest
Bon Appetit Ya’ll,
Leslie O.
This was an awesome post. Thanks so much for the information.
I keep some dehydrated starter just in case I lose my fresh one. You can dehydrate some starter in the dehydrator or the oven.
Fantastic tip Carole! How many days does it take you to refresh your starter and have it ready for bread?
I have a gorgeous starter that is a few months old…I’ve never discarded any starter before feedings… I’ve never discarded any starter…. Is that bad??
Hi Sandi! If you haven’t discarded any starter before feedings, then you’re starter would be the size of a skyscraper! Do you actually use part of the starter to bake with it everytime you feed it, because that would be the same thing? Also, it’s important to discard or use a portion of the unfed starter before a feeding because it helps to balance the ph. Ideally, you want a smaller ratio of starter to water and flour so that there is less starter ‘fighting’ for food.
Hi I’ve never discarded starter before. I have ten children and so when I bake bread I really bake bread! Could I just feed the starter more flour and water everyday and not throw any out? I usually make bread once a week… thanks!
Yes, I would imagine you bake a lot of bread for your family! If you don’t want to discard any starter, then you would have to start with a giant vessel and have a small amount of starter at the beginning of the week after you bake a lot of bread. Actually, discarding some of the starter is good for balancing the ph of the sourdough. I completely understand not wanting to discard any starter because it can be wasteful if you don’t bake everyday with it.
If you want to save yourself some time (and flour), don’t worry about feeding it everyday. Rather, keep it in the fridge, then take it out two days before you bake and give it two good feedings. On the last feeding before your large bake, increase the amount of water and flour to ensure you have enough for all of your loaves. This way, you would only discard some of the starter from one feeding. Ideally, you want to have a small amount of unfed starter in proportion to new flour and water so that the starter isn’t “fighting” to get food. If you have a large amount of unfed starter, you would need to have an enormous amount of flour and water to feed with it so that it doesn’t eat through the mix in a small amount of time.
So in essence, if you don’t discard any starter (and you don’t bake everyday) you might actually be wasting even more flour that way to keep your starter balanced with a good ph. You can try out the fridge method since you bake every week. You’ll just need to set a reminder either on your phone or in a way that you will remember to take out the starter two days before so you can feed it. If you bake on a Saturday morning, take it out on Thursday morning to feed. You will definitely need to stir the starter and discard a portion before this feeding since it’s been in the fridge and it will be more acetic.
Also remember, you don’t need to have a large portion of starter to be reserved in order to keep it going. As long as you have about 1/4-1/2 cup or so reserved in the fridge, your starter will be fine. You could even get away with as little as 0.1% (living starter) of the total amount during a feeding in order to keep the starter going.
Hope this helps, and let me know if this works for you. I know your time is precious with lots of little ones to care for!
Thanks so much! I will try what you suggested
How can I make my bread more sour.?
If you like robust sour flavor then you can add more sourdough culture to your dough. Keep in mind this will affect the fermentation time of your bread, as it will ferment faster. However, a sourdough culture is very forgiving to fermentation as it ferments much more slowly than dry yeast. My Honey Sourdough Spelt Bread is pleasingly sour, so if you would like to try that recipe, I’ll think you’ll love it!
Also, a rye sourdough culture (one that is fed only water and rye flour) lends a more assertive sour flavor than sourdough starters fed water and white flour. San Francisco sourdough bread is known for having a nice sour flavor. They add quite a bit of sourdough starter to their loaves and ferment for long periods of time which develops more flavor. Even though the San Francisco sourdough culture contains different bacteria only found in that region (giving it a unique flavor), you can still replicate the process at home with your culture.
Hi Leslie
Thank you so much for very useful information about sourdough starter.
I have a rye starter for some months and I didn’t discard any of that but recently I have noticed that a layer of brown water stands on the surface of it. Is it okay?
Can you suggest a rye bread recipe with sourdough?
Thanks.
Hi Sori! When you say you haven’t discarded any of the starter over the course of a few months, do you mean that you use some of the starter every day for a bake? Either using some of the starter before a feeding or throwing some of it away is the same thing.
