- What Exactly Is a Sourdough Starter?
- What You'll Need to Get Started
- Day One: Starting Your Starter
- Days Two Through Seven: Feeding Your Starter
- How to Know When Your Starter Is Ready
- Feeding Schedule and Maintenance
- Troubleshooting Common Problems
- Tips for Success
- What About Using Your Discard?
- Long-Term Care and Storage
- The Bottom Line
There’s something magical about making your first loaf of sourdough bread. But before you can bake that beautiful, crusty loaf with the perfect tangy flavor, you need a sourdough starter. I’ll be honest with you: when I first tried making a starter, I was intimidated. It seemed like this mysterious, complicated thing that only serious bakers could pull off.
Turns out, I was totally wrong. Making a sourdough starter is actually pretty straightforward. It just takes a little patience and consistency. Let me walk you through everything you need to know.
What Exactly Is a Sourdough Starter?
Before we dive into the how-to, let’s talk about what a sourdough starter actually is. Simply put, it’s a mixture of flour and water that’s been left to ferment. Wild yeast and good bacteria from the flour and the air around you start growing in this mixture, creating a living culture that makes your bread rise.
Unlike commercial yeast that you buy in packets, a sourdough starter is completely natural. People have been making bread this way for thousands of years, long before anyone could buy yeast at the grocery store. Your great-great-grandmother probably made bread with a starter just like this.
The wild yeast and bacteria work together to create those signature sourdough bubbles and that slightly tangy taste we all love. Plus, they make the bread easier to digest and give it better flavor than anything you’ll get from store-bought yeast.
What You’ll Need to Get Started
The good news is you don’t need fancy equipment or hard-to-find ingredients. Here’s your shopping list:
Flour – I recommend starting with whole wheat flour or rye flour for the first few feedings, then switching to all-purpose flour or bread flour. Whole grains have more wild yeast and bacteria on them, which helps your starter get going faster. After day three or four, you can switch to whatever flour you plan to bake with.
Water – Regular tap water works fine in most places, but if your water is heavily chlorinated, let it sit out overnight before using it, or use filtered water. Chlorine can kill the good bacteria you’re trying to grow.
A container – Use a glass jar or plastic container that holds at least a quart. You want something you can see through so you can watch your starter grow. A wide-mouth mason jar works perfectly.
A kitchen scale – This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it makes things way easier and more consistent. Measuring by weight is more accurate than using cups.
A spoon or spatula – For mixing. That’s it.
Time and patience – This is the most important ingredient. Your starter will take 5-7 days to become active enough for baking.
Day One: Starting Your Starter
Here we go. On day one, you’re creating the initial mixture that will become your starter.
Mix 50 grams of whole wheat or rye flour with 50 grams of lukewarm water in your jar. If you don’t have a scale, that’s roughly 1/4 cup of each. The water should feel just slightly warm to the touch, like a comfortable bath. Too hot, and you’ll kill the yeast. Too cold, and things will move slowly.
Stir it up until you don’t see any dry flour. The consistency should be like thick pancake batter. Cover it loosely with a lid, cloth, or plastic wrap. You want some air to get in, but you don’t want it completely exposed.
Put your jar somewhere warmish in your kitchen, ideally between 70-75°F. The top of your fridge, a kitchen counter away from drafts, or even inside your oven with just the light on all work well.
Now leave it alone for 24 hours. Nothing much will happen on day one, and that’s totally normal.
Days Two Through Seven: Feeding Your Starter
This is where the daily routine comes in. Every 24 hours, you’re going to “feed” your starter. Here’s what that means:
Discard half of your starter. I know, it feels wasteful at first. You’re throwing away half of what you made. But this is important. If you don’t discard, you’ll end up with a massive amount of starter that’s harder to keep healthy. Don’t worry, once your starter is established, you can use those discards in pancakes, crackers, and other recipes.
Add fresh flour and water. Add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water to what’s left in your jar. After day two or three, you can switch from whole wheat to all-purpose or bread flour if you want.
Mix thoroughly. Stir until everything is combined and you don’t see dry flour.
Cover and wait 24 hours. Then repeat.
Here’s what you should see happening day by day:
Day two: You might see a few small bubbles. The mixture might smell slightly fruity or yogurt-like. Or you might not see much at all yet. Both are fine.
Day three: More bubbles should appear. The starter might start to smell a bit sour or tangy. This is good.
Day four: Things might get weird. Your starter could smell kind of funky, almost like gym socks or nail polish remover. Don’t panic. This is a normal phase as different bacteria compete. Keep feeding it. This smell will go away.
Day five: The funky smell should be fading. You should see lots of bubbles throughout the mixture. Your starter should be rising noticeably between feedings.
Day six and seven: Your starter should be doubling in size within 4-8 hours of feeding. It should smell pleasantly tangy and sour. Lots of bubbles. This is when it’s getting ready to use.
