How to Make Sourdough Starter from Scratch

Sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water that has been fermented so it has active and alive cultures. Making your own bread products with sourdough starter means you’ll get all the health benefits of that active bacteria, which is great for gut health and just tastes amazing. Learn how to make sourdough starter and all my tips for maintaining those healthy cultures.

Sourdough is Fermented Grain

Making sourdough is the process of fermenting the flour grain with water over time. This process creates those healthy live cultures and allows the good bacteria to overcome the grain. When this happens, the phytic acid is striped away from the grain, which minimizes the gluten content. This is why many people prefer to eat sourdough or better yet keep their own starter, so they can enjoy bread products that taste better and are healthier for your too. Source

We started making sourdough starter when we realized how easy it was, how much healthier it is for you, and how much better it tastes!

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When you’re done making your starter, be sure to check out some of my other sourdough recipes:

Extra Sour Sourdough Pancakes

Rustic Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Pizzelles

How to Make Sourdough Pizza Crust

What is Sourdough Starter?

Sourdough starter is made by mixing flour and water and letting it sit. This allows the creation of live cultures and good bacteria, which then feed off of the sugar in the gluten. As you continue to feed and take care of your starter, you will have a strong culture of bacteria that are strong enough to make bread rise. A sourdough starter can kept alive for years to come if given proper care.

How is Sourdough Starter Healthy for you?

When you feed your starter with flour and water, the live cultures are feeding off the sugar in the gluten. As they do this, something called phytic acid is being reduced. This is the acid that exists on non-fermented grains that can make grain difficult to digest.

This goes for all fermented foods like fermented milk kefir, soaked oats, sauerkraut, etc.

I’m also sharing today’s blog post with my friend Shannon over at Shannon Torrens Simple Living. She post all sorts of minimalist living, healthy eating, and home inspiration and has a great Simple Sourdough Pancakes recipe. Make sure to check that out once you have your starter!

New to Sourdough Starter?

If you are brand new to sourdough, you are going to love using your freshly made starter for a variety of tasty recipes.

You can learn how to make your own sourdough starter from scratch to make homemade bread, sourdough pizza, bagels, and more. 

Put all your sourdough recipes in one spot! 

Download and print off this NEW sourdough recipes ebook and keep your favorite sourdough recipes on your counter for easy, every day cooking. 

How to Make Sourdough Starter Process

While this process takes about a week, don’t let it scare you. You’re just adding more flour and water each day to feed the starter. Think of it like on day one you have a weak starter. On day two, the cultures are becoming stronger and more active. By day seven, you have what you call an “active” starter, which is considered strong enough now to make bread rise.

Watch: How to Make Sourdough Starter

Tools Needed

Glass bowl (you could also use a large mason jar – just don’t use plastic)

Wooden spoon

Measuring cup

Flour (high-quality all-purpose or whole wheat)

Filtered Water

Tea Towel

Sourdough Starter Timeline:

Day 1: Add 1 cup of flour and ¾ cup of filtered water to a glass bowl or mason jar. Stir with a wooden spoon. Cover with a tea towel and let sit on your countertop.

Day 2: Discard half of the starter mixture. Then, add 1 cup of flour and ¾ cup of filtered water. Cover with a tea towel and let sit on your counter.

Day 3: Discard half the starter, and again add 1 cup flour and ¾ – 1 cup water. Stir with a wooden spoon, cover and let sit. This time, repeat the discard and feed process twice per day (morning and night for example). You might feel like discarding the starter is wasteful and you will hate to do it. But it’s only for a week and you won’t be discarding anymore. If you want to save the discard, you can use it to make our family-favorite sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies.

Day 4: Repeat the twice a day discarding and feeding. Cover with a tea towel and let sit. Make sure you are using filtered water! At this point you may start to see bubbles in the starter. If not, just keep going.

Day 5: Repeat the twice a day discarding and feeding. Now you should start seeing a bigger, more bubbly starter.

Day 6 and 7: repeat. Your starter should be ready by day 7.

