Hello. New to this thread. I'm looking into making some sourdough starter (which I will name!) and I was directed to this thread to get some tips and if anyone has a good recipie!
Thanks
Welcome!! I’m firmly in the camp of keeping it simple. I use a kitchen scale because I’ve learned that the cup measurements are different between Canada and the US, and I have found lots of bread recipes posted from Canada that I’d like to try. A scale makes the measurements the same in both countries. Intimidated the stuffin’ outta me at first, but now I don’t even think about it, I just grab the scale and go. Most recipes include both cup measurements and the measurements in grams.
Day 1. My starter begins with 60 grams of wheat (or rye) flour and 60 grams of water. Stir well, cover loosely, and let it be.
Day 2. As soon as you see bubbles (can be one to three days or even more sometimes, but regardless of how many days it takes to see action, that “bubble day“ is counted as Day 2), then discard all but 60 grams of the starter, stir in 60 grams of water to what’s left, add 60 grams of wheat (or rye) flour, stir until no more dry flour is seen, cover loosely and let it be. At this stage the web site I learned from, and which has never failed me, recommends changing to all bread flour but I prefer one more day of the others because the starter seems to me to be getting stronger.
Day 3 - 6. Repeat the process above. But at Day 3 I usually switch to 30 grams of wheat or rye flour and 30 grams of bread flour, then after that I feed just bread flour. If it gets sluggish, you can go back to half of each. Your starter is “hungry” when you see the slide marks where it rose, then dropped back down, and/or when you see watery bubbles on top. If your starter is very active, you may need to feed 2x a day. Better to underfed than overfeed.
Once your starter is doubling within 6-8 hours of feeding, it’s ready to use. There are sites that talk about doing the “float test”, dropping a teaspoon of peaked starter into a glass of water to see if your starter is strong enough to use. It lies. I’ve had starter float but got little to no rise in the bread, and I’ve had it not float and just fall apart in the water and the bread was perfect. Same starter, same recipe.
The site I got this particular recipe from, and the no-knead bread recipe we like, