It’s time to get into making a Starter. Honestly there is no way to make this very fun or faster from my knowledge. This will mostly be a step by step and I will try to make it as user friendly as possible.
If you missed my post last week on an introduction to sourdough , you may want to check that out before diving into making a sourdough starter.
Just remember, if you ever get frustrated or you just want to make sourdough without the work of making the starter- you can just buy one online! They are pretty cheap. Below is the link to the starter I bought for Hailey for her birthday in 2020. Hers is still alive and well, and has amazing flavor.
I am also contemplating starting a program to send my starter to people (either free or for the cost of the shipping). Depends on how many people want it. Her name is Bertha. I made her in January 2020 and I love her. So leave a comment if you would be interested in this, and I will work to try to make it possible if there is interest!
Tips for Making a Starter
- Use Rye or Whole Wheat flour to get it started- they have a lot of wild natural yeast in them
- Make sure everything that touches the starter is clean. Like all fermentations there is the risk of bacteria contamination. Once it is a hardy starter, it is hard to mess up. But you are creating a living organism, treat it with love and care while it grows up!
- It will have some funky smells sometimes, that’s ok! That’s the sour flavor forming. BUT if any new colors form in it, throw it out and restart. That’s bacteria, not just stank.
Make Your Own Starter
This is how I made my starter (Big Bertha). I am sure there are other methods – I just don’t know them. To make my starter, I used the method given in the book: The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I have altered it to be a little less precise and more forgiving – but I absolutely love this book and recommend it to everyone who wants to learn more about bread in general. She is a genius and gives amazing detail to so many types of breads.
Day 1
Mix the following together (make sure you have clean utensils or hands):
- 1 cup Rye or whole wheat flour (120 grams if you have a scale)
- 1/2 a cup of water (make sure its not chlorinated water**)
This should form a dough. Add more water or more flour based on how the ingredients incorporate together.
Put the baby starter in a container that can hold a minimum of 4 cups. Cover it with plastic wrap, or a lid. Let the starter sit at a cooler temp (ideally 60°-70°) for 48 hours.
**Chlorine kills yeast, so if you use chlorinated water it may not work. Most city water is chlorinated. If you are not sure what you have – just use bottles of water while making your starter!
Day 3
Now we are going to refeed the starter to refresh the yeast in the mixture. This starts with something called “discarding the starter”. You basically just get rid of half of it and then add more flour and water.
Below are the steps in order for day 3 – and remember to use clean utensils!
- Take half of you starter out of the container and throw it away!
- Mix into the start: 1/2 cup of bread flour (60 grams) and 1/4 cup of non-chlorinated water (60 grams)***
- Put the cover/lid back on the starter and let it sit out at room temp (ideally 65°-75°) for 24 hours – if you have a colder house like me then put it above your fridge. It is a bit warmer up there. It is usually where I let my bread proof
*** This is the ratio we will continue using for refeeding. a 50/50 mix of flour and water.
day 4
You are going to redo day 3! Discard half of the starter, stir in the refresh mixture, seal the container, and let it rise again for 24 hours.
Day 5
Has your starter rose? Maybe and maybe not! To know the starter is active, it will rise to about 3-4x the size of the the refreshed starter. This may start on day 5. When I made it, my house was about 60° the whole time – and I didn’t know the put it on the fridge tip! Guess what, it still worked! It just took me about 8 -10 days of repeating day 3.
At this point, if it is not rising enough or at all, don’t give up. It should have a bit of an aroma by now, and even if it doesn’t just keep repeating day 3 on the starter until it does!
Day…whatever
Whichever day your starter is active – you will want to do a proper refresh of it. In the future when you make bread, you will need to refeed it prior to baking with it. To do this, you will need to add more flour and water and put it on top of the fridge for 4-6 hours. The starter should double size!
When your starter is active:
- Take half of you starter out of the container and throw it away!
- Mix into the start: 1/2 cup of bread flour (60 grams) and 1/4 cup of non-chlorinated water (60 grams)***
- Put the cover/lid back on the starter and let it sit on top of the fridge for 4-6 hours
At this point, you have a fully fledged starter that you can bake with/name/and form an unhealthy attachment to! Over the next couple weeks, you will want to refeed it a couple times to help it continue gaining the flavor you want.
The next decision you need to make…do you want to have a liquid starter or a stiff starter.
Solid vs Liquid Starter
Liquid starters and stiff starters are pretty self-explanatory. One is more hydrated than the other. What we created was a liquid starter. 50/50 water and flour. Which you use is based on preference. I personally use a stiff starter!
Liquid starter
This is what you currently have, and you can use a 50/50 ratio that you have learned while making the starter to continue refreshing it.
