Sourdough Starter

You have to start somewhere.

A sourdough starter is a living colony of yeast that you can use to leven your bread. You need to regularly feed it with water and flour to keep it alive. Being very regularly fed will help it be as active as possible. Once per day is a good amount.

In general, you want to maintain a 1:1 ratio of water to flour by weight. If you have 150g of starter and discard 100g, you should add back 50g of water and 50g of flour. A good way to know how much starter you have is to measure your jar when it’s empty and label it. Then subtract the jar weight from the current weight to get the weight of starter.

150g starter

You have 150g of starter. It is hungry; time to feed it!

1. Discard 100g of starter.
2. Add 50g of water and 50g of flour.
3. Mix until no lumps remain.

Your starter should become active and bubbly in the next couple of hours. When it has risen to double its original volume, it is the optimal time to use the starter to make bread.