A wonderful nourishing & healthy traditional food

Learn how to start your own sourdough starter. Creating your own sourdough starter from scratch is easier than you might think. All you need are two ingredients, flour and water. Once a starter is created, it will serve you for many years. A sourdough starter is an essential part of a kitchen that produces from-scratch traditional foods.

The first thing you should probably understand about sourdough is that it doesn’t have to be sour. If you’ve ever bought a sourdough loaf in the shops, you might think that the sour flavour is what makes it sourdough. But it is sourdough because of the sourdough starter and the longer fermentation times. It is not because of the flavour. It doesn’t have to be tangy or sour at all.

How sour your starter, and therefore, your bread or anything else that you might make with your starter is. Depends on the amount of lactic acid in your starter. Luckily, you can influence how sour or not sour your eventual sourdough bread will be.

How do you influence the sourness of your sourdough?

If you increase the amount of flour and water, you feed to your sourdough starter in relation to the amount of starter you have. You will end up with a less sour starter. So more flour and water fed to a smaller amount of starter makes it less sour. This is because the sourdough starter is a happy little community of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. The lactic acid bacteria break down the phytic acid that is present in all grains. While the wild yeast creates our much-loved bubbles for the rise we want for our sourdough bread.

Whenever you feed your starter, the yeast basically gets the first pickings because it makes sure it is at the front of the row at the buffet. So more food or more frequent feeding means happier yeast. And more bubbles mean a higher rise and less sourness. Because the lactic acid bacteria might not be at the front of the row but it will eat every last morsel on that buffet table. Meaning that it will eat for longer on the amount of food that is left. Resulting in a more tangy sour taste to your bread. Depending on your flavour preferences can be a good or a bad thing.

For our house, we prefer a loaf that has no sourness or tang to it. It still has a deeper flavour can bread made with commercial yeast though. So I tend to feed my starter a lot of flour and water in relation to the amount of starter that I have left in my jar. For example, if I have 30 grams of starter left, I might add 150 grams of flour and 150 millilitres of water.

Health benefits of sourdough

If you have already heard of sourdough, which you probably have. You will also have heard it said that sourdough is good for your health. Because not only does it taste amazing, but it also makes your body feel amazing.

This is because sourdough is a fermented food, and the process of fermentation makes nutrients more bio-available. Because every grain has phytic acid, which locks away the nutrients that the grain naturally contains. This phytic acid is essential for the plant itself. Since it helps to preserve the seed for that perfect moment to germinate and grow into a full plant. But it is this phytic acid that our bodies cannot break down. Therefore grain products tax our digestive system because our digestive system tries to digest something that cannot be properly digested. But once we ferment the grain, we break down the phytic acid and unlock all the nutrients inside. Once this is done through the fermenting process of sourdough, we can easily digest the grain products.

But by fermenting your grains with a sourdough starter, you don’t just have the benefit of gaining more nutrients from your grains. But you also get the benefit of more stable blood sugar since the starches of sourdough will be released more slowly than unfermented grain products. And the benefit of a healthier and happier gut microbiome. Since the polyphenols released by the sourdough process are a good food source for your gut microbiome.

With so many health benefits from sourdough, we should all give a piece of our matured starter to a friend. So that we can all benefit from a healthier and happier life.

How to make a sourdough starter from scratch

Making your own sourdough starter is easier than you might imagine. And after this initial week of creating life, you will have a lifetime of nourishing sourdough to use in your kitchen.

The lactic acid bacteria together with the wild yeast do something magical that results in the beauty that is sourdough.

Makes: 1 sourdough starter
Daily prep: 2 min
Duration: 7 days (to a lifetime)

Ingredients & equipment:

Flour of choice, but good options are wholemeal or unbleached plain wheat flour. Some people also report their sourdough starting to bubble faster and more vigorously when starting off with rye flour.

Water, as long as it is chlorine-free you can use tap water, although I use filtered water from our Berkey. Since the water here in Ireland tends to still contain quite high amounts of chlorine when it comes out of the tap.

Good sized clip top jar, large old jam jar with cotton/linen cloth on top, glass or ceramic bowl with a tea towel on top. Make sure that whatever container you use for your sourdough starter is large enough so that it won’t overflow when it starts to rise. I try and aim for at least 4 times the size of my starter but go a bit larger as opposed to a bit smaller to be on the safe side.

Wooden spoon or stick for stirring your starter. I have a designated spurtle for my starter and all my yeast foods, that way I won’t accidentally contaminate my different ferments.

