Originally posted by Modern-Day ma on April 6, 2020
It takes a little time and commitment to maintain a starter and wait for naturally-leavened bread. No more 1-hour dinner rolls if you’re using natural yeast (you won’t miss them). But, I promise you the payoffs are huge.
No more going to the store to buy yeast. You’ll never run out with starter on hand! No more homemade bread that goes moldy a couple of days after baking. Sourdough lasts much longer than bread raised with commercial yeast. No more wondering if your bread is “healthy” or not. Natural yeast pre-digests many of the compounds in flour that are difficult on the human digestive system. No more bland loaves! Sourdough can be baked into tangy loaves, but it can also be used to raise bread that is full of flavor without the sour taste (more on this later).
One more note for those of you who are beginning to panic: Sourdough isn’t difficult. You don’t even need to understand all of the science behind what’s going on to produce delicious, reliable baked goods at home. Just dive in, and you can nerd-out on the technicalities with me later.
Ready to get started? You only need three things to create your own sourdough starter:
1 – Flour (preferably organic wheat or rye, but unbleached white will do if that’s all you have on hand)
2 – Water – this really needs to be filtered or unchlorinated. If you don’t have either, simply run some water from your tap into a glass and allow it to sit overnight to dissipate the chlorine
3 – A glass container with a lid to grow your starter in. Ideally, you should have three containers of similar size (more on this later). A small mason jar works well.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 2 is a watch-and-wait day. You may see your starter begin to darken on top and some dark liquid will likely begin to pool on the surface. It’s possible to see some bubbles beginning to form in the mix, but not to worry if yours hasn’t woken up yet. It will soon!
Day 3
Today things start to get exciting! You may see some bubbles in your tiny mixture. If not, please do not worry, things will begin picking up soon. All starters activate and grow at an independent rate due to flour type, hydration level, and temperature.
Give your starter a quick (light!) sniff. The smell will likely have changed from a wheaty, floury scent to a cheesy odor. If it’s beginning to smell like your son’s dirty socks, you’re on the right track! The cheese-puffs-gone-wrong smell you’re noticing is the byproduct of fermentation in its early stages. The smell will become more and more acidic and less stinky as your starter matures.
The best part about today is that it’s time to give your starter it’s first refreshment!
Master Refreshment Formula for Days 3-7
Ingredients
1 heaping tsp starter (equal to 5 grams)
1 Tablespoon water (equal to 10 grams)
1 Tablespoon whole grain* flour (equal to 10 grams)
Directions
Plan to follow these steps every 24 hours. While you don’t need to be exact on timing, it is best to refresh your starter at relatively the same time each day for the next 5-7 days.
In a NEW, CLEAN jar or bowl, mix the starter and water. Add flour and mix until fully hydrated. Cover loosely and set in a warm (70-80° F) place for 24 hours.
Place the remaining, original starter in it’s jar in the refrigerator as a backup. If something were to go wrong with your new, refreshed starter, you can skip back a day using the starter you’ve saved in the fridge. It’s a good idea to label each with the day number, ie “Day 1-2” and then tomorrow, “Day 3” (dry erase markers work well for this-see photos below).
Notes
*If you don’t have whole-grain wheat or rye flour, continue using all-purpose flour (or whatever you have on hand, but NOT bleached flour. It lacks the nutrients to support yeast growth).
Day 4
Today is the second refreshment for your new colony of natural yeasts. You may notice the cheesy smell is increasing. That’s a good sign! You also may notice a few bubbles in the mix. Those are carbon dioxide, a byproduct of yeasts fermenting sugars in the flour. If you still don’t see bubbles, be persistent. I promise they will eventually develop.
Follow the master formula (above) for refreshment again today. You should now have three jars total. I always suggest labeling the lids. The current day should be labeled “Day 4,” after feeding and left in a warm spot. You will then put yesterday’s jar labeled “Day 3” into the fridge. The “Day 1-2” jar is now relabeled “Discard.” This discard jar is optional. As long as you keep yesterday’s starter in the fridge, feel free to toss your discard and not keep a separate jar. However, if you are concerned about waste, or just not ready to part with the past few days of work, go ahead and keep a discard jar. Each day, after dividing and refreshing your starter, you’ll put yesterday’s backup in the fridge and empty two days ago’s backup into the discard jar. The discard will grow in size as you continue to add to it each day. (pic below)
Day 5
You will be refreshing your starter again today following the master formula above. (5 grams starter plus 10 grams water and stir plus 10 grams flour and stir) Be sure to use a clean jar each day for your new batch. How does it smell? Any bubbles yet? By now you should notice some change, even if slight.
