It all begins with your starter! A healthy starter is rich, gooey, and bubbling. It feels alive.
Feed your starter every 24 hours when you’re baking, and keep it dormant in the fridge when you’re not.
I’ve been given a starter
Congratulations! You can start your sourdough journey. And because you’ve been given an existing starter, you already have something that’s resilient and full of the right bacteria.
Assuming you want to start baking right away, lets feed that starter’s appetite.
What you’ll need
- A jar – it’s probably already in one. You just need a standard sized jam jar (plus another one for the discard)
- Some scales – digital are best
- Strong bread flour – start with white whilst you learn the ropes
- Water – tap water is fine, there is no need for filtered/bottled water and it doesn’t need to be warm
Feed your starter
- Weigh your jar – you’ll need to know how much the jar weighs so that you can deduct that from your future measurements. It saves having to transfer the starter in and out of the jar during feeding.
- Discard – discard some of the starter so that you have a manageable amount that will fit into your jar. For daily baking, a good amount is 50g. Remember to deduct the weight of the jar from the total weight. So if your jar weighs 130g you want to get the weight down to 180g (130g + 50g).
- Don’t throw the discard away – keep it in another jar. It’s great for making crumpets!
- Feed the starter – use a 1:1:1 ratio of starter, flour, and flour. If you’re starting with 50g starter, add 50g of bread flour and 50g of water. If you’re starter is looking a bit weak, up the ratio slightly so that you have a little bit more flour (60g) and a little less water (40g). Using the same measurements (a jar weighing 130g) your total weight should be 280g after feeding.
- Mix – use a spoon to mix the ingredients so that there is no dry flour.
- Wait – put the lid on (it doesn’t need to be tight) and leave it on the side at room temperature.
- Repeat – feed your starter every 24 hours.
That’s it!
I want to make my own starter
Great! If you want to start from scratch, follow the same steps above by initially mixing 50g flour and 50g water. Discard and repeat every 24 hours (using the 1:1:1 ratio) for 7 days.
When your starter is ready
You’ll know your starter is ready when it:
- doubles (or trebles) in size
- has lots of crumpet-style bubbles
- smells like yoghurt
Your starter is not ready if it:
- is only slightly larger than when you fed it
- smells vinegary or very sour
- has cappuccino-like bubbles
If you’re not sure, a good test is to take a small amount and place it in a glass of water.
If it:
- sinks to the bottom of the glass, it’s not ready and needs another feed
- floats to the top, you’re good to bake!
Mother starter
I prefer to have a larger ‘mother starter’ in my fridge and then I use some of the discard from the mother when I want to bake.
I keep the mother starter in a larger jar (like this one from IKEA) and use a 1:1:1 ratio on 100g. So every time I feed it I take it back to 100g, add 100g bread flour, 100g water and mix.
I keep this in the fridge and feed it every 10 days.
Because it’s in the fridge, it’s dormant and definitely not ready to use in baking.
When I want to bake, I’ll feed the mother starter and take 50g of the discard and put this in another jar and then feed that for 2-3 days before using it to bake.
The mother starter goes back in the fridge.
If you get a similar jar for your mother, it doesn’t need to be airtight. In fact, you want air to get in and help the starter breathe. So make sure you take off the rubber gasket that creates the vacuum.