Who wants to make a blob of guck that turns into bread?! I know. Everyone does. I mean, it's the year of Coronavirus where the two most popular things in the world are baking sourdough bread and thinking about baking sourdough bread. To do it, you need to know how to make sourdough starter.
If you already have sourdough starter and want to dry it (to preserve it) I have full instructions on how to dry sourdough starter here.
Sourdough starter hit its stride in the year ohhhhh 1500 BC or so. The Egyptians were all over it. For thousands of years it was the only way to make bread. Then something horrifying happened - progress.
With the invention of instant commercial yeast by Louis Pasteur in the 1800s, sourdough starter was abandoned by bakers.
Commercial yeast gave predictable results, was easier to use and a lot faster than the homemade levain people had been using for centuries. All but the most discriminating of bakers (the French) switched to using the commercial yeast.
What breads made with commercial yeast didn't have was the flavour of bread made with the traditional sourdough starter. But bakers were willing to give that taste up in exchange for convenience.
100 years after the invention of commercial yeast, around the 1980s, the popularity of sourdough starters began to rise again before levelling out in the 1990s.
Nobody (except every infectious disease expert around the world, plus that guy who made the movie Pandemic) could have predicted what would happen in the spring of 2020.
The entire world would shut down. And together we were alone.
Collectively, without prompting, the world knew what to do. We would bake bread.
The word "bread" spiked to an all time high in Google searches. This was partly because everyone locked inside their homes wanted to do and eat something that was comforting. What's more comforting than the smell of freshly baked bread and a warm hunk of it slathered in butter.
Even more explosive were the results for sourdough starter a week later when everyone started to realize yeast was suddenly sold out everywhere.
Overnight, sourdough starter and bread became the "it" thing. Nothing like this had happened since the Cabbage Patch doll riots of 1983.
Winter is coming again, the virus is in its second wave almost everywhere and even though you might not be in lock down, the safest place for you to be is at home.
So.
Who wants to make sourdough starter?
If you were alive and coherent in the 1980's you might remember the fad with people passing around a gross glop of dirty looking glue. You were supposed to take a bit out and pass along the rest to a bunch of unsuspecting friends. It was like a chain letter but with if someone accidentally sneezed on it, you were going to eat it. Blech.
THAT was sourdough starter.
Sourdough starters have been known to be passed on from generation to generation.
It's a mixture of flour and water that's been left to ferment and turn into liquid yeast. It does this by "catching" wild yeast that's in the air.
Sourdough starter, which makes bread rise, tastes different than regular yeast because it contains different yeasts and bacterias. It's fermented and has a slight sour taste to because of that. It's what gives sourdough the unique flavour it has.
O.K. NOW do you want to know how to make this miracle of nature that has you catching wild yeast from the air known as sourdough starter?
I thought you might.
By the way, catching wild yeast is a bit of a romanticism. You are in fact catching wild yeast, but yeast is pretty much in abundance everywhere. You know when grapes have that white haze on them? YEAST! Yup. The white haze on grapes is yeast.
Yeast is in the air, on your hands, and possibly on the spoon you use to stir your concoction. Which is lucky for we sourdough starter makers.
Before I get to the sourdough starter recipe I know you're going to have this question:
Table of Contents
What flour is best for sourdough starter.
What kind of flour? Most people like rye and feel it ferments more quickly than other flours. BUT you can use whatever flour you want or have; rye, whole wheat, white ...
I use rye to start my starter. Then for subsequent feedings I may switch over to white.
How to make it
A bit about hydration.
This is for a 100% hydration starter. That means it has 1 part flour to 1 part water. Different hydrations of starter and breads create different results. A lower hydration (more flour than water) will give you a more sour taste and needs to be fed less often. A higher hydration (more water than flour) will be milder tasting and need feeding more often.
There's a LOT more to it than that, but if you're a beginner I think this 1:1 starter is a good place to start for you.
- Mix ¼ cup clean room temperature (filtered or bottled) water with ¼ flour.
Stir everything together until all the flour and water have mixed well.
2. Cover it with a cloth and let it sit for a couple of days in a room that's approximately 23C (75F).
I'm using a bowl but you can also use a glass or mason jar.
After just 8 hours you can see tiny bubbles starting to form.
