Everything You Need to Know About Sourdough and Sourdough Starters

This year I have learned a lot of new and scary things.  I have gone outside my comfort zone to put myself in a position to learn skills I didn’t have before.  With all the uncertainty in the world, I have been working hard to create a home where we can sustain ourselves as much as possible, you know, within reason.  And as of late, I have been wanting to learn all I could about so many homesteading and simple home skills.  Making sourdough and sourdough starters was one of them.

Honestly, I have never before given the idea of learning sourdough and sourdough starters a thought.  It just never was something on my radar.  But, like with my chickens, and my goats, suddenly without much reason, I want to know everything I can and I suddenly want to embrace everything about them.

I want to take care of my family, feed them well, and feel confident that we can sustain ourselves if needed.  I think this year so far has proven that we definitely need to do this!  If learning these simple but valuable techniques can help even in a small way, I think its worth it!

This is why I wanted to learn to make a sourdough starter and soak in all the information I could about sourdough and the techniques to make all the different recipes!

Did you know you can use a sourdough starter to make english muffins, pancakes, muffins, brownies, cinnamon rolls, biscuits, pasta, pizza dough, focaccia, donuts and so much more!! Oh yes, and you can make bread!  You can make so many sourdough bread variations too!

WHAT IS SOURDOUGH A STARTER ANYWAYS?

A sourdough starter is a live culture of flour and water.  A starter is, in essence, acting as the yeast for your dough.  It is a delicate balance of yeast and good bacteria, all harnessed in this doughy concoction.  Sourdough starter comes in incredibly handy when you are unable to find yeast, or for some reason cannot use it.  This also comes in handy because a sourdough breads have great health benefits and are easier to digest!

Some people say you are capturing the yeast in the air in your starter and as the starter ferments, the yeast get stronger and can stay alive for years.  I have also ready that you are harnessing the yeast directly from the wheat in the flour you use.  I am not really sure which one is accurate, and to me, it doesn’t really matter, as long as I can make my starter work!

It is a goopy doughy substance that sits in a jar and bubbles.  It rises and falls.  It is the wildest thing!  You need to feed it, and it can be stored on the counter or in the fridge(We will talk more about this part later).

Why is sourdough better for you?

Lactic acids make the vitamins and minerals in the flour more available to the body by helping neutralize the phytates in flour that would interfere with their absorption 

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF A SOURDOUGH STARTER:

So, in all my research and experimenting with my own sourdough starter over the past couple weeks, there are some very constant elements to sourdough.  Everyone has a slightly different version of how to make a sourdough starter and theirs is always the right way to do it.  Haha, I am dead serious.  People are very passionate about sourdough starters!

I am a firm believer that certain methods just work better for some people.  Some instructions I have found seemed much more complicated and I needed to keep it simple, and I found some great sourdough starter methods that work best for me.

Here is another very consistent thing about sourdough starters.  They are simple and really only require 2 ingredients! 

• flour(white, wheat, rye and others)
• water (non chlorinated is best)

In addition to those ingredients, you need a few tools.  You will need:

• glass jar or bowl, or ceramic.  Do not use metal because it will react with the starter.  
• Wooden spoon or chopsticks to stir the starter.  Once again, using a metal spoon cold react with the starter.
• Towel and rubber band if you are using a jar.  You can also use the lid of a mason jar, set lightly on the top of the jar.  Make sure that you DO NOT TIGHTEN THE LID.  Your starter needs the air!

No joke.  It really is that simple.  But it’s not at the same time. You need to be able to give your sourdough starter time.  Most starter take anywhere from 1 week to 10 days to mature to where to want it to be.

Some people say that you have to strictly use rye flour.  But, I have read oodles and oodles of post and articles where people have used wheat, white, and many other flours.  So, even if you have simple white flour at home, give it a try!  

SOURDOUGH STARTERS CAN BE GLUTEN FREE! 

Now, I am not an expert at this, but I did find some great resources if you are gluten free and want to go down that road.  From what I have read you can use brown rice flour or buckwheat flour.  You can even purchase one on Amazon!

I found this post about gluten free sourdough starter to be super helpful:

How to Make a Gluten Free Sourdough Starter

So, all hope is not lost!

Since I am not gluten free, I will be chatting mostly about the traditional sourdough starter, and how to start and maintain one.

HOW TO MAKE A SOURDOUGH STARTER:

Okay , so this will be how I have been making my own sourdough starter.  I got info from Farmhouse on Boone as well as The Prairie Homesteader for my first sourdough starter.

Here is a list of how to start your sourdough starter….

What is feeding your sourdough starter? This phrase will be used a lot.  As you starter progresses you will need to feed it extra flour and water so the bacteria has something to eat.  If you do not feed it, it will east itself and create a liquid that can make it more sour and give it a nasty smell.

Day 1:  Mix one cup flour(I used whole wheat flour) and 1 cup water in your jar or bowl.  Make sure to mix it thoroughly.  Place your towel or lid on the container and let it sit for 24 hours on your kitchen counter.  You want it to stay somewhere that that the temperatures are consistent.  I keep mine near my oven but not too close.  Its a nice constant spot.

