How To Make Sourdough Starter | The Beginner's Guide

The beginner’s guide to making sourdough starter from scratch! In just 5-7 days you will have starter ready to make loaves of bread, pancakes, pikelets and other sourdough treats.

Like many of you, I have found myself with limited access to ingredients and grocery stores due to the coronavirus outbreak. I filmed this video from the safety of my home, using the ingredients I had on hand. For flour, I recommend you use whole wheat flour, but you can use unbleached all purpose flour or even rye flour for this recipe. I hope that you enjoy the video, make lots of yummy sourdough and stay safe. The Sugar Geek Family is here for you!

HOW TO USE A SCALE ►

[alancantor]

I left a jar of sourdough in the fridge for three years without doing anything to it. I recently removed a few grams and put the old stuff in a fresh jar, fed it water and flour, and after a few days of feeding, the sourdough was active again. Sourdough is very resilient!

[Jason-jiyg]

After searching through so many videos, I finally find one that explains things so well. Not just someone looking at the camera saying what to do or skipping steps, assuming I know what I am doing. Thank you.

[fruitpunch]

I've learned so much about sourdough starter from so many others but I have never heard anyone explain why we toss out half of the starter, thank you for explaining this. Now I know.

[bpapso]

I’m going to try to make a sourdough starter for the fifth time using your directions. I’m about ready to give up, but I never thought about the 90° water. It sure makes sense.

[michaelh]

I discovered a good way to make my active starter really grow and become bubbly after a feeding. What I did is not feed my active starter for two days (48 hours), and then when I did feed it I gave it some good sprouted rye flour. The starter then tripled in height! Starving the starter for a couple of days made it real hungry and when I fed it it really grew. It never happened like that when I fed it every 24 hours. My starter is about 2 months old and I have never refrigerated it, yet. I keep it fed daily with a King Arthur AP flour and when I am ready to make a bread I starve it a couple of days and then give it a sprouted rye feeding in the morning and when it triples in height I make a flour and then refrigerate it after making the dough and folding it a few times over a few hours. The bread is high-hydration and is 30% rye and 70% bread flour.

[zeejah]

One of the better starter tutorials. Thank you

[severenkoski]

I really enjoy these sourdough videos. You are a great teacher, giving details but also getting to the point. Thank you for this!

[nanmckee]

Thank you so much for your video! After watching many videos on this subject, this is the first time that I actually understand the whole process of yeast. No one teaches it better than you. I have tried to make 5 starters and none of them worked so I gave up. I'm beginning my new starter today with your recipe now that I understand it more. You're the best!

[Internalharmony]

I have a 2 year starter I just fed today. I'm excited to see how it grows. Can't wait to make some pancakes with it.

[staceyverley]

Literally just telling my husband I wish Liz would show us a sourdough starter and voila! Perfect as always!

[irenesixty]

This video made me clear between levain vs starter!!!! Excellent explanations

[lynneholden]

Thank you for your video on Sourdough bread, I'm new to the process and I've learned a few things watching the video, Thank you so much. But could you keep using the whole wheat four to get a whole wheat sourdough or no? Thank you so much for your feedback and info.

[nancykim]

So thankful you made this video! I was hesitant to make my own starter cuz everyone's been using rye flour, but so happy so see it comes out well even with using whole wheat flour. Also thankful for how detailed you explain every step including the levain. You're seriously so awesome <3

[pauladickerson]

It’s easy to see you have a beautiful heart. Thank you for sharing and teaching with so much patience. ❤️

[michaelwalling]

Lots of good info in this presentation. This young lady has done her homework. Perfect for a neophyte bread maker.

[sandrarusso]

My husband and I started ours 5/9 and we used half bread flour and half brown rice flour. Thought we did something wrong after the 2nd day. WHEW! What a smell! Glad to hear that (and the "hooch" at the top) was normal! We named her Rona. LOL

[shawnnagarcia]

The starter has begun, let's see how this works out!!! Thanks for info.

[PattyDooley]

So glad I found your video. By far the best and most helpful. Thank you!

[MyAlbertC]

How can you tell it has raised the yest ?, the glass is very dirty 😅 and you can use gloves when using your hands. Just a suggestion for you, and o yah, you can use plastic spatula when mixing. Didn't know about using metal utensils 🤔

[helpfulnatural]

I made a sourdough starter in early April and it's doing great, has made some awesome bread and pancakes but it took quite a while to get going. My kitchen must be cooler than I thought. I had loads of hooch on top of it the first week or so. At about day 8 or 9 it finally started rising and getting bubbly. I started with whole wheat and rye flours. And I use bottled purified water, our tap is very clean but has a lot of chlorine so I didn't want to use it. For its weekly feedings I place it in my microwave to get bubbly. It's the warmest and most draft-free place in my kitchen. I also proof my bread in there, works great! :)