If you haven’t thrown out any starter or used it in baking before each feeding, your starter would be massive and would need an enormous amount of flour and water to feed it.
As far as the liquid on top, that’s called the “hooch”. It just means that you may be waiting too long in between feedings and your starter needs to be fed more frequently. Ideally, you need to feed your starter no more than 24 hours apart to ensure it’s fed enough. I know how difficult it can be to feed it at the same time every day because life happens and you get busy, so my starter will sometimes have some hooch at the top.
If you are feeding it within a 24-hour window and you are still getting some hooch at the top, then your water or your kitchen might be too warm. So you can just use slightly cooler water or place in a cooler spot in your kitchen. If it’s warm where you place your starter, it will ferment faster, hence it needs to be fed more often (say every 16-20 hours).
For a rye bread recipe, I actually would recommend my Sourdough Honey Spelt Bread recipe and just replace the spelt flour with rye flour. I used my spelt flour starter for that recipe, so your rye starter should work just fine as a substitute. The crumb will look a bit tighter perhaps because rye flour has very little gluten. Here is the link: https://www.bessiebakes.com/sourdough-honey-spelt-bread/
Hope this helps!
I have not been discarding my starter cos I don’t seem to have the amount asked for in recipes. Every time I feed it after taking it out of the fridge, I don’t even have enough for most of my recipes. Help. I am feeding my starter about 40gm flour and water
When you are doing your feedings, I suggest starting with 20 grams starter, then 50 grams water and 50 grams flour to have enough starter to keep it going. If you know you want to make a recipe that needs 100 grams of starter or more, then on the last feeding before you mix the dough, you will need to increase the amount of starter, water, and flour so you have enough for the recipe and at least 20 grams left for the next feeding. Does that make sense?
When you feed your starter, just because it rises, that doesn’t mean that it increases the amount that you have. If you fed your starter 20 grams starter, 50 grams of water and flour, then your measurement when it’s ripe will still equal the same, 120 grams. So if your recipe calls for 200 grams, then you’ll need to make sure you have at least 220 grams of culture in total after a feeding (200 grams for the recipe, and 20 grams for the next feeding.
If you are keeping it in the fridge, when you take it out to feed it, it will need 2-3 feedings before it’s ripe and ready to use in a recipe. So your first feeding out of the fridge can have 20 grams starter, and 50 grams of water, 50 grams flour. Then the next feeding (about 8-12 hours later) do the same amount, then on the third feeding, you can increase the amount to the amount you need in a recipe, plus 20 grams extra for the next feeding.
This is why I hate using recipes that don’t give measurements in grams. A recipe that says “1/2 cup starter” doesn’t tell you how much a 1/2 cup weighs, so you are having to guess at how much you’ll need for the feeding before. This is probably one of the reasons why you don’t have enough starter for your recipe because you’re likely having to guess at your measurements.
I would recommend only using recipes that have the measurements in grams or ounces to avoid confusion. All of my bread and pastry recipes use American measurements, plus the weight in grams. King Arthur Flour has thousands of recipes in grams and ounces, so they are an awesome resource as well.
I know all of this can be a bit confusing, so please don’t hesitate to ask more questions if I need to clarify anything. I want to make sure you are successful when baking, so I’m happy to help!!
Hey,
I know it is a little bit late, but I think it could help in the future. You don’t have to hate cup recipes. Take your cups, put it on a digital scale, fill it up and you know the approx. amount of sourdozgh in the future. Please don’t forget to stir down the sourdough when using cup measurement.
Hope, it helps.
Thank you so much. I guess what I am missing is the feed it 2 to 3 times after taking out of the fridge. I was only doing it twice within a 24 hour period. After my recipe I feed it and stuck it back in the fridge so I don’t have discard ever. Thank you
Hey there, I have a mother dough that I started 5 months ago and love making bread. I found your blog very interesting to read, especially about physical acid and the bacteria cultures in sour dough that break down gluten. I was just curious about where you know this information from? With the Internet being filled with garbage, I am always interested in finding where people get their info. I don’t mean for this to call into question your integrity, but I simply want to make sure it’s good information 🙂 Thank you!
