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.
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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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Easy Sourdough Starter Guide
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What will you be baking first with your new starter?
Very nice video, I just have a few questions.
During the maintenance stage you took 25g of starter and added 50g of water and 50g of all purpose flour.
So you pitched the rest? After 24 hours the 25g starter with the water and flour will double? Once 24 hours pass do I take only 25g of that and pitch the rest?
Thank you in advance
Ty
For day 3 or the cultivation stage, could you also use 50 grams starter, 50 grams water, 25 Ap and 25 rye flour?
Why is this so difficult??
I've watched 20 videos, and all are different. I've brought pkg starter and that's even more confusing.
Some say throw away starter, some save it….some use scales, others don't. Gotta be a simple way to do this
what happens to the starter in the jar? for the maintenance stage, you use a new container and a small portion of the previous starter. do we use a new container every day, and discard everything outside of that new 25g we're working with?
Why is it measured in grams when 99% of all American baking/cooking is done in American measurements? Is there a recipe for American measurements?
I followed this to a tee and the last 2 days I've gotten almost no rise out of my mix….anyone else experiencing this or any tips what I might have done wrong to correct this for next attempt?
Okay first try on this and day 3 is not anything like his day 3 sooooo wtf. Mine is completely watery. Adjusting the ratio.
Can u put the jar in oven to ferment faster during cold season?
Com sempre vc faka rápido demais e o passaa passo do fermentação na ficou muito clara. ( nao deu para entender muito bem).
Let’s make this bread
I love your content daddy
That is so wasteful! Instead of throwing it away why not buy two jars and make another for a friend?
When is it strong enough to keep it in the fridge
Instead of throwing it out can I give that half to another jar and make double? Feels wasteful
My starter always failed 😢
I don't feel like the end process has been explained clearly enough to understand. I mean when the starter is already created after 6 days.
1. How much of a starter is a minimum amount of grams that we need to keep in fridge to be able to sustain?
2. If I plan to use let's say 200g of an active sourdough in my bread recipe, what steps do I need to take on my starter to make it 225g in total (considering those 25g of starter as a basis to be put in fridge for future breads)?
3. When I've taken part of my sourdough starter to make a bread, then how long does it take for the part of sourdough starter that is left for reproduction to make a new sourdough for next bread if I fed it up immediately after taking part of it, as per beginning of this quite long question?
Why throw out most of it? I don’t get that.
Won't the tap water kill the bacteria in the finished starter though?
Can you make a video with no discard starter, please?
Wheat flour works also, instead of rye
2nd batch in the making I messed up the first one. I was on day 6 when I realized I wasn’t adding the flour just the rye 😭😭😭😭 and I was sealing tight not letting it breath
I have tried this 3 times. Day 2 it rises great and even leaks out. When I get to day 4 it no longer rises anymore following this exact procedure.
Thank you. Thank you
This is a nice and clear instruction video, but I had to use slower playback speed to get the ingredients and the amounts. Please slow down during that part of instructions. Thanks!
Do we have to freeze the flours before using to kill bugs or can we just use straight from the bag from the store? Thank you for any help you can provide.
Step 1 : throw everything out
so how much of the starter is used to make a loaf of bread?
What do you do when you go on vacation? Lol, does my starter have to travel with me? Does it stay at room temperature?
Hi. Just checking. We don't get rye flour only whole wheat flour where i stay, is that okay and i think flour may be bleached. Live on a island and options limited
I keep getting hooch every day ! Any tips on what I’m doing wrong
Love the way you share! You have a new subscriber😊
Question for you. Do you keep the starter in the fridge after day 6?
Thank you.
So during my cultivation stage it did not double in size and I followed this to a T BUT it is floating in water . Any idea what I did wrong ? Can I move out of the cultivation stage or continue until it doubles . It went from 200mL not the side of the jar to 300ish
Compost your discard AT LEAST sir ❤
@brianlagerstrom i understand during the "cultivate" you save 75 g of the starter and discard the rest. Using the same jar. But at the end of the video you mix it into a different container and seemed to keep the rest of the starter In the glass jar. Im a tad bit confused about that part. Could you please explain?
Thanks you so much. explanation is very clearly.
what is the reason to start with that much water and flour if your going to discard half of it the next day? I understand the need for discarding as the feeding process continues throiugh the starters life but why not just start with half the amount in the first place if your going to discard half of it so quickly?
Hi can I go with just 3 to 2 ratio of flour and water?
I've follow this video and did exact measurements, it is now day 14 and my starter isn't ready? What am I doing wrong?
You didn't really tell us about the storing in the fridge so can I actually take the sourdough starter and straight up freeze it To suspend it and then resume if I say needed to go on vacation?
You're extremely handsome. Thanks for the sourdough information, you can teach me anything with a face like that. I don't care about how I'm perceived from a comment like this because even though it is a shallow, inappropriate thing to post for a food video, and socially distasteful, I am semi-anonymous on the internet and I know that if you read it, it might make you feel good, and that's all I want in life is for all other human beings to feel good. So that's my rationale even though no one asked me to explain it. I loved the scientific explanation because as a kombucha brewer, I adored seeing that kombucha………..can literally be used to start sourdough based on its probiotic profile. I'm quite excited. Thank you so much and have a wonderful week.
P.S. I would really like to learn the details about how one can source probiotics from the environment. Ergo, from what source material do the probiotics originate before we "trap" them? I've heard some strains of lactobacillus (used for kombucha and lactofermented vegetable dishes) are present in the ambient air in your house… so are we "trapping" probiotics in the sourdough starter from air? Or a combination between raw flower and air? Or only raw flower? If we use sugar water, we should theoretically be able to capture probiotics too without flower if they're from the air, speaking as someone who has MINIMAL hobbyist experience with brewing kombucha and fermented vegetables.
When I switch to the maintenance stage, it dosent rise after that. Any idea why?
Been doing sour dough loaves for about half a year now. Made my starter following this. Works great, i've gotten good at making sour dough and custom loafs too. Big recommend following this for your starter and getting it going.
So when you get to day 6 and you are ready to use it and maintain it daily….i noticed the 50 g water 25g starter and 50 gram flour equals 125 grams….moving forward are you subtracting 125 grams from the starter then adding back 125 grams in the freshly mixed flour, water and starter?
I'm on day 3 and seeing lots of life in my jar. I also use a plastic lid with a hole drilled in it amd covered with a filter patch.
I've done a fair share of fermenting and capturing of natural yeasts and bacterias before and i really enjoy your video. I like the way you have broken it down into different segments and the way you present the information is very easy to understand. Thank you!
Can i use it for brewing??
Hello! I have a question!After the day 1 , it has risen so much and at day 4 it started stink so much…
So I have started again from day 1 newly, I was just wondering if it is because the room temperature was too warm and should I shorten the process to maybe 4days? Or try to find somewhere much cooler…
What can be the substitution for rye flour. Its quite expensive in India..
This is too much .