Beginners Sourdough Starter
Want to make your own Sourdough Starter? Here are the instructions! 🙂
Print your recipe here:Beginners Sourdough starter
Ingredients sourdough starter from start to finish:
- Kitchen scale
- 2 glass jars with lids
- Rubber band
- 1 long scraper/stirrer
- Flour
- Lukewarm water
Day 1: Mix 25 grams of flour and 25 grams of lukewarm warm together in 1 glass jar until thoroughly mixed. Put a rubberband on the jar marking the top of your mixture. Seal with a lid and put on the back of your counter in a warm spot. If you have a cool draft, consider sitting your jar on a kitchen towel to insulate.
Day 2: There may be a few bubbles appearing on the surface on day 2. But if there is not, don’t worry sometimes it takes a few days. Today we are going to feed our starter only. Mix 25 grams of flour and 25 grams of lukewarm water into your starter. Mix well and move your rubberband to the top of the 100g of fed starter. Seal the lid and store.
Day 3: You should start to see some fermentation signs at the top of your dough, but again if it’s not there don’t panic yet. Just continue with your mixing. Weigh your 2nd empty glass jar and tare your scale (zero it out). You are now going to measure your unfed starter into the clean jar. Pour 25 grams of starter into your clean jar and feed with 25 grams of flour and 25 grams of water. Mix well, move rubberband to this jar, and seal lid. Now what do you do with the other 75 grams of starter? You discard it. Yes, discard. Feed it to your chickens or dump it. It’s not active sourdough starter yet… it’s like a sourdough sloth. And while sloths are cute, they don’t have a place in day 3.
Day 4: Today you should really start to see some changes. Sometimes on day 4 a clearish (brownish…greyish) liquid may start to collect on the top of your starter. That is a great sighting! That means that a.) your starter is alive but b.) your starter is ready to be fed a substantial meal! So if you have some bubbles and some liquid, let’s feed a double feeding. First pour off any liquid, it won’t hurt your starter, but it’s not helpful for anything. Now measure out 25g of starter into a clean jar (discarding the rest) and feed 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water. Mix well and move the rubber band and seal the lid. It’s at this point that you may see your starter move throughout your day. It should increase in size 25-50%. There is a possibility that your starter will double in size, but not usually on Day 4.
Day 5: If your starter rose to 50% or more, we can move on to day 5. If your starter did not rise enough, repeat Day 4 with a discard and do a 50g/50g feed. If your starter rose at least 50%, transfer 50grams of starter to a clean jar and feed with 75g flour and 75g of water. Move your rubber band and seal your lid. Repeat this day until you get a 25-50% rise.
Day 6: Your starter should have doubled in size over the last 24 hours. If it has not, and is still only 50% rise, feed Day 5 again. If your starter doubled (and has fallen again), it’s time to get ready to make some bread. In a clean jar measure out 25 grams of sourdough starter. Feed 25g of flour and 25g of water. Remove rubber band and seal lid. This is your starter jar. Leave on the counter and feed daily (or put in the refrigerator and feed once a week or so). 4-6 hours before you want to start your bread (but preferably right before you go to bed so it can sit overnight), measure 25g of starter and feed it with 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water. Move your rubberband to this jar and seal. In 4-6 hours or by morning, your starter should be at peak activity and ready to float test. Take a small amount and drop into the top of a glass of water. If it floats, it’s ready. If it does not float, wait for it to float or you won’t get good results. If you missed your peak activity (because the starter already deflated), use this as a Day 6 feed.
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Edited by Kevin Bloomquist – Editing@Bloomquist.com