Hello Aiden, this is actually a really important question! We should all look at information more objectively and take everything (especially on the internet) with a grain of salt.
Actually I learned all of this information when I went to artisan bread school in Chicago for two months from my instructors at the French Pastry School who all had decades of experience as artisan bread bakers. One of my instructors was Chef Jeffrey Hammelman who is the head baker at King Arthur Flour Bakery in Vermont and he talked extensively about the power of a sourdough starter, including the issues with phytic acid and how a sourdough starter can help your body absorb nutrients you wouldn’t be able to without it. The great thing is there is actually a lot of science behind baking bread that has been studied extensively throughout history.
Often this kind of information isn’t well-known because you have to understand the science behind baking bread and how gluten forms, plus how fermentation affects the nutritional value of bread. A lot of what I learned in culinary school about bread specifically was how it has changed dramatically since the invention of commercial yeast. In France, the art of baking bread the slow way with a sourdough culture has been preserved unlike here in the U.S. So it was very enlightening learning about the problems with modern-day bread by understanding how it’s changed throughout the last several decades especially.
I had given up, thrown my hands in the air, I love sour dough bread, but it is getting way too expensive. So l spent a day at a workshop, very generous with her vast knowledge of anything sour dough and fermentation baked some beautiful bread, but that’s where it all ended, the teacher was very stri t with directions and hammered home exact weights etc…
Happily went about feeding doing well, day 6/7 no bubbly action, kept deleting and feeding day 9/10 it smelt really badly and so flat, started and last chance starter with my teachers dried starter day 6 that died, in the end gave up in complete despair after almost 2months of trying we had an extremely hot summer from late Dec thru to mid Feb temps regularly 38°C up to 45°C not if that had any bearing l don’t have air conditioning. Anyway I digress, I wanted to say a HUGE THANKYOU for your very informative info, I’m getting inspire to maybe give it another go. I live in Adelaide Australia so would have to other Brands to use, there are quite a few goodies & grain type stores so will take a look at their organic flours, I have had trouble getting spelt and a good rye flour in the supermarket, I will finish up now sorry for the rambling thats just me I’m a talker not a typer…hehehe!!!
Oh man I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with a culture that won’t bloom. I wonder if the problem might be that since you live in a hot climate with no air conditioning, your culture might be fermenting really quickly and then collapsing before you can feed it for the next day? Did you discuss this possibility with your instructor?
For me, the easiest way to get a sourdough starter going is to purchase a live active starter from someone else, especially since you’ve had issues with a dried starter not working out. I wonder if it would be better for you to use cool water instead of tepid room temperature water since your kitchen gets pretty hot? This will slow down fermentation for you a bit.
If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask! I wish you much success in getting your starter up and running.
I live in Phoenix, Az and am actually adding my water to a larger quantity of ice to chill the water as much as possible when feeding. I have even tried a water bath for my crock to keep it cooler. None of that has retarded it enough to hold it for my work shift, often 12+ hours. Refrigeration is a wonderful thing!! Even if I take it out for a few hours at a time, I’m starting to gauge it enough, that I can estimate pretty closely when it’s active enough to raise a loaf of bread. I actually had a loaf make it through bulk nearly as quickly as with commercial yeast on Monday.
WOW that’s crazy! I imagine with the temperatures your experiencing in Arizona right now you’ve had, keeping it in the fridge is a good thing. Thank you for sharing this experience!
I have a starter from KAF that I have maintained for several months. I have fed white flour every time but one. I fed her rye flour once. What I am wondering is if you can feed different flours occasionally or if you should stay the same. Thank you!
Great question! From what I understand it’s best to keep with the same flour every time because different flours will (like whole grain flours) will ferment at faster rates than white flours. Keeping a consistent feeding schedule is essential to maintaining a healthy starter, so if a starter is fermenting faster between feedings then it will throw off your schedule.