Day 2: At this point you probably wont see anything happen but you could start to see tiny bubbles. Scoop out 1/2 of the mixture and discard. You can save it for another starter if you want.   Add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup water to your remaining mixture and stir well.  Cover and let it sit on your counter for 24 hours.

(if you do not discard half the mixture you will have a ton of starter by day 4!  You also want to make sure you are giving the right amount of flour to feed the good bacteria.

Day 3: Repeat day 2 ( you should be seeing little bubbles when you feed)

Day 4: Repeat day 2

Day 5:  Repeat day 2

Day 6:  Discard half the mixture and feed it exactly like you did on all the other days but feed it every 12 hour instead of every 24 hours.

Day 7:  Do the exact same as day 6. (it should be getting so very bubbly!). It should be rising and falling within the 24 hours.

At this point you should have plenty of good bacteria.  You should be able to use your starter for baking.  

Troubleshooting your starter:

I ran into a few issues with my starter over the week and a half I was working with it.  Yes, it took me longer than 7 days to get my sourdough starter to be right.  

On about day 5, my starter had a layer oh brownish liquid on the top, called a hooch and totally normal.  I stirred it in and added my feed.  You can either stir it in or pour it off. I should have poured it off.

The next day, the starter smelled soooo bad.  It was like a combination of stinky feet, vomit, and old parmesan cheese.  I was just about to throw it out but read many places where it said that its not being fed enough and you needed to feed it more.  I poured off half the starter and fed it again.  I fed it every 12 hours.  By the next day the smell was less, but still there.  I kept at it.  I moved the starter into a glass jar and fed it every 12 hours, pouring off half prior to feeding it.

By day 9 it was smelling much better! It had changed to a sweet smell with a bit of sour. This is what I have read it should smell like. 

So, my point is, don’t throw it out!  Keep at it.  You can easily fix or heal a sick sourdough!  Mine was sick.  It needed to be fed more, and it was eating itself.  It was also gaining more bad bacteria instead of the beneficial bacteria.  But, by being persistent, it was able to turn a corner and now on day 10 it smells pretty amazing.  

It is true what I have read.  It is a pleasantly sweet smell, like yeasty bread, with a bit of a sour note. 

Your sourdough starter can go through many stages of smells.  It can be yeasty, it can smell like alcohol, stinky feet, vomit(the worst), and aged cheese(parmesan to be exact).  From what I have read, this is all perfectly normal and you can fix them.

Recap:

The basic steps of making a starter consists of mixing flour and water together and letting it sit on your counter for 24 hours and then “feeding” it again, waiting 24 hours and doing the same.  You will feed it every 24 hours for so many days and then feed every 12 hours.  

You starter will go through some really weird and even very smelly stages. There were two days with mine when I could barely stand being in the kitchen.  Turns out I wasn’t feeding it enough. But these starters are pretty cool, and you can revive them or doctor them and get them back on track. 

The hardest thing about keeping a starter going is REMEMBERING.  Remembering to feed your sourdough starter every morning or night can be super hard to do! I set a timer on my phone to remind me, because I was afraid I would forget!  I think this must be the biggest downfall and fail of most starters.

Set a timer or reminder on your phone to remind you to feed it. 

How to keep your starter alive indefinitely:

Once your starter is active and live, you can keep your sourdough starter for years!  I have read that some use a starter thats a hundred years old!  Thats crazy.  Starters are often passed down in a family.  

You can either keep your starter on the counter and make sure to feed it every day. 

 

You can also keep it in the fridge and this will cause the starter to “pause”. You should feed it once a week in the fridge to keep it alive. 

A few things to remember before using your dough starter:

Make sure to remember that if you plan to use your starter to make bread or pancakes one day.  You need to make sure to feed your starter and let it sit out for about 12 hours.  

When do you use your starter?  You want to feed it 24 hours prior to using.  if you keep it in the fridge and plan to make some pancakes Sunday morning, take the starter out Saturday morning and feed it. By Sunday morning it is ready to be used.  

There is some planning and forethought involved in using a sourdough starter.  But, I am so excited to add this skill to my arsenal.  

I hope you will try it!

My sourdough recipes that you can make using your sourdough starter:

Sourdough English Muffins With All Those Nooks and Crannies

Easy and Delicious Flakey Biscuits Using Sourdough Discard

Light, Fluffy and Super Yummy Sourdough Pancakes

Yummy Light and Fluffy Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

The Ultimate Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread

How to Make Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Here are some great resources that helped me in my journey…..

Awesome sourdough starter videos that are helpful:

• The Ultimate Sourdough Starter Guide
• I’m Capturing Wild Yeast!
• How to Grow a Sourdough Starter at Home
• How to Use A Sourdough Starter

 

Great websites with more sourdough information:

Homestead and Chill – How to Feed a Sourdough Starter

The Prairie Homestead– How to make a sourdough starter

 

Favorite sourdough baking products and books!

 

Check out these regular bread recipes of my own!

Easy French Bread Recipe in Under 2 Hours

How to Make Banana Bread Your Family Will Love

The Easiest 2 Ingredient Flatbread Recipe You WIll Ever Make!

How to Make Wheat Bread That is Easy and Delicious