Sourdough Starter

I had no idea what I was getting into. It’s a tad bit intimidating to try something new in the kitchen, especially when it closely resembles a science experiment, that you are intended to eat. But alas, I wanted to do it anyway. I enjoy a good challenge and I wanted to see how I fared in natural bread making.

So in true Tammy Kate fashion, I started by reading everything I could find about sourdough starters. A couple of my favorites were The Prairie Homestead Blog and The Prairie Homestead Cookbook. I found invaluable information that Jill has shared. Also the book, Flour Water Salt Yeast was very informative and perfect for the beginning bread maker.

Something curious that I learned, you can buy starter on Amazon if you don’t want to make your own, it is a process. Who even knew this was a thing? There truly is nothing you can’t find on Amazon!

Once I did all the research, made all the lists and gathered all the things, I put on my lab apron and got busy!

I couldn’t help but enjoy the process of gathering the things. Mom of it I already had, and you can definitely do all of this without some of these things, but here’s what I gathered:

1. Digital food scale
2. Digital food thermometer
3. Measuring cups
4. Small bowls
5. Spoons
6. Large jars (wide mouth works best)
7. Linen or cheesecloth
8. Wooden Spoons
9. Flour (all purpose & wheat)
10. Water
11. Patience

That’s a list! The only thing I didn’t have and had to purchase was the digital scale, but they are very reasonably priced on Amazon. The process of creating a starter is really quite simple. Set aside 7 days that you have free to grow your starter.

Day 1: Add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of filtered, non-chlorinated water in a jar and mix well. Cover with a piece of cloth and use a rubberband or the jar ring to secure. You want the cloth open and able to breathe, this is where your natural yeast will come from to enter your starter. Non-chlorinated, filtered water is very important. Chlorine will kill your stater, if you have country water, you should be good to go, city water should be tested before starting or just filter and leave it set uncovered on the counter for 24 hours for the chlorine to evaporate. I have well water, so I just used the water from my fridge that ran through that filter. Wait 24 hours.

Day 2: Use your digital scale and a dish to measure out 100gm of starter, 100gm of water (I warm it up in the microwave to baby bottle temp), and 100gm of flour. Mix well and secure cloth on top of jar. Discard any remaining starter.

Day 3 – 7: You are going to repeat day 2. By the 3rd day, you should be seeing bubbles in your starter. Also, it may begin to separate, this liquid is grain alcohol called hooch. Just pour it off and discard. If you aren’t seeing bubbles by day 4, you should probably start over.

What did I learn? I started with just straight white flour. After a few days, I had some bubbling, but not what I wanted so I started using 1/2 cup wheat flour and 1/2 cup white flour. This helped my starter grow much better.on day 4 and day 6 I took the discard and measured it out, added equal amounts of flour/water and made starters for my two daughters, whom I think took them home and abandoned them. My poor starters. Hooch stinks, theres that! It does smell like alcohol, not pungent but not good either. If your starter does develop a rotten or pungent scent and/or begins browning mold, discard and begin again.

What do I do after day 7? You bake some bread! After day 6 or so, your starter will puff up when you feed it, that’s when you want to make your bread! That is a process as well, but it’s not difficult. I will be posting the bread baking next week. Once you do your thing, simply put a lid on your jar of remaining starter and put in fridge. You should feed it once a week to keep it alive, but I’ve read that it can be brought back after as much as a month of not feeding, but I wouldn’t recommend risking losing your starter.

So I hope you find this helpful! Let me know in messages if you have any questions and I will try to answer them, also, please share your successes with me! Happy Sourdough starting friends!!