If the time between feedings is stretched too much, then the ph will be off, causing your starter to be overly sour. I used to have a spelt starter that I fed everyday, but my grocery store didn’t always carry the spelt flour so I had to feed it whole wheat occasionally. It didn’t hurt it, but I decided to switch it to white flour so I wouldn’t have that issue again.
Excellent Info and I enjoyed reading the posts. I have had similar difficulties, persevering through creating a healthy culture was hard to wrap my brain around. Yes, i made several items with my discarded culture. Carrot cake, tortillas, waffles, doughnuts, banana bread, to name a few. Sourdough has a learning curve! And our gut is better off!
I’m glad you enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing!
Great post! I have a starter that has been going for about a year and a half. I plan to transition it from whole wheat flour to spelt.
Something I have found to be helpful is to keep a jar in my freezer and put all of my ‘discard’ into it. Once I have enough, I make waffles or banana bread. No wasted flour and an occasional treat!
Julia that is a fantastic tip!! I might have to share that in a recipe discard post. Would you be ok with that? And do you quickly thaw the discard before using it?
So I am confused. I just got into making sour dough bread and have been having good luck with it. I have a starter that’s approximately 200grams. I use either 200 or 176 depending on the recipe I am using and then feed it 1 to 1 rye flour and water. I keep it in the fridge in-between bakes and don’t feed it when I take it out of the fridge a couple hours before I use it. I get good rise. It seems from the instructions here that I am doing something wrong but I get good results? Am I just lucky or is what i do OK? The starter floats when I go to use it and is at least double in size. I have never done the 2 feedings before I use it. The thing I am trying to get is more of a sour flavor. If you are feeding it right before you use it doesn’t that take away the sour flavor because you have fresher flour in it? I have yet to get the good sour flavor I want so any tips on that. Thanks
Hello Shelly and thanks for the question. When you feed the starter and place it in the fridge, it stalls the ripening process. When you take it out of the fridge it begins to ripen again, so if you let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours it’s getting more ripe. If you then add it to dough and let the dough ferment for a long time, the starter is getting fed even more. Luckily you’ve had good results this way, but there is always a chance that if you’ve not let your starter ripen enough before baking with it, you won’t get a great rise.
To ensure continued success I would recommend taking the starter out of the fridge, stirring it, then feed it at least once before you bake with it. Feeding it once or twice after it’s been in the fridge will help balance the ph of your starter, plus it will ensure it’s more active. Usually your starter is at its peak ripeness 4-8 hours after feeding it. This is now the ideal time to add it to dough. I don’t recommend feeding the starter, then immediately adding it to dough, as it’s not ripe.
I think it sounds confusing because fed starter means a starter that has just been fed. While unfed and ripe starter means that it’s been several hours since you’ve fed the starter, but it’s ripe and ready to use for bread baking. Unfed but not ripe refers to starter that’s not ripe and bubbly because it’s been around 12-24 (or longer) since you fed it. I think a lot of people think fed starter refers to starter that’s been fed several hours prior so that’s where there can be confusion in terms of what stage your starter is ready to be used for baking bread.
For a more sour flavor you can increase the amount of starter in the recipe. You can also achieve this by using a “stiff levain” which is a pre-fermented portion of the dough with 50% hydration and 50% flour. That might sound really technical, but it’s really a simple math equation.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
I am just starting my sourdough journey after receiving a starter from a friend. I have done so much reading on the process and it does feel a bit cumbersome. I definitely want to develop a process that is sustainable for me. You have created the clearest and most comprehensive explanation I have found on the process and the “why”. I also love that you offer some many options to make it work for each individual. I am so excited to get started.
That’s wonderful to hear Theda! I’m so glad you’ve found this tutorial helpful. The “whys” are very important but can leave your head spinning a little bit. It’s really a simple process once you get in a rhythm of feeding your starter so that you can get to know how it works and when it’s unripe versus ripe and ready. Please let me know if you have any questions along the way! Best of luck.