The ratio that I would use to refresh a liquid starter:
- 120g of liquid starter
- 60g of water
- 60g of bread flour
stiff starter
If you want to convert the liquid starter you made with me into a stiff starter, just knead in some flour! With the size starter you have after a refresh, just add an extra 3/4 a cup of flour. This translates into a 33% water to 66% flour ratio. Why do I prefer a stiff starter? I like making dough and kneading it, plus I find it to be cleaner.
The ratio that I use to refresh my stiff starter that I keep in the fridge:
- 50g of stiff starter
- 25g of water
- 50g of bread flour
This gives me 125g of starter that I keep in my fridge at any given moment. You can use basic online conversions to estimate what those gram values translate into cup values if you do not have a scale.
How to pick
Try them both! They both produce good bread. Some people are die hard that one creates better flavor than the other but I think all of the reasons are pretty subjective! Just do what makes your life easier.
How to Maintain Your Starter
If you don’t plan to use your starter daily, keep it in the fridge. The fridge slows the fermentation down.
If you don’t plan to bake with it:
- Take the starter out of the fridge and let it rest at room temperature for about an hour. This just lets the starter wake up after being in the fridge.
- Refeed your starter with the ratio that you use (either a liquid starter ratio)
- Put it back in the fridge – make sure if you are not using it to bake, that you refresh it every 1-2 weeks to give it fresh yeast.
If you plan to bake with it:
- You expand your starter!
- Expanding your starter just refers to refeeding your starter, without discarding. This makes it so you have more starter to use.
- Once you have enough starter for your recipe, I will refresh a portion of it to go back into the fridge, and use the other portion for the recipe!
- Then you follow the recipe and bake your amazing bread
How I expand my stiff sourdough starter for baking
You can use the normal refeeding ratio to expand your dough, and increase the values based on the ration of starter you have. Traditionally people will use the same ratio and refresh it multiple times to get the proper amount of starter.
I have found I like to refresh my starter as little as possible in a day because it is time consuming to wait to bake with it! So I have altered my ratio to work with my sourdough recipe. I end up with amazing bread. I only need to refresh my starter once to bake it!
Refeeding my starter to bake
- Pull out my starter from the fridge and let it sit at room temp for an hour or so
- I have 125g of starter in my fridge, so I combine:
- 125g of starter
- 125g of water
- 250g of bread flour
- My 500g of starter rises for 4-6 hours
- Then use 50g of this starter to replenish my fridge supply (you don’t want to lose your starter by baking it all)! Make sure you add some back into the fridge. Here is my ratio again.
- 50g of stiff starter
- 25g of water
- 50g of bread flour
- I use 300g of my starter for my loaf of sourdough bread. This leaves me with 50g of starter to either discard, give to a friend, or make something else with!
The Truth About Sourdough Starters
They are very very resilient! You can not add improper ratios of flour to water. If you have a healthy starter, you can add more water into it and make it liquid for a recipe, then add more flour to make it stiff again. You can eyeball everything, and it will work out.
I know that sounds chaotic – but it also is freeing. Hailey NEVER measures out her starter or what she adds when she refreshes it. She never discards her starter (she does use the excess to make fun things). I always measure mine. But sometimes I am tired and I legit forget my ratios, and just add what I think is right. I have messed up a bunch of times by using the incorrect ratio, and I have such a healthy starter!
I also generally do not discard my starter. If I have excess when I feed it or bake with it, I use it in other recipes. The only reason to discard a starter once it is active, is if you neglect it and it is too sour or if it is too big. I will make a post giving a bunch of alternatives to discarding sourdough. But also, no shame if you want to discard, I did for a long time!
The most important thing to remember: it is a living creature. If you feed your starter the water and flour it needs regularly, it will be happy!
How to Use a Starter in Other Recipes
Stay tuned for my recipes for sourdough deep dish pizza, sourdough focaccia, sourdough bagels, sourdough scallion discard pancakes, sourdough pasta, sourdough breadsticks, and more!
But until then, if you have a starter and you want to use it in a recipe you already use instead of instant yeast? Or even in recipes that don’t have yeast, but you just want to add the sourdough flavor? Here is how I do it:
I measure how much stiff starter I have for baking, then I assume 50% is water and 50% is flour! So I will use my normal recipe, and subtract out that much flour and liquid from the recipe.
Example:
I am making a sponge for my sourdough bagels. The recipe I use to make my sponge WITHOUT sourdough starter is:
- 520g of flour
- 590g of water
My recipe altered to add in 600g of sourdough starter:
- 600g of starter
- 220g of flour (520g – 300g of sourdough flour)
- 290g of water (590g – 300g of sourdough water)
Next week I will give you my recipe to bake a beautiful loaf of sourdough with your new starter!
Follow us on Pinterest to stay up to date on our posts!
Acknowledgements to the source: (The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, 2/21/23, pages 431-437)
12 Comments Add yours