3. Once you notice bubbles and a yeasty smell (after 2 or 3 days) you can get rid of half of your mixture. Just scoop it out and throw it down the drain. It may have dried out a bit. That's O.K. Add ¼ cup of water and ¼ cup of flour to the remaining starter, mix and cover up again. This is called feeding the starter.
Continue feeding the starter in this exact way every 8-12 hours for the next 2 weeks or so.
Remove half the starter, then add ¼ cup water and ¼ cup of flour. Wait 8 - 12 hours and do it again.
After several days of doing this you'll notice the bubbles are starting to get bigger.
Starter not rising?
If you don't think your starter is doing much you can:
- Put the starter close to an open window so it has more access to wild yeast. (no idea if this is a fable or not, but I did it and it worked)
- Put the starter in a warmer part of the room, or warmer room in general.
- Increase the amount of flour and water you add from ¼ cup of each to ½ cup of each.
By day 12-15 you'll notice your starter will start to double in size after you feed it. It won't just get a bit bubbly, it will literally double in size!
Once your starter reliably doubles in size for several days, you can break out the cigars because you are the proud parent of glop. Some people suggest you keep feeding it on the counter like this for up to a month to really get the sour taste.
Those people must not have a life. Because just feeding this starter twice a day for two weeks is enough to make a person crazy. Trust me. By the end of two weeks you'll be as sick of feeding this starter as you are of feeding your family every night.
Once you have a successful starter you can stick it in the refrigerator until the day before you're going to make bread.
Reviving it
The day before you make bread the starter should be removed from the refrigerator and brought up to room temperature. Once it's warm, add ¼ cup of bottled water and a ¼ cup of flour. This will help activate the starter and get it bubbly again. 8-12 hours later, do it again. Your starter should now be ready to use.
Ingredients
- Bag of flour
- Filtered tap water or bottled water
Instructions
- Day 1 - Mix together ¼ cup flour and ¼ cup lukewarm water. Let sit for 2-3 days until bubbles form and it smells of yeast. During this time, stir the mixture whenever you think of it.
- Day 4 - Remove half the starter mixture and dump it down the drain. Feed the remaining mixture with ¼ cup flour and ¼ cup water. Mix.
- Continue to dump and feed exactly the same way every 8-12 hours for 2 weeks or until the mixture reliably doubles in size after feeding.
- Store the sourdough starter in the refrigerator until the day before you're ready to make bread. The day before, remove the starter, let it get to room temperature and then feed it. (add ¼ cup flour and ¼ cup water) 8-12 hours later, feed it again. It is now ready to use in the sourdough bread recipe of your choice.
So there you have it. Sourdough starter glop. Pass it on.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
This inquiring (nosey) mind wants to know: have you tested it and will be passing along a recipe ? How long does it keep in the refrigerator?
And an aside- pretty clever to have that pop-up ad for Nirvana under this thread!
I imagine some very Nirvana-ish (inducing bliss) bread could come from this starter. My mouth is watering already. .
Jcrn - Fraid I can't take credit for the ad. It must be one the fine folks at Google Adsense picked out for me. The starter will keep in the refrigerator forever. As in, for the rest of your life. I'm trying a new recipe/technique tomorrow with my sourdough bread. So if all goes well I'll post it. With sourdough a lot is about technique more than the recipe. How long you let it rise, whether you do one or two rises etc. etc. ~ karen!
I love sourdough bread, and I've been the proud 'momma' of a starter several times in my life. I've never successfully started my own brand new one, but I've gotten King Arthur Flour's starter a couple of times and had great success with it. I have a special crock I keep on the counter for my starter. In the past month, I've made bread three times, and I've re-learned that you don't actually have to feed an established starter twice a day. You can actually get away with feeding it like three times a week if it's on the counter, and like once a week if it's refrigerated. It might taste better if it's still fed twice a day once it's established, but it's not a necessity. Making sourdough pancakes or muffins with the 'discard or use' half three times a week when feeding isn't too onerous, even if I'm not making bread that day. Well, it wouldn't be too onerous, I suppose, if I had bothered to look for a recipe for them yet. ;-) So far, it's just gone down the drain. I anticipate a large GlopMonster come Halloween.
I have a starter I've been nurturing for 13 years. I've given it away, even dried it and mailed it across the country, and I keep a backup container of it in the freezer, just in case someone thinks the bubbling thing on my counter is something very, very rotten and throws it away. I want to say, by the way, that I'm tired of people saying that they killed their starter. If it gets gray liquid on the top, it's fine. Pour the liquid off and feed the starter (the liquid is alcohol--drink it if you dare!) If it gets orange fungus on top, scoop it off and feed it a few times. If fruit flies start gathering around it, strain it through a fine mesh sieve and then feed it (and protect it from future fruit fly infestations with cheese cloth or other breathable cloth.) I have rescued mine from all of these situations.
So will you show us pictures of your sourdough bread?
Hi kristin! I've been experimenting with a few recipes and techniques. I'm trying yet another one tomorrow, LOL. Shorter rise and a slightly less wet dough. If all goes well, I'll post the recipe, technique and pictures. ~ karen!
I'm a professional pastry chef and baker, and I have a big passion for artisan breads, especially pizza (which I make in the pizza oven I built in my back yard.) I teach pizza-making classes part time, and I use my sourdough starter in my recipe. For sourdough boules or batards, it's cool to try getting your starter really really active and using NOTHING BUT STARTER as the liquid (no additional water), basically adding flour and salt to a bunch of starter. Keep the dough soft and moist, give it a slow rise punctuated by a couple of turns (this is where you fold the dough like a business letter, then fold in half crossways; it gives a soft dough more structure and eventual height), then shape, proof and bake (use the dutch oven method for an amazing crust.)
I've been dabbling in sourdough for a few years (I started my starter in 2007, using the method you described in this post--and yes, the Creature, as we call it, still lives) and the best bread recipe I've found so far was from a Martha Stewart magazine. It's fussy, with weighing and everything, but it's made the best bread so far http://www.marthastewart.com/907240/chad-robertsons-tartine-country-bread I also like making pizza crust with the starter--a good way to use some and keep it fresh when you don't want to make bread all the time (because you will eat. the. entire. loaf.)
Hi Karen
REALLY? Down the drain? Were it can grow into a hideous swamp creature? Just in time for Hallowe'en!
Patti - Don't be ridiculous. I don't just throw it down the drain and walk away. I dump it down the drain, then fire a couple of rounds from a 12 gauge after it. Sheesh. It's like you think I'm an amateur. ~ karen!
Ahhhh, it's so nice to see our Karen working her way back! Now this is funny!
Seems to me, that this used to be called "MONSTER dough. I remember doing this for a while and not being able to keep up. with all the baking. Mostly coffee cakes in my case. There was another thing too, made with fruit. I think it was called, "Brandied fruit".You had to feed this too,. Fruit and sugar if i recall correctly.It looked pretty, sitting there in a glass container, fermenting on your kitchen counter, But, like how often did you want it as a topping on ice cream, pound cake, etc.? Bit of a nightmare hearing, "FEED ME", coming from the kitchen when all the people and pets are asleep.
I remember that nightm... I mean stuff! I saw it growing on other peoples' counters. Luckily i knew it for what it was! Monster Indeed, and if all was quiet, you COULD hear it moaning "Feed Me"! So I ran screaming and would not accept some even though they begged me. Unfortunately I did succumb to Amish Starter. Was glad when that was over! Whew!
oh, this is definitely a flash back to the 70's (and late 60's) what with the Karen's sourdough starter, Julia's 'Friendship cake", and with Jeannie B.'s brandied fruit thing going on ... now all we need are a few jars of sprouts and I won't be able to see my again counter - my, my, how this dredges up the memories -- where are my prairie dresses when I need them? -- even though I will never be able to get into them again
Annoying question: Can I use well water, unfiltered?
Sure! The only reason you shouldn't use tap water is if it has a lot of chlorine in it which may or may not kill the yeast. ~ karen
Thanks! That's what I hoped. I don't think the pioneers had access to Evian.
Pioneer's water wasn't contaminated with chlorine, fluoride and other PCPPs (Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products) either. I'm not going all hippie-eco conscious-green on you either: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17water.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&em&
Cool. Here's a cool reference from Wikipedia on SF sourdough. "the San Francisco variety has remained in continuous production since 1849, with some bakeries, e.g., Boudin Bakery among others, able to trace their starters back to California's Gold Rush period." Yum yum yeast.
