Create a Thriving Sourdough Starter
When you've created a thriving sourdough starter you’ll possess a powerful culture that can be used to create beautiful artisan sourdough loaves.
It’s a process that’s shrouded in mystery and is often unnecessarily over complicated.
But the process is simple. Small quantities of flour and water are mixed together and left to ferment. Each day some of the mixture is discarded leaving just enough to feed with a little more flour and water.
When I first started I made the mistake of making way too much sourdough starter wasting huge amounts of my time and flour.
This is when most home bakers become frustrated and quit the process altogether.
I want to save you from all that waste and frustration by showing you a simple proven method that has worked countless times for me and the members of our Sourdough Unchained community.
Quick Navigation:
- How long will this take?
- What equipment will I need?
- Do I need to sterilise my equipment?
- Do I need specialist ingredients?
- Does temperature make a difference?
- How do I make the starter?
- Let me watch the video tutorial
- Give me the printable recipe card
How long will this take?
Now I know what you are thinking, how long is this going to take? Do I need to take a sabbatical from work to look after this new member of our family?
Nope, your life can go on as normal. The sourdough starter will take up five minutes of your day for the next month.
Sourdough starters like routine, so pick a time when you know you’ll be free each day, before work, after work, it doesn’t matter.
Here comes my first spoiler alert; you can’t build a starter that’s strong enough to raise a decent loaf in a couple of days.
It normally takes around 14 to 21 days to build a starter that is strong enough to raise a loaf of sourdough.
But remember, even then, the starter is still really young. Your loaves will improve as your starter becomes more established.
What equipment will I need?
So what equipment do you need to make this work?
You will need digital scales that weigh in grams and a jar that’s large enough to hold three hundred grams of water. If you’ve got three jars with lids kicking around it will make your life a lot easier.
Being able to weigh your ingredients accurately is one of the keys to consistently producing amazing sourdough so if you haven’t got any scales I’d strongly suggest you invest in some.
The My Weigh scales I use are by far one of the best choices for the home baker.
Do I need to sterilise my equipment?
Don’t make the mistake of using sanitisers or heavy chemicals to clean your equipment or you’ll run the chance of killing your fermentation before you even start.
Just use a normal dish soap and make sure everything is rinsed well with clean water.
Do I need specialist ingredients?
Water
We filter our tap water for drinking so it makes sense that I use it when I feed my starter, build my levain or make my dough.
I’ve had great success using unfiltered tap water too. But if you are worried your water is super chlorinated or too hard you can opt for a filter. I use the Britta filter jug.
Flour
The flour is the main ingredient so I’d suggest choosing the best quality you can afford.
I’ve had the best success using strong white bread flour with a protein content upward of 12%. I also add stoneground wholewheat flour for the first few days.
Does temperature make a difference?
Temperature plays an important role in sourdough baking. It’s a variable that can make or break the process.
The cooler the temperature the longer the fermentation process takes and when it gets too cold, the process can stall altogether.
When the temperature gets to warm the fermentation can run riot and go way too quickly.
Do your best to remove this variable from the equation. The closer you can keep your starter to 25°C/77°F the happier it will be.
You can buy chambers which will let you control the temperature. The Sourdough Home by Brod and Taylor is a popular choice.
But if you can find a suitable place in your home that’s not too warm or too cold it will work perfectly.
Failing that, you can use a cool box as a chamber and ice bricks to cool it down or a heat pad to warm it up.
As I mentioned earlier, the closer you can keep your starter to 25°C/77°F the more consistent your results will be.
How do I make the starter?
Watching the video tutorial below will show you the step by step method. I also show you what to expect with the consistency, smell and increase and decrease in volume.
Day 1: Mix 10g of wholewheat flour, 10g of strong bread flour and 20g of room-temperature water in the jar. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 40g)
Day 2: Retain 20g of yesterday's starter and discard the rest in the bin. Add 20g of room temperature water, 10g of wholewheat flour and 10g of strong white bread flour. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 60g)
Day 3: Retain 20g of yesterday's starter and discard the rest in the bin. Add 20g of room temperature water, 10g of wholewheat flour and 10g of strong white bread flour. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 60g)
Day 4: Retain 20g of yesterday's starter and discard the rest in the bin. Add 20g of room-temperature water and 20g of strong white bread flour. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 60g)
Day 5: Retain 20g of yesterday's starter and discard the rest in the bin. Add 20g of room-temperature water and 20g of strong white bread flour. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 60g)
Day 6: Retain 20g of yesterday's starter and discard the rest. If the starter is now fermenting well and smells good you can save the discard in the fridge. Add 20g of room-temperature water and 20g of strong white bread flour. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 60g)
Day 7: Retain 20g of yesterday's starter and discard the rest. If the starter is now fermenting well and smells good you can save the discard in the fridge. Add 20g of room-temperature water and 20g of strong white bread flour. Pop a lid on the jar and leave it to ferment for 24 hours. (Total starter weight 60g)
Day 8-21: Once your starer has begun to ferment properly it is important to continue with this feeding routine for at least another 14-days.