I am new to making Sourdough Starter: I started with recipe 1 cup whole wheat flour to 1/2 cup distilled water, leave at room temp, covered but not airtight. Next day discard half and feed with 1 cup all purpose flour and 1/2 cup distilled water. Continue this for 7 days. My question is that on day 3 it is doubled in size, quite bubbly and it floats when put in water, does this mean it is ready even though I have not done 7 days of feeding?
Are you creating a sourdough from scratch or are you starting your own starter with a bit of starter from someone else? If you are starting it from scratch yourself it’s best to give it at least a week or more to get going. However if your purchased live starter or received some from someone else you don’t need to feed it for a whole week before it’s ready to use. Whole grain flours really help to get a starter going so it’s great that you’re seeing it so active. Chances are you can use it now if it’s so active.
Today I started my second attempt of a sourdough starter from scratch. I’m also following a different recipe this time since my first one didn’t seem to go so well. I had a lot of activity on Day 2 but then for the next 2 days it kept developing a liquid layer just hours after feeding. It also had a very bad smell to it within a couple of days. I started a new one tonight with stone ground whole grain spelt flour and water. But after a few hours had already developed a liquid layer at the top. Is this a bad sign? Can’t quite figure out what I’m doing wrong. I’ve seen so many different variations of what to do and use for a starter that it’s hard to know if I’m doing the right things.
Yes I totally understand your frustrations! My starter recipe is more towards purchasing a starter from someone else (like King Arthur Flour) and getting it going once you receive it. Starting a starter totally from scratch yourself takes a bit longer to get up and running and you have to feed it twice a day sometimes to begin activating the fermentation process.
Seeing the liquid on top tells me that you may need to feed it twice a day for a few days. Whole grain flours are perfect for starting a starter yourself as they help activate fermentation faster. Since you have a liquid on top that’s forming after a few hours, you may need to feed with cool water instead of warm water to slow the fermentation down a bit. If the area where you store your starter is warm, it helps activate fermentation, but if your starter is fermenting too quickly you can try slowing this down by feeding it cool water instead of warm water.
I realize it’s very difficult to find already active starter online right now. If you are having trouble getting your starter going, you might try asking friends and family on Facebook if they know anyone locally who has some extra starter that they can give to you. I know there are many Sourdough bread Facebook groups where the members are helping out each other in trying to find starter locally. These Facebook groups are also very helpful because you can post photos of your starter and ask for feedback. You will be AMAZED at how many helpful responses you will get and they can help walk you troubleshoot, and you can get responses almost immediately. Seeing photos is always the most helpful for troubleshooting. Please let me know if you have any other questions and I’ll be happy to help out in any way I can.
Just found your web site thanks so much for all the great information,as iam new to sour dough bread making,,I had some from a class I took a few years ago in 2017 and I tried to see if I could start it and it did work,so I did make a loaf of bread which was awesome ,I don’t eat bread to often but am going to start to make a loaf once a week ,,so I just need to put in fridge and feed it once a week ,do you recommend freezing it or drying it when you don’t want to bake for a while
Thanks Val
Hello Val,
Yes you can feed your starter once a week from the fridge. If you are going to bake with it, it’s best to give it two feedings 12 hours apart (with the starter at room temp the whole time) for it to be ripe and ready for baking.
Freezing works, but it will eventually kill the starter if it’s in the freezer for a while, so I would keep a back up by drying it. I hope you have much success with your baking!
Hullo, I have been baking a basic white loaf as per James Morton’s recipe, but would love to switch to sourdough. Trouble is that we eat quite a lot of bread ad I’m baking every other day as it only takes us just over two days to get through a loaf. is it possible to do this with sourdough or would I be using so much flour to feed the starter so often and then the schedule of 2-3 days to bake a loaf means I will have overlapping breads on the go (at different stages of resting, I mean)? I wonder if we wouldn’t just be better off sticking to non-sourdough?
Would you do this if you needed to bake a loaf every other day?
Many thanks for any help!