If you are using all-purpose flour and have yet to see any activity, see if you can get some whole wheat or rye flour and begin feeding your tiny culture half all-purpose and half whole-grain each day (that’s 5 grams or 1 1/2 tsp of each type of flour). It’s worth repeating that bleached flour will not work for growing a sourdough starter, so please avoid it! Whole-grain wheat and rye flours have so many more nutrients, which feed natural yeasts quicker.
Around day 7 to 10, we can begin converting our yeast colonies to all-purpose (white) flour if that’s what you prefer. The truth is, in the long-term, you can keep a white starter and still use it to bake whole-grain bread just like you can keep a whole-grain starter and use it to bake white bread. More on that later down the road.
Day 6
Another refreshment day following the master formula (5g starter + 10g water + 10g flour).
I decided it was time to test out the power of this tiny starter by measuring its rise. To do this with your new starter, simply mark the top of the flour/water/starter mixture with a rubber band around the outside of the jar or by drawing a line with a dry erase marker right after feeding it. Then wait and watch to see if your starter is rising above this line.
My tiny mixture was able to rise to double in size, which means it’s time to ramp up the feeding schedule, beginning tomorrow. Stay tuned for the excitement!
Days 7-10
Sometime during days 7-10, your starter should really wake up and begin producing a significant amount of bubbles. Start marking the side of your jar right after feeding (with either a rubber band or a dry-erase marker) and watch for your starter to double, or nearly double, in size about 12 hours later.
When you see doubling and a lot of bubbles, it’s time to begin twice-daily refreshments. Follow the same formula as above (5 grams starter, 10 grams water, and 10 grams flour) for both refreshments. Aim for these feedings to occur about 12 hours apart each day for the next few days.
After starting on the two-a-day plan, observe your starter several times each day. Is it still reaching double in height 12 hours (or so) later? If so, you can begin to slowly transition your starter over to white (all purpose or bread) flour (if you have been using whole-grain). This is a preference, so feel free to keep it whole-grain if you would rather. My original starter that I have had for years is purely whole-grain fed. For more on how to use a whole-grain starter to make white bread (or vice versa), see this post.
To transition your new starter to white flour, begin by feeding your starter according to the master formula, but substitute 3 grams white flour and then use 7 grams whole grain for a day or two, equaling the 10 grams total.
The second (or 3rd) day, bump the white flour up to 5 grams so you are feeding the starter equal parts white and whole-grain flours. If you are still seeing active, reliable bubbles, go ahead and bump the starter up to 7 grams white flour and 3 grams whole grain for a day or two, all the while watching the results.
You will likely notice that the activity of your yeast slows down when fed higher proportions of white flour. If you see bubbling slow way down, stay at whatever ratio you used that day for a couple of days to allow the natural yeasts and lactic acid bacteria time to adjust.
If at any point, your starter seems very sluggish, rewind a day by bumping the whole-grain flour up a little for a couple of days and possible extending the time between feedings back to 24 hours, and then try again.
Eventually, sometime between day 10 and 14 (17 or 18 at the latest), you will be able to feed your starter 10 grams of white flour and no whole grain, if that’s your desired end result.
You should also notice the smell of your starter changing (hallelujah!). Instead of a “stinky cheese/dirty socks” smell, you should notice an increased acid/vinegar smell. The change in smell indicates that the lactic acid bacteria are active, healthy, and reproducing. The bubbles indicate that the yeasts are active and multiplying.
Days 11-14 & Troubleshooting Advice
Days 11-14(ish) are a waiting game. Your goals are these:
1– Get your starter actively producing bubbles and doubling at least every 12 hours (or quicker). If you are still struggling with this, please try one or more of the following:
* Find a warmer spot for your starter to hang out
* If you have been using only white flour, begin using some whole-grain (wheat or rye) flour in your refreshments.
*Adjust your refreshment formula. You can use a master formula with a little more starter to encourage yeast growth and activity. I suggest a 1:1:1 ratio (10 grams starter, 10 grams water, 10 grams flour).
2- Begin feeding your starter every 12 hours as soon as you see it doubling in size in 12 hours or less.
*If, at any point, your starter fails to double in the 12 hour timeframe (even if it was doing so before) please let it sit for another 12 hours and see if it livens up. Feeding anyway will dilute the yeasts and bacteria and send you backward in the development process.
3- Leave the “stinky cheese”/”dirty socks”/”Cheetos-gone-wrong” smell behind forever. The sooner your starter begins receiving two 12-hour-apart feedings instead of just one per day, the quicker the yeasts and lactic acid bacteria will take over and kick out the other organisms that leave behind their not-so-welcome scent. A true sourdough starter should smell acidic, not cheesy (thank goodness).
One final note for troubleshooting. Don’t stress. New starters can be finicky, doubling one day and then refusing to the next. Usually, all that is needed is a little more time or a touch more whole-grain flour to wake it back up. You should always have the previous batch backup in the fridge should things go very wrong.
Day 12
I am really happy with how the starter looks and smells today. It has adjusted well to the white flour and continues to produce better bubbles surrounded by a stronger gluten structure. Gluten is the protein in wheat that allows dough to be stretchy.
One downside of working with higher percentages of whole grain flour is that the bran in the mix can act as little razor blades, cutting the gluten and not allowing the dough to rise to its fullest. Converting the starter to a higher white flour percentage allows us to better see the full potential of the yeast. If you’d rather stick with whole-grain flour, go for it! I love my whole-wheat starter.
This refreshment will be 6 grams white and 4 grams of wheat.
My starter is up to 9 grams white flour and 1 gram wheat flour at each feeding today.
Day 18-END
Step 1
The starter is rising reliably after each refreshment, which means, It’s TIME!!! Wahoo! Pop over here to increase the amount of starter you have and then go make your first loave(s) of artisan bread at home! If you’d like to start with a very simple loaf, try this one. You will need to increase or “build” your starter up until you have 2 1/4 cups in order to make the simple recipe. Instructions for building your starter are below or in this post.
Be sure to always save a small portion (5 grams is enough) and feed that separately as your permanent starter. For more on this process see this post and read below.
After you have proved your starter can raise a loaf of bread all on it’s own, move on to the steps below.
Step 2
With the starter rising reliably with every refreshment and the discard having successfully made bread, it’s time to begin feeding it at the standard sourdough ratio of 1:4:4 for white starters and 1:2:4 for wheat or whole-grain starters (more on that here). So for a white-flour starter, you will feed it one part starter to four parts water and four parts flour.
If you would like to keep your starter “tiny” due to a low flour supply or just to simplify the process so you have less discard, then follow these measurements:
-8 grams starter
-32 grams flour
-32 grams water
(For whole-grain starters I recommend 8 grams starter, 32 grams flour and 16 grams water)
You can continue with using a 5-gram starter, 10-gram water, and 10-gram flour ratio, but that means you will have to build your starter slowly (at least twice) each time you want to bake, because you shouldn’t exceed the 1:4:4 ratio. Feeding a tiny amount of starter too much flour/water can cause it to go dormant or dead. The small amount of yeast needs the right amount of food-not too much and not too little.
Most people build up their starter in the beginning and then use these measurements over the long term:
-1/4 cup starter
-1 cup water
-1 cup flour
(For whole grain starters the measurements I recommend are 1/4 cup starter, 1/2 cup water and 1 cup flour)
This larger permanent starter allows you to keep enough starter on hand so you can quickly make bread (or pancakes, waffles, tortillas, etc.) without a building step in between.
As you can see, both of these follow a 1:4:4 ratio for white flour starters and 1:4:2 for whole-grain starters, and both will work equally well. The smaller permanent starter will have to be built up before you will have enough to bake with. I wrote a separate post outlining how to go about building specifically for use in my artisan recipe.
Step 3
The final step for your newbie starter is to let it rest in the fridge. Unless you will be baking every day (preferably twice), it is better to keep your starter refrigerated. The cold environment slows down the yeast and lactic acid bacteria, which means you can feed your starter only once per week! Once your sourdough starter is flourishing and raising bread reliably for a couple of months, you can even drop down to every 2 weeks here and there (although the taste will become more sour when refreshments are repeatedly spaced out beyond a week). More on this process and the reasoning behind feedings, timings, etc. is in my post on caring for a mature sourdough starter.
Two Final Pieces of Advice
First, always, always, always save a small portion of your starter in its permanent home and feed it after removing some to bake with. That way you will never run out. Many a seasoned baker has accidentally used all their starter in a recipe and realized too late that they left themselves nothing for the future. Don’t let this happen to you. But, if it does, scroll to the top of this post and begin again.
Second, sourdough should be fun. Please don’t stress that you’ve “messed up,” or “killed your starter,” or done something irreversible. Almost all of the time, your starter will bounce back from a little neglect, your “not quite perfect” loaf will be gobbled up by family or friends, and your mistakes will lead you down the pathway of learning to bake sourdough your own way. If something I have suggested doesn’t work for you, please seek out other resources such as this one, or this one, (or even this one or this one) and develop a method that works for you. There is a shared culture (ha!) in the world of sourdough and there are almost as many methods and opinions as there are crocks of starter bubbling away on countertops and in refrigerators. Welcome to the club. We’re glad you’ve joined us.
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