Description
How I made my sourdough starter!
Ingredients
Scale
- 60g Bread flour
- 60g Filtered water
Instructions
- Day 1: In a clean jar, weigh out 60g of bread flour and 60g of filtered water. Mix together thoroughly, then cover with a cloth jar lid, a clean kitchen towel, or plastic wrap. Set the jar in a warmer area in your home.
- Day 2: Do nothing! You can check on your starter to see how it’s looking, but we won’t add or discard anything for the first 24 hours. Continue to leave it be in it’s cozy spot until tomorrow!
- Day 3: 48 hours after making your starter, discard approximately 1/2 of your starter mixture*. Weigh out your remaining starter in a new jar; you should have about 60g of starter left, give or take. Feed this starter with the same exact amount of flour and water as you have starter. (Ex: if you have 62g of starter leftover after discarding, then feed this with 62g of bread flour and 62g of filtered water). Stir, cover again, and place jar back in it’s spot.
- Days 4-7: Repeat the same exact process as you did on day 3. Discard half, then feed it with the exact amount of flour and water. Stir, cover, and let rest. Your starter may develop small bubbles, a funky sort of smell, and become runnier at some point. All normal and good signs! If yours develops a layer of liquid at any point, you can discard that (this is normal and called hooch).
- Your starter is ready when it doubles in size (usually 4-7 hours after a feeding), has lots of bubbles of different sizes, a fluffy texture, and a more acidic or sour smell. To test if your starter is ready to bake with, you can drop a small amount into a cup of lukewarm water and see if it floats! Note, yours may take another 7-10 days to get to this point, which is totally fine! It can depend on the temperature of your home, the climate you live in, etc. Don’t give up and continue the same process until you see your starter has doubled in size and looks super active and bubbly!
Notes
*Later on when your starter is active, you can save your discard for sourdough discard recipes. For now, though, we will not save any of the discard.