Sourdough Starter

I’m always happy to share mine but there is something special about creating your own…

To make the starter:

You can make your starter with 100% wholewheat flour or unbleached strong bread flour, though it might take a little extra time to “wake up” the yeasts and bacteria (I used strong white bread flour with a tablespoon of rye).

It's best to do everything by weight not volume so use a scale. It's also a good idea to weigh your empty jar before you start and keep a record of that number so it's easier later when you weigh your starter and have to discard some.

Measure out 50g of flour into a clean glass jar – I would do 40g strong white bread flour and 10g wholewheat or rye flour. Spoon in 50g of room temperature water. Mix the water and flour together thoroughly. (I added ~1TBSP of grated apple at this stage just to help with the natural yeast culture but you don’t have to do this).

Make sure you get all the dry spots and check the bottom of the jar as the flour likes to congregate there and hide from the water. A thorough mix is also good to get a nice bit of air into the starter. The consistency should be like thick crumpet batter. Make sure the sides of the jar are clean-ish so you can see how much your starter rises.

Mark the side of the jar with an elastic band round it to keep track of how much the starter rises. Don’t make the container airtight, leave the lid slightly ajar and leave in a warm-ish place (20-25C) out of direct sunlight.

Check after 1 day and if there are bubbles on the surface, this means the yeasts are awake! This may take 2 days depending on temperature, water, flour, etc.

Once you reach this stage, discard half the starter and 'feed' the remaining starter with 50g flour and ~50g water.

I added half a teaspoon of organic honey to the water I fed mine with once every second day for the first week.

Stir well, scrape sides of the jar, adjust the elastic band and place the jar back where it was. (There's plenty you can do with the discarded starter so don't feel like you must throw it out, just ask Google for inspiration!)

After a few days, the starter should start getting into a cycle of peaking and falling which for mine took about 10-12hrs so I would feed mine at ~9am and again at ~9pm, discarding half each time and feeding with 50g flour and ~50g water.

If you see that there is a watery substance on top, this is called 'Hooch' and it means your starter wants to be fed, so just stir the liquid back in (unless it’s very dark or greyish and smells bad) and feed it.

After about a week the starter should begin to smell better (less pungent) and more like a yeasty bread dough than a sour fermented brew. On about day 8, when your starter is around its peak point (~4-6 hours after feeding), drop a teaspoon of the starter into a cup of water. This is called the FLOAT TEST. If the dough floats on the surface of the water and stays for ~2minutes then you can bake with it!

The float test is a useful tool if you’re new to sourdough, but as you get more confident you’ll get a feel for where your starter is and how it’s doing.

If you are going to be baking bread often (multiple times a week), keep your starter at room temperature and feed on a 12-hour schedule. If you are going to use it less frequently, you can keep it in the fridge which will mean you probably only have to feed it ~once a week. Then to use, just take it out the fridge about 24 hours before and make sure it has at least one room temperature feed and peak and then use at peak.

If your starter starts to smell very strong and acidic/vinegary/alcoholic or slightly like nail polish remover, this means that the natural yeasts have run out of food and are essentially eating themselves to stay alive. The waste product from this process is alcohol, hence the smell. If this happens, it can be difficult to rectify, but start by discarding a large amount and then feeding the remainder smaller more regular feeds and make sure to aerate the starter and mix it well when you feed it. I’d suggest feeding 3 or 4 times every day instead of 1 or 2. If the smell hasn’t subsided within 2 or 3 days, your starter might be a lost cause…

This is a timelapse of my starter, Greg, over 10hrs.