You know your starter is ready when it almost doubles in size after feeding it and is bubbly. If your starter isn’t at that point yet, don’t worry! Just continue the twice a day discarding and feeding. The temperature in your home, your water quality, and flour quality are all factors that contribute to how quickly your starter will become active. For some, it takes 12-14 days. Others it could take 5.

What to do after you have an established starter

You know your starter is done when it is bubbly, active, and smells like sourdough!

You can use your starter in sourdough recipes right away, or store it in the fridge. Sourdough starter should be kept in the fridge if you’re not cooking with it. If you are using it, you can leave it out on the counter but you have to keep feeding it. Anytime your starter is exposed to warmer temperatures on your counter, it needs to be fed more often.

Tips for Taking Care of Sourdough Starter:

Keep your starter in the fridge when you’re not cooking with it. The cold temp in the fridge will slow the feeding way down, so you don’t need to feed it every day. It can go a long time in the fridge without food.

The warmer your environment, the faster the starter will eat. For example, let’s say it’s winter and your house is 65 degrees F. I could take my starter out of the fridge before bed, feed it, and it’ll be ready for pancakes the next morning. If it’s summertime and our house is 75 degrees I could take the starter out around 6am, feed it, and it’ll be ready by 9am for pancakes.

If you didn’t plan in advance to use your starter but want to use it, there are still options. For example, for pancakes, pizza crust, or tortillas, you could pull the starter right out of the fridge and use it. This is because these products don’t need a rise. If you are making bread however, you need your starter to be at it’s healthiest, most active stage.

Always feed proportionally to the size of the starter. If you have one cup of starter on hand, then feeding it one cup of flour plus water is good. But if you have 4 or 5 cups of starter, you’re going to have to feed more flour and water and more often. If you need to get rid of some starter because you don’t want so much on hand, remember you can use the discard for pancakes, pizza crust, and tortillas.

Always stir with a wooden spoon and use a glass bowl for storage. Avoid getting any plastic in the starter as it could impact the live bacteria.

Lastly I’ve heard mixed things about whether or not tap water is OK to feed the starter. If you’re unsure of the quality of your tap water, use filtered water in your starter. The minerals that exist in tap water don’t hurt us but could hurt your starter.

What’s the right starter consistency?

The answer is – it depends 🙂

Your starter should generally be a consistency of a peanut butter or a thick pancake batter. You can stir it, but it’s not super watery. If it is dryer than peanut butter, add more water. If it’s too watery, add more flour. I promise you’ll get the hang of what your starter should look like after some practice!

How much should I feed my starter?

I generally feed my starter with one cup flour, 3/4 cup water. However, when I use whole wheat or einkorn flour, I do equal parts flour and water.

I know you may want exact measurements for this, but it really depends on the temperature of your house and the type of flour used. Whole wheat flour will need more water than all purpose, for example. With that said, don’t obsess over it. Just keep an eye on it and you’ll be fine.

Can you mix flours?

Yes, you can use a combination of flours in your sourdough starter. You can start with whole wheat flour and then feed all-purpose, for example. Use a high-quality flour if you have it.

Does this make flour gluten-free?

No, the gluten is still in the flour. But the fermentation and active cultures in starter eat away at the sugar in the gluten and help strip down the phytic acid in the grain, which is what makes non-fermented grain difficult to digest. Sometimes people who cannot tolerate grains normally are able to eat sourdough for this reason.

Same with cultured dairy. The idea is that processing strips dairy and grain of its good bacteria, so in general when you can ferment, it’s going to be easier to digest.

My starter has water on top and smells like nail polish remover. Is it bad?

No, your starter is just hungry. Usually these happen when the starter has been put in the fridge for a few days. Just pull the starter out like normal, feed it, and give it a good stir. Cover with a tea towel and let sit on the counter and you’ll see it get right back to normal.

Pin it for Later: How to Make Sourdough Starter

Don’t forget to check out this Simple Sourdough Pancakes recipe by Shannon Torrens Simple Living!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE9bCMbrEbY

Thanks for stopping by the Homestead!