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An active, bubbly sourdough starter.

Sourdough Starter From Scratch

How to make an active sourdough starter using just flour, water and some time.
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Prep Time 7 days
To make a mature starter 14 days

Equipment

  • 1 quart canning jar or similar container with lid
  • 1 wooden, stainless steel or plastic long-handled spoon
  • 1 ¼ cup measure
  • 1 ½ cup measure

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup flour any non-bleached flour will work.
  • 1/4 cup water chlorine free!

Instructions
 

  • Day 1: Take your jar and stir ¼ cup of water into ½ cup of flour in your jar. Cover with a lid.
  • Day 2: No action necessery, just observe how the sourdough develops.
  • Day 3-5: Take half of the sourdough starter and discard. Feed ½ cup of flour and ¼ cup of water. Stir well, cover and let rise for 24 hours. Repeat each day.
  • Day 6: Continue as before unless you want to bake tomorrow. This is fine if you have grown a very active starter. Otherwise continue for another week or up to 4 weeks to create a strong, robust, mature starter.
    To bake the next day, don't discard any sourdough, but feed it 1 cup flour and ½ cup water.
  • Day 7: Feed the sourdough in the morning. Don't discard any sourdough. Feed it 1½ cups of flour and ¾ cups of water and let it get active for 4-6 hours. When the sourdough has about doubled, it is ready to use for your bread recipe. Use what you need to make your recipe. Keep about ½ cup of starter and feed it ½ cup flour and ¼ cup of water. For the next few weeks continue this sourdough starter strength building regimen.
  • Maintenance: Feed as in Day 3-5. Continue for another 1-3 weeks. Longer is better if you want a really robust, strong starter. After that, if you don't bake every few days, it can be refrigerated. Give it a feeding about once every week or two to keep it ready to go for baking. When you want to bake, take it out of the refrigerator and give it a feeding. If you need to build up volume, plan extra time for that. I keep about a cup and a half in the fridge ready to go and give a feeding of 1½ cups of flour and ¾ cup of warm water. After 6 hours at room temperature it should be ready to bake with. When it is full of bubbles and about double its original size, it's active and can be used for baking bread.
    Do try my super delicious, no knead Kamut sourdough bread recipe.
    There you will also find lots of great tips on baking with sourdough and basic information that you can use for any sourdough bread baking.