Hello Amita, great question! Getting a schedule created for your baking will enable you to see if it’s too much to handle as far as feeding sourdough, letting them ferment and baking over a two day period. Really it depends on the recipe you use for your traditional bread. If you pick a recipe that works for your schedule, it can be more feasible. For instance, you could use a recipe that requires a “levain” or pre-ferment since you are only mixing a small portion of the total dough with flour, salt, starter, and water and letting it ferment for 8-12 hours. Then you mix all of your ingredients together for the whole dough and finish the recipe.
A lot of sourdough recipes call for a first fermentation period of 5-12 hours, then a second fermentation in the fridge for 12-16 hours. That type of recipe may be harder to do every other day because you’ll always have a dough going every day in order to stagger the baking time.
To keep your starter refreshed, you’ll likely need to feed it twice a day so that it’s ready for baking more frequently. There are all kinds of ways you could go about this, and even some bakeries will make sourdough bread but add a little dry yeast as well to ensure it rises properly.
Perhaps the easiest way you could handle baking regularly is baking 2-4 loaves at a time and freezing the loaves that you aren’t eating immediately. This will keep the bread nice and fresh and tastes great!
Thank you so much for this (sorry – only just checked back now). So much useful info, particularly about the levain method; that looks doable!
I have struggled to keep a starter going from scratch, and ended up ordering a 40-year old one, which was very lively at first, then tailed off and didn’t rise. I have since realised my water was too cold, the room was too hot (regularly around 26-28 degrees in my kitchen), and my flour was too white – I followed some advice to use whole wheat flour and that really woke it up. Too many sites (not yours) stress that any flour will do, but I don’t think they should say that. Clearly the starter needs, as you say, the minerals from the grain itself.
Anyway, I should be ready to try my first sourdough bake in a few days when Abi’s forgiven me for feeding her badly last week!
Thanks again for all your advice!
I feel silly for STILL having questions after reading your post and all the comments with even more information in them…but here I am. ;). First off: if I want to make crumpets, say, with the discard, do I just discard for a few days and save it up in a separate container? Secondly: When I am doing 2 or more feeds to get a bigger amount for making bread, are those feeds in the span of about 8 hours?
Hello Elyse, these aren’t silly questions at all! If you want to make crumpets or English muffins and you want to use the “discard” as the leavener (what makes the dough rise) then you will need to use ripe and bubbly “discard”. The term discard can be confusing because it can be ripe and ready for making bread or it can be not very active which isn’t going to be great to for helping make bread rise. Discard is whatever is leftover from a feeding.
If you are making crumpets I would assume you would want the discard to me ripe and bubbly to help the dough rise. If that’s the case, then you wouldn’t need “discard” from a few feedings, but rather from one feeding. About 8-10 hours before your are ready to start making the crumpets, add the amount of flour and water you need to make enough starter for your recipe, making sure to have 20-25 grams of starter leftover for the next feeding.
For the second question, I would recommend the feedings be about 8-10 hours apart to be ripe for bread. I hope this makes sense and let me know if you need any clarification!
Hello, I have a recipe that calls for 165 grams sourdough starter. Can you help me figure out the ratios I need to feed my starter to have enough? Also, do you have to feed your starter organic flour??
Hello Jennifer, great questions! You don’t have to use organic flours, but it is important to use unbleached flour.
So to calculate the amount you need for your recipe, here’s what I did. I like to do is make sure I have at least 25 grams of starter leftover so that I’ll have enough to keep feeding for the next day when I need to use it in a recipe.
I added 30 grams (just for good measure) to 165 grams, then divided it by 3 (one for the starter, one for flour, one for water). That looks like this.
195 grams starter total / 3:
65 grams water
65 grams flour
65 grams starter –> equals 195 grams.
With 195 grams you’ll have 165 grams of starter for your recipe and 30 grams leftover (sometimes less if starter gets stuck to the sides of your container) to feed for the next day. So whenever you need to figure out an amount of starter you’ll need for a recipe, plus have enough leftover for the next feeding, just add the amount you want to have leftover (like 25 grams) to the total that you need and divide that amount by 3. This way you won’t have too much or too little starter.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions!