Easy Sourdough Starter Guide

Having a reliable Sourdough Starter is an essential for any serious baker. You can ask a friend to borrow some of theirs, but it's super easy to make your own. I've broken my process down into three stages to make it easy and demystify the process.

**MY GEAR**
^not shown in video, but my preferred bread baking vessel, at the moment

▶️ USE YOUR NEW STARTER WITH THESE VIDEOS

RECIPE

CAPTURE STAGE
•DAY 1 (hour 0)
Into a tall container with a lid, measure 150g of filtered or distilled room temperature (68°-78°F or 20°-25°C) water and 100g of whole grain rye flour. Stir. Place a lid on the container, loosely, and let sit at room temperature.

•DAY 2 (24 hours later)
Remove/discard 1/2 of the rye flour/water mixture from yesterday (you don't need to be super precise at this point). Into your container with the remaining 1/2 of the mixture, add 150g room temp water and 100g whole grain rye flour. Stir to combine. Cover loosely and let sit at room temperature.

CULTIVATE STAGE
•DAY 3 (24 hours later, 48 hours into the process)
Measure 75g of your flour/water starter mix from yesterday and discard the rest . Return only the 75g of starter to your jar and add 75g of room temperature water, 35g of all purpose flour, and 35g of rye flour. Stir and cover with a loose lid. Let sit at room temperature.

•DAY 4 (24 hours later, 72 hours into the process)
Repeat process from day 3.

•DAY 5 (24 hours later, 96 hours into process)
Repeat process from day 3.

MAINTENANCE STAGE
•DAY 6 (24 hours later, 120 hours into process)
Your starter is now ready to use for baking. To maintain it (from this point through forever), measure 25g of starter from the day before and discard the rest. To that 25g of starter, add 50g room temp water and 50g ap flour. Stir, cover with a loose lid and let sit at room temperature. Do this daily, every 24 hours, to maintain your starter if you're a casual baker. If you bake a lot OR if you've had your starter in the fridge and you need to get it ready to bake again, feed once every 12 hours.

If you’re not baking often, keep your starter covered in the fridge and feed once monthly. When bringing it back into active rotation, feed it once every 12 hours for a couple of days until it’s bubbling and active again.

Chapters:
0:00-1:19 Intro
1:20-2:53 Ingredients/What You'll Need
2:54-4:09 Capture Stage
4:10-6:01 Cultivation Stage
6:02 Maintenance Stage

#sourdoughstarter #wildyeaststarter #sourdough

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**DISCLAIMER: Some links in this description may be affiliate links. If you buy any of these products using these links I'll receive a small commission at no added cost to you. All links are to products that I actually use or recommend. Thank you in advance for your support!

[BrianLagerstrom]

What will you be baking first with your new starter?

[Narjisse_Glow]

I tried this exact recipe with whole wheat flour instead of rye flour and it works for anyone wondering!

[spencerwall]

To those who are hesitant to start because of the commitment, you can keep your starter in the fridge for a while without feeding, and your starter should be just fine. I have kept my mature starter in the fridge for about 6 months, and it restarts again after a couple of normal feedings. I just usually make sure to pull my starter out and start feeding it about 3 days before I’m ready to bake with it.

[anthonylangley]

When I was a kid in the 70s, my mom kept the starter in the refrigerator and fed it on only Saturday mornings when she made pancakes. I understand the daily commitment in getting it started, but I hesitate getting my own starter going if I’m supposed to take care of it daily for months and years. I have all of my mom’s recipes, but she passed away a few years ago, so I can’t learn the details of how she did it, but I’m sure it was only once per week.

[amersklain]

You don’t need to throw away the starter. You can use it in your bread. Just add it to your regular bread recipes. It won’t act like a yeast, it will help keep your bread moist. It is called a sponge.

[THTDOTNET]

I am truly amazed by all you have accomplished... the little wild kid I used to babysit. Congrats my man!

[bassmanco]

"Hey mum, i'm goin on holiday, can you sit the sourdough starter?"

[RovingPunster]

As a former home brewer, culturing is familiar turf for me ... I do it casually, not to laboratory standards though. One tip I can share about starting a sourdough culture from scratch, is that you do NOT need to buy or borrow a culture - you can get one going easily enough from the ambient airborne microbes present in your home. In fact, it is difficult to avoid them. If you've already used them before, but for some reason you dont like their flavor/behavior, despite proper care & feeding technique, you have a myriad of choices available for culturing, by having other manually picked strains out-compete the local microbes in your home. Nearly all whole grains and pulses that have not been previously polished, pre-steamed, or irradiated, have wild yeasts, bacteria, and enzymes present on the bran and hulls - they are simply dormant and waiting, like vultures near a carcass, for moisture to awaken them and allow them to multiply. They remain present, both before AND (to a somewhat lesser degree) after they are ground into flour, and can be easily cultured in either form. The simplest and easiest source is simply picking a fresh bag of your favorite wholemeal flour of your grain of choice (ive been using a lot of king arthur white whole wheat 12.2% protein lately). However, ive also captured and exposed microbes from other grains to my current sourdough consortia, thereby allowing them a chance to join the fun, including:

> Jasmine rice from thailand
> Urad Dal (black grams) from India
> Kamut wheatberries grown in midwestern USA
> Winter red wheat, ditto
> Spring white wheat, ditto
> Einkorn, from Germany
> Soft wheat, from Turkey
> Durum wheat, from Turkey
> My Kefir culture, which I use daily to ferment milk at room temp
> Heck, ive even cultured wild microbes from the homegrown jalapeno peppers. To paraphrase prego ... "it's in there" 😋

To culture wholemeal from scratch, just hydrate a small amt to 150%, then feed it daily for 1-5 days (a 1:1:1 ratio is good - discard any surplus during startup ... and keep the amounts small to minimize waste) or until bubbles appear. Keep feeding until can double itself within 5 hrs or so, then it's healthy enough to keep ... just blend some into your existing culture or maintain it as a separate one. Whole grains are a little different, but just as easy - you can either mill them into a homemade flour and culture the same as wholemeal, or you can use the same method used in india and china used to make fermented batter for dosa and biang biang crepes - soak the grains, rice and/or pulses overnight in cool water, then wetgrind in just enough of the soaking liquid to form a thick batter, like latex paint ... then ferment it at 80 to 102F for 6-12 hours (i just put a covered bowl or jar in my dehydrator, and set it for 95F), or until it noticeably begins to rise. It sounds complicated, but i assure you it's absurdly easy.