- it's like the 70's all over again - what's next? quilting and granny squares? is this deja vu? a flashback? time travel through the internet?
You don't visit the latest in diy (do it yourself) blogs do you? Take a look at the magazine section and you'll see.Quilting and crocheted granny square everything is BIG again! Yes, just like in the 70's!
OH, Denise you are so sweet to let me know all this is back in a big way -- I actually don't visit very many diy blogs. I do check out the knitting and crocheting websites as that feeds one of my hobbies. Honestly i find reading the computer very time consuming so try to stick with research or a few favorites - like taods. I am a 'square' granny you might say - I have 8 grandchildren and 3 great grands -- let me tell you the time she does fly - whether you're having fun or not. uh oh, about now is when the granddaughters would start gently dragging me away - when I start reminiscing and sharing platitudes with strangers...
I'm the generation just after yours. My daughters are the ones who not-so-gently are dragging ME away when I start sharing too much! They keep saying to me, "T.M.I., Mom." Too Much Information. So glad you and I both found this lovely lady, Karen, and her immensely informative, humor-filled and REAL blog!
It's not a real flashback until they bring out the macrame' again.
OMG Catherine! My granddaughter is a senior in college and she is all into macrame-she even has an Etsy shop. I could. not. believe. it. I guess everything comes around again.
Why dump the extra starter down the drain? I put it in my pancake batter, muffin better, etc.
Becky - LOL. Well, for "starters" (heh, get it?) I'd have to be making pancakes and muffins twice a day to use up the dumped batter. And by day 5 of feeding the starter, quite frankly I'm happy to chuck it down the drain. Good riddance. ~ karen!
Do you do this after it is ready in a couple weeks or can you do it from when you initially start it?
Heh I know this was from 2.5 years ago but after making kombucha I'm finally ready to start fermenting other things!
Can't wait to try this! I made Amish Friendship Bread (same concept) and my husband was quite disgusted that people actually do this.. He even named the mixture Frankenstein! He's gonna lllloooooovvveee this one! ;-)
Wendy, that's a hoot he named it frankinstein !!!
YOU now know why they called it friendship bread all those women couldn't throw it out, so they gave it to their friends...And i remember this is how mom made paste for us at home ! So maybe you could take it to the school everyday and they would save on all those bottles of glue !! hehe
Wow, finally instructions that I don't need a degree in chemistry to use. Thank You. love you and your blog.
Thanks Chavella! ~ karen!
...I thought Mary never got married? Just in the tv show? I am tickled that there is someone else in this world who drops Little House references as much as I.
Kristina, Mary of little house did get married to her blind teacher instructor named Adam, they had a child which died in a fire ! And yes i'm a huge little house fan ..hehe I tried one of those starters that someone gave me years ago when i was first married , it was a flip flop and my husband told me to forget the homemade bread it was costing more then buying an wasn't edible !! hehe have a greaaaat day peeps cheryl
Real life Mary remained single her whole life. Only in the TV show did she get married.
I'm not a fan of sourdough bread... actually I just plain don't like it.
I do however love homemade bread, especially brown bread. I think I'll stick to yeast in a bottle though. I really don't think I have the patience to feed that thing so much. I know I'd just throw it out in a fit one day. Hence the reason all my anticipated patio plants are in the compost heap out back. Nothing worked the way I had hoped and I got fed up and threw them all out. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky. I want to retire so I'll have time to do all these things I want to do properly. I just don't have enough hours in my day. :( Hopefully someday.
💜
I know exactly how you feel.
I don't know if it's true, but I once read that some artisan bakers are working with starters that are 100's of years old.
I imagine some would be. ~ karen!
Boudin Bakery (of San Francisco fame) claims this to be the case - that they're still working from their original starter over a hundred years ago.
I read somewhere a few years ago that archeologists found some yeast (maybe it was something else) in an Egyptian tomb and were going to try making sourdough bread with it. That's well over 100's of years.
http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/gluten-free-sourdough-starter/
Here's a link to a good explanation for how to make gluten-free sourdough starter, for any of your readers who may have celiac disease. (Like me.)
