Simple Sourdough Starter Recipe for Beginners
This recipe is a simple step-by-step guide on how to make sourdough starter for the beginner.
If you are interested in modern homemaking or intentional living, then you for sure have heard all about the sourdough starter by now. While sourdough starter may seem like just a simple mixture of flour and water, it is so much more.
What is sourdough starter?
Sourdough starter is a recipe of flour and water that ferments over time creating a living culture of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. Active sourdough starter is the component used in many traditional bread recipes that helps the dough rise during baking.
Sourdough starter is used to make over hundreds of recipes from breads, to crackers, to pizza. It has become an absolute-must-have staple in our kitchen essentials.
What are the health benefits of sourdough starter?
Typically speaking, sourdough bread is a healthier alternative to regular white or whole wheat bread. The abundance of wild yeasts and bacteria in a sourdough starter are naturally-occurring in the environment. The tangy “sour” taste that we all love in sourdough bread comes from the lactic acid bacteria and acetic acid bacteria.
The beautiful thing about sourdough starter is that each one has different microbiomes, as the environment they’re created in are all different. This is why not all sourdough is the same. They are truly unique to their environment.
So what are the health benefits of sourdough starter?
- Easier on the gut to digest
- Has a lower impact to blood sugar
- Supports gut health due to the microbial community created during the fermentation process
- Higher in nutrients- it provides vitamins and mineral and is also a great source of antioxidants
What do I need to make sourdough starter?
The ingredients you’ll need to make sourdough starter include:
- Unbleached flour
- Filtered water
- A Jar or container to store
- A loose fitting lid
That is it. That is all the ingredients needed to start your very own sourdough starter. The fermentation process can vary depending on your environment, however.
How long does it take to make sourdough starter?
From the time you start your sourdough starter until the time it is active and ready to be used can take anywhere from a week to a few weeks. It truly is dependent on your environment. But in most cases, your sourdough starter will be ready in a week.
I personally love the sourdough starter creation process. If you are like me and try keep the simple joys in every day, keeping a starter “alive” is a way to do it. During that first week, you need to tend to it every day. But it’s not cumbersome.
How do I make sourdough starter?
Day One: Mix 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water in the vessel of your choice. If you don’t have a scale, you can use a ratio of 1:1 cups of each. I prefer measuring in grams, it makes for more accurate measurements. Stir the flour and water mixture vigorously until you have a thin pancake batter-like consistency. Cover with a tea towel or if you’re using a mason jar, just place the lid on, but do not tighten or close. It needs to breath.
Let this sit on your counter for 24 hours.
Day Two: Discard half of the starter, and repeat the process again. I typically just eyeball what I am discarding, this part does not need to be precise. So again, once you discard your starter, add another 50 grams of water, another 50 grams of flour and stir, stir, stir. Cover.
Let sit on your counter again for another 24 hours.
Day Three-Five: Each day on day three, day four and day five you’ll repeat the process. Discard half the starter, add your 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour.
Why is it necessary to discard half of the starter each time?
The discard process ensures that one, you don’t have an overflowing amount of sourdough starter. Secondly, this ensures you are feeding your sourdough starter the right amount of flour and water to “feed” the yeast and microbial colony that is being produced.
Day Six and Day Seven: You will repeat this exact same process, however, you will discard and “feed” your starter every 12 hours, rather than 24 hours.
At this point your sourdough starter will have a good amount of beneficial bacteria and wild yeast to begin your bread making journey!
Sourdough starter will tell you it is ready when you notice that it contains bubbles throughout the mixture and doubles in size within 4-12 hours of feeding it.
How will I know if my sourdough starter is ready to use?
Another tried and true method for testing if your starter is ready is the float test.
To test if your sourdough starter is ready to use in baking, drop a small amount in a bowl of water. If it floats, you know that it is active and ready to use.
If it sinks, it’s not active and needs to be fed.
The beautiful thing about sourdough starters is that you can keep them alive for years. In fact, at one point I was gifted a sourdough starter that was 11 years old. Yes, 11! And the older the starter, the better the taste in my opinion.
How do I maintain my sourdough starter?
Storing your starter in the refrigerator is the way to go when not consistently using it. Storing your starter in the refrigerator slows down the fermentation process and you can feed it less often.
If you bake a lot and are using your starter multiple times a week, it can live on your counter with regular feedings. When leaving the starter on the counter, I would do the typical discard and feed method about three times per week. Others may say you should feed it every day if you are storing in on your counter.
You will start to get very familiar with how your sourdough starter reacts to your environment and can then adapt your maintenance schedule around it. Like I said, everybody’s environment and starters are different.
Now that you’ve successfully made your first sourdough starter, the possibilities to baking are endless.
Don’t forget to check out my other sourdough recipes and posts!
If you try this recipe and love it, please leave me a comment and share! I love to see how they turn out for you!
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