Sourdough Starter & Maintenance
sourdough starter after day seven feed
I’ve been on quite a journey with making a sourdough starter, it took me about three attempts to get it right. If you follow my Instagram you would have witnessed the emotional journey. But now I’m at a point where I feel pretty confident about my sourdough skills. So I’m starting a Sourdough Series —a super simplified explanation of sourdough. With strictly no bakers jargon.
My starter is now a year old — this is how I made it and maintained it.
SOURDOUGH STARTER
In my experience it takes about 7 days to get a starter active enough to start baking. I made a brand new starter with the method below —I’ll be noting some observations so you know what to look out for and so you can see if your starter is on the right track.
DAY ONE
Mix 25g of unbleached white flour with 25g of lukewarm water.
Store in a glass jar —you can either cover with a cheesecloth and secure it with a rubber band or use the jar’s lid. I have not found a difference for either —my preference is Weck Jars with a lid.
Set aside at room temperature overnight.
DAY TWO
To the starter, mix in 25g of unbleached white flour and 25g of lukewarm water.
You will now have 100g of starter.
Set aside at room temperature overnight.
DAY THREE
You should start to see bubbles through out and on the surface, a little rising action and a pleasant sour smell.
We start discarding today —discard, leaving 25g.
To the 25g of starter mix in 25g of unbleached white flour and 25g of lukewarm water.
You will now have 75g of starter.
Set aside at room temperature overnight.
DAY FOUR
There should be even more bubbles and activity today and the sour smell should start to get stronger.
Discard, leaving 50g.
To the 50g of starter mix in 25g of unbleached white flour and 25g of lukewarm water.
You will now have 100g of starter.
Set aside at room temperature overnight.
Day FIVE
The starter should be active and full of bubbles.
Discard, leaving 50g.
To the 50g of starter mix in 50g of unbleached white flour and 50g of lukewarm water.
You will now have 150g of starter.
Set aside at room temperature overnight.
DAY SIX
The starter should be very active and doubling in size, mine past the float test!
Discard, leaving 50g.
To the 50g of starter mix in 50g of unbleached white flour with 50g of lukewarm water.
You will now have 150g of starter.
Set aside at room temperature overnight.
DAY SEVEN
The starter should now be very active, full of bubbles and smell deliciously sour. It’s now ready to use —to test it, do the float test —grab a glass of water and take a teaspoon of starter and see if it floats. If it does, start making your dough!
If you feel like your starter isn’t active enough, repeat day six for a few more days, until it does.
Remember when making your sourdough bread you always need to retain some starter (at least 25g) which you will need to feed. That way you have starter for the next dough.
MAINTENANCE
Now that the starter is established, you need to care for it.
Feeding the Starter —25g starter + 100g flour + 100g water.
This is the ratio that I find works best for me, but feel free to research and experiment with your starter. Use your starter discards to do this, that way you always have one starter that you know is thriving.
You can bin the starter discards or use it makes pancakes, tortillas, muffins or banana bread. There are so many more options!
Storing the Starter
If you’re planning to bake every weekend, leaving your starter on the counter top is perfect. Feed it every day. The more often you feed it, the more mature and sour flavour it will develop.
If it’s a once a month or every 6 months thing, fed the starter and store it in the fridge until you want to bake a loaf.
Just take it out a minimum of 3 days prior —let it come to room temp and feed it everyday till you plan to create your dough.
You can put it back in the fridge once you’re done.
You can even freeze it, treat it the same as the starter coming out of the fridge.
Or you can dehydrate the starter. Let it dry out completely and store it in air tight jar. When you want to revive it —soak it in water, equal parts in grams. Once it’s a paste resume the feeding process.
TIPS
To ensure no mould grows —every time you feed the starter clean the jar and make sure there isn’t any starter dripping down the insides of the jar.
If you notice brown liquid on top of the starter —it’s alcohol, it’s telling you that it needs a feed! You can either pour it out or stir it back into the starter. I usually pour it out.
Use a jar that’s at least 750ml to allow for rising, I’ve woken up to a few explosions.
Place a rubber band around the jar to mark the level of your starter —this way you can see how much activity and rising happened.
If your starter doesn’t float continue feeding it until it does.
If your starter still doesn’t float, the density of your flour might be too heavy (rye flour) —adjust the amount of flour. I would split my 100g of flour to 30% rye and 70% unbleached white flour. Just make sure your ratio for flour and water is 1:1.
Or you may be doing the float test after your starter has peaked —I test my starter before it deflates. I generally feed it in the morning and the next morning it’s perfect. Don’t leave it too long the next day because it will pass its peak.
You can use different flour types even if you didn’t originally make your starter with it. Mine has been through a mix of unbleached white plain flour, bread flour and spelt.
When your starter doubles in size after four hours of feeding, you have a very reliable starter. If you’re having trouble with this especially during the colder months. Move your starter to a warm place or wrap a towel around it.
Let me know how you go — if you need some trouble shooting or have any questions let me know in the comments.