Once you have an active culture, just follow the usual maintenance rules - keep your active starter small and regularly fed, for peak activity and peak breadth of strains and best possible leavening prowess/flavor. Segregate any past peak (read: overacidified) starter into a "discard" container in your fridge - it's fine for use in muffins, crackers, batters, etc, as long as you compensate for the high acidity, but i never use my discard for making sourdough. Only fresh starter (1-2 feedings) at peak activity (4-8 hrs) should be used for sourdough bread, esp if you expect the sourdough to do most of the leavening with minimal or no supplemental yeast required.

BTW, my starters name is Azathoth. It has yet to meet a grain or flour it cannot devour. 😈


Addendum: practical sizing

For my active starter, I use 12 oz collins glass, the straight sides of which make the amount of rise easy to see. My normal feedings are roughly 1:1:1 by weight (starter:water:fresh wholemeal, with extra water as needed ... you want it thick enough to hold onto bubbles without letting them rise thru). For maintenance feeding I use 25:25:25 grams, and to make sourdough ill use 25:60:60, then harvest 120 gr, leaving 25gr to maintain. I keep all unused surplus in a 16-24 oz jar in my fridge, which I use when making muffins. I move my active starter out of the fridge when I want it to ferment/rise, and park it in the fridge to slow it down 5-fold, and reduce the frequency of feedings). Its very efficient in terms of ingredients and space needed. Everything fits in a single glass and a small jar, and can be stepped up rapidly at need by 4:1 every 4-5 hrs.

For those interested in further reading on sourdough, I recommend taking a peek at the following supplemental channels:

The Bread Code <-- start here
Proof Bread

[soffici]

I've found a way to not waste so much starter when you feed it: just heat a non-stick or cast iron pan with some oil in it and plop the starter you'd throw in the bin in the pan, shaping it like a pancake. Salt, pepper and any herbs you might like go on top. When the bottom is cooked, flip it and finish cooking it. The time it takes really depends on how cooked the inside you like. I usually do about 8 min for the first side and about 5 to the flip side, but ymmv depending on how hot your pan is and how high a heat you keep under it. bottom line: the higher the heat, the more crusty it gets, but the inside won't have time to cook before the outside burns
Pro tip:. if you want to have it rise a bit like when making bread, just pop a lid on it at the beginning, so the humidity and heat get trapped inside and you'll have a very fluffy pancake
P.S: if you don't bake that often, you can keep your sourdough starter in the fridge and feed it just once a week. To do so, use 75% of it to make the pancake, then feed the remaining 25% and put it back in the fridge. Or you can leave a small quantity outside to leaven for a couple of hours (while you autolyse your flour, but the times depend heavily on your room temp) and use it to make your sourdough bread

[bierbrauer]

When I was a kid living in Germany, Graubrot was the bread. Decades later, I finally created my own identical (as well as I can remember it, so good enough) loaf using 50% rye with a rye sourdough starter!

[toddwmac]

You can really tell you bakes in that kitchen and the wild yeast are partying everywhere. No way I can get that kind of reaction after only 48 hours. Great content and production quality...thanks!

[Kaileynorriscreates]

So basically my sour dough starter will become my new pet! This seems easy enough. My family eats at least two loves (loaves) a week. I can’t wait to try this. Thank you.

[roslynmgreen]

Hi Bri, I thought sourdough was way too difficult till you explained it. You make bread baking and other cooking options accessible to ordinary people and your presentation is always sparky, humorous and modest. I want to thank you and Lauren for your dynamic channel. You two have enriched my baking life! 🧡

[kaceybernard]

Hey brian, just wanted you to know that i have made a successful sourdough starter following your guide after many failures before this. Thank you. My 2 toddlers also thank you as they are having so much fun making bread with me

[m.g.n]

Wow! I admire all the home bakers who have the patience to do this.

[MrGooglevideoviewer]

Bri Bri, you are a champion!! I'm SOOOO excited about my new sourdough starter!! Just rose to double original size today!! My son asked me to help him with it and we are going to be baking together. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 😊😊

[marycampbell]

Got up this morning I am at the start of day 3 with my starter dough- and It has doubled in size overnight ( I Marked my jar) I am so happy- it is like Father Christmas has been - can’t Wait until this evening- that is when I am due to start Day 3 feeding - so delighted thank You 👍

[jaye]

This is the first recipe I used that actually works!! I started it two days ago and am actually seeing growth ! So exciting! Instead of discarding the original waste I put it in another container and used it to start another one just in case I messed up . Using wheat flour and instead of
AP with the rye . Seeing growth there too! Thanks you explain stuff so well.

[pumpupthejam]

Love your bread videos. It’s therapy. I feel like I finally get the whole starter thing. Thank you

[gailwoods]

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! I just finished my sourdough starter and it is BEAUTIFUL! Your video helped me get over my fear and gave me the confidence I needed. And, I actually found making my starter easier than actually making the bread. I'm still working on my strength building folds! GREAT JOB BRIAN!!