Preparation:

Before starting on anything, make sure that the vessel that will hold your sourdough is reasonably clean. I do this by pouring some boiling water into my jar to make sure that no unwanted microorganisms will be able to compete with my yeast and lactic acid bacteria. Once your sourdough is active, the lactic acid bacteria will make quick work of protecting the sourdough from any contaminates.

We are making a 100% hydration sourdough starter. This just means that we always add the same amount of flour and water. To create a simple tutorial, I used 50 grams of flour with 50 grams of water, but you can use more or less of the flour and water if you prefer. As long as you keep the 100% hydration ratio.

You can make a sourdough starter and feed your sourdough starter with room temperature water or lukewarm water. Although your sourdough will work faster when it is fed with lukewarm water. And is kept in a warm spot in your home. That being said, I most often feed my starter with plain room temperature water and apart from it having a slower start, there is no difference in the final result as far as I can tell.

If you have any other ferments currently in your home, then make sure you always keep at least 6 feet or 1,5 metres distance between your sourdough and any other ferment.

Day one:

Clean the container that you want to use for your sourdough. If you’re using something like a jar, you might like to add an elastic band to it. That way, you can keep track of how much your sourdough rises.

Add 50 grams of flour to your jar together with 50 millilitres of water. Mix them together with whatever stirring devise you prefer, as long as it is not made out of metal.

Cover it loosely with a lid, damp cloth or teatowel. If using a lid then make sure it is not airtight. Or gas pressure could build-up to create a mini sourdough bomb.

Place in a warm area of your home and wait for roughly 24 hours.

Day two:

Discard 50 grams of your sourdough starter. You don’t throw this away! Just place it in your fridge, and once you have enough, you make some delicious crepes. Because waste not want not right.

Add 50 grams of flour and 50 millilitres of water to your jar with the sourdough starter. Mix them all together again with whatever stirring devise you prefer and cover loosely again.

Put back in whatever warm area you placed it in before and wait for another 24ish hours.

Day three:

Discard 100 grams of your sourdough starter. So again, don’t throw it away just add it to yesterday’s discard in the fridge.

Most people start seeing bubbles coming by the third day, but if you don’t have much activity yet, then don’t worry and just keep going, it will happen soon.

Add 50 grams of flour and 50 millilitres of water to your jar with the sourdough starter. Mix them all together again with whatever stirring devise you prefer and cover loosely again.

Put back in whatever warm area you placed it in before and wait another day again.

Days four, five, six and seven:

Repeat the same steps as you did on days two and three for days four, five and six.

So discard 100 grams of starter and add in 50 grams of water and 50 millilitres of water. Mixing it well and putting it safely back in its cosy spot till the next day.

Maintaining your sourdough starter after the first week:

From now on, you will continue feeding your starter as you have been doing. By feeding it double the amount in weight every day if you keep it on the counter and every week if you keep it in the fridge. Once your starter is a bit more established and is a couple of weeks old, you can give it more food in relation to the starter amount. For example, if you have 30 grams of starter left, you might add 100 grams of flour and 100 millilitres of water.

Since keeping it in the fridge will slow down the fermentation of the sourdough so they will eat through the flourless quickly. Although ideally, you do want to feed it at least every week if you are going to keep it in the fridge because it might get sluggish otherwise. If you do forget about it for a couple of weeks or more. Then don’t just throw it out. Just discard and feed as usual, and it will be up and running within no time again.

Although I do recommend keeping it on the counter for the first month or so since it still needs some time to mature and become a stable dependable sourdough starter. Just like humans, your sourdough is alive, and much like humans it tends to become more reliable as it ages.

When can you start baking that bread?

So if you want a reliable rise for your bread, you might need to let it mature for a month before you start baking bread. Although if you want to try bread baking on day eight, then go for it. Just remember to not be too hard on yourself or your sourdough if it isn’t a perfect loaf. I’m sure it will still be delicious anyways, which is the most important thing anyway.

Start cooking and baking with your sourdough starter

I hope you will enjoy the company of your new pet and that it will help you make lots of tasty meals. Before you know it, you will find that all of your regular grain-based foods are being replaced with their sourdough counterparts. Which as far as your health and your gut microbes are concerned can only be a good thing.

If you have any questions just comment down below, or send me a DM on Instagram. And did you know that once your starter is well and established, you can share your sourdough starter with your friends and family? So that they too can start making their own nourishing sourdough bread.

If you want to try out some recipes with your wonderful sourdough starter, then why not try some of these recipes:

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