I made sourdough starter many years ago & thought the resulting bread, with it's rock-hard crust was a failure. It turns out however, that my husband & kids disagreed, & ate the whole thing in one sitting!
So let that be a lesson to everyone- even mediocre homemade bread is delicious!!
Thank you SO MUCH for the link, Janet! I don't have celiac, but I do get pain & bloating after eating gluten, so I've been cutting it out of my diet. I'm so excited that I'll be able to have a tomato sandwich again!
Thank you for sharing, I have some sourdough from my mother's that was started around 1974. But I have two nieces that are sensitive to gluten, so I know I should make a gluten-free version for them to be able to share Mom's recipes with their families. I got mine in 1985 and I use it mostly to make pancakes and biscuits but it does make a delicious bread. Unfortunately, Mom's original starter was thrown out by my step-mother; Dad kept using it after Mom died. She (my step-mother) didn't know the smell and appearance was normal and thought it had gone bad. I have friends who asked for some and I intend to give some to family members (those who can eat gluten bread) and keep it going.
There are two things that Americans will come after you with a gun for: sending them a stinking chain letter and slipping them a "friendship" or other dough starter. Like a blasted needy mewling infant with none of the dirty diapers and vomiting payoff.
Sigh.
It's getting cold here. When is that squash going to be ready? Still waiting on the garden...
Was given a similar thing a couple of years ago... Herman the German Friendship cake.
Cosseted it for 10 days, made my own cakes (fairly edible) and then tried to give the starter away.
Considered renaming it 'Herman the German (Why Are My Friends Looking At Me In That Way?) Cake'.
Off to take down tired cabinets and tiles and put up new shelves in the kitchen now. Again, all your fault.
Sorry bout that. ~ karen!
Don't apologise!! The tiles and shelves will actually have to wait... Made six pizza bases instead.
This is great, thanks! I did one of these chain-letter things years ago and we called it "Friendship Bread."
Do you know how long you can keep your starter in the fridge once it's ready for that? Like indefinitely?
Hi Shannon - Yup. Indefinitely. It'll literally keep from one generation to the next. ~ karen!
I can imagine the glop of my Friendship Bread that I shared is still out there after 25 years. Thanks Karen. I loved it for about one month.
I love that I now know this.
There's not a chance in the world I'm going to start baking my own bread, it just helps to know these things when paying for beautiful artisan sourdough bread.
I'm right there with you, CJ.
Even though this is probably the one form of plant matter I could manage to keep alive, the knowledge of the time and aggravation I'm saving myself makes it infinitely easier for me to justify buying bread that came from someone else's time and aggravation.
I received a Ziploc of glop a few years back and it grossed me out and promptly went in the trash.
This was a very informative article. I love homemade bread so I am definitely going to give it a try. I had no idea that there was such a thing as wild yeast and that it exists all around us!
There is indeed such a thing! But I'm going to forewarn you ... making the actual bread is 10X as complicated as making the starter, LOL. Or it can be. You can use less starter (which creates a stronger sourdough taste), or more starter ... you can let it have a warm rise or a cool rise ... the possibilitie, combinations and recipes are endless! ~ karen
Thanks for the warning Karen! I guess I'll have to prep my mind for a bit of trial and error before I am able to enjoy my first homemade slice my first successful sourdough bread (lightly buttered of course) with my afternoon tea! ;)
Incidentally, I tried Oxiclean on 15 of my white t-shirts and vests which had varying degrees of stains! Here are the results:
I managed to get 10 shirts and vests pure white. 3 shirts where relatively white to the naked eye but upon close inspection there was a faint sweat stain under the armpits. 2 of my "work" T-shirts still had the sweat stain however I should mention that these shirts were teh worst of the bunch and compared to their original condition prior to using Oxiclean, they looked 10 times better. I plan to put these 5 stained items through the Oxiclean test once again to see if I can get rid of the last remnants of the stain out! Thank to you I am an Oxiclean convert! And to think I was going to throw out 15 perfectly good shirts into the trashbin! :)
Yay! I'm so excited you discovered the wonderous world of Oxyclean, LOL. ~ karen!
For best results with Oxy or Borax use the hottest temp. Water that your fabric type will allow. I usually only use cold water So the first time i used Oxy with hot water I was blown away!