How to Know When Your Starter Is Ready
A mature starter that’s ready for baking has three key qualities:
It doubles in size. After you feed it, it should at least double in volume within 4-8 hours. Some starters even triple in size.
It’s full of bubbles. When you look at it from the side of the jar, you should see bubbles throughout, both big and small.
It passes the float test. Drop a small spoonful of starter into a glass of water. If it floats, it’s ready to bake with. If it sinks, give it a few more days of feeding.
The smell should be pleasant, yeasty, and tangy. Not like rubbing alcohol or anything that makes you wrinkle your nose.
Feeding Schedule and Maintenance
Once your starter is active and healthy, you have options for how to maintain it:
Room temperature: If you bake regularly, like once or twice a week, keep your starter on the counter. Feed it every 12-24 hours with equal parts flour and water. The warmer your kitchen, the more frequently it needs feeding.
Refrigerator: This is what most home bakers do. After feeding your starter and letting it sit at room temperature for about an hour, pop it in the fridge. It can hang out there for up to a week between feedings. When you want to bake, take it out, feed it, let it get active at room temperature for 4-8 hours, and then use it.
The typical feeding ratio is 1:1:1, meaning equal parts starter, flour, and water by weight. So if you keep 50 grams of starter, you’d add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water.
Troubleshooting Common Problems
My starter isn’t bubbling. Give it more time. Some starters take 10-14 days to get going, especially in cooler kitchens. Make sure your water isn’t too hot or too cold, and try using whole wheat flour if you aren’t already.
There’s liquid on top. That’s called “hooch,” and it just means your starter is hungry. It’s the alcohol produced by the yeast. You can pour it off or stir it back in. Either way, feed your starter.
It smells really bad. If it smells like rotting garbage or vomit rather than tangy sourdough, something went wrong. Start over. But if it just smells funky for a day or two during the first week, that’s normal. Keep feeding it.
It’s not rising much. Check your feeding ratio. You might need to feed it more flour and water relative to the amount of starter you’re keeping. Also, warmer temperatures help starters be more active.
I forgot to feed it. If it’s only been a few days, no big deal. Feed it and carry on. If it’s been weeks or months, you might need to do several days of twice-daily feedings to bring it back to life.
There’s mold. If you see fuzzy mold in any color, throw the whole thing away and start fresh. Mold means harmful bacteria has taken over.
Tips for Success
Be consistent. Feed your starter at roughly the same time each day, at least until it’s well established. Routine helps.
Keep notes. Write down what you did and what you observed each day. This helps you learn your starter’s patterns.
Use a rubber band. Put it around your jar at the level of your starter right after feeding. This makes it easy to see how much it’s risen.
Don’t give up. The first few days can be discouraging when nothing seems to be happening. Stick with it. Almost everyone succeeds eventually.
Name your starter. I’m serious. People name their starters, and it makes the whole process more fun. Mine is called Bubbles.
Adjust to your kitchen. Every kitchen is different. Temperature, humidity, and even the wild yeast in your particular environment all matter. What works for someone else might need tweaking for you.
What About Using Your Discard?
During the first week, I’d just toss your discard. It’s not mature enough to do much with. But once your starter is established, those daily discards are gold. You can make sourdough pancakes, waffles, crackers, muffins, pizza dough, and so much more. Just search for “sourdough discard recipes” and you’ll find hundreds of ideas.
I keep a jar in my fridge where I collect discard throughout the week, then use it all at once for a big batch of pancakes or crackers on the weekend.
Long-Term Care and Storage
If you need to take a break from baking, you have options:
Dry your starter. Spread a thin layer of active starter on parchment paper and let it dry completely. Crumble it up and store it in an airtight container. It’ll keep for months. To revive it, mix a tablespoon of the dried flakes with flour and water and start feeding it again.
Ask a friend to babysit. Seriously, other bakers are usually happy to keep your starter alive while you’re away.
Freeze it. Some people freeze their starter, though I’ve heard mixed results. Drying is more reliable.
The Bottom Line
Making a sourdough starter from scratch is one of those things that seems harder than it actually is. Yes, it takes a week or so of daily feeding. Yes, you need to be consistent. But the actual work each day is less than five minutes. Mix some flour and water, stick it back on your counter, done.
And once you have that starter bubbling away, you’ve got something special. You’re connected to thousands of years of bread-making tradition. You’ve cultivated your own unique colony of wild yeast and bacteria that exists nowhere else in the world. And you can bake incredible bread whenever you want.
The first loaf you make with your homemade starter will taste better than any bread you’ve ever had, partly because of the flavor, but mostly because you made it yourself from flour, water, and patience.
So grab a jar, some flour, and get started. A week from now, you’ll have a thriving sourdough starter. A few days after that, you’ll be pulling your first crusty, tangy loaf out of the oven.
Trust me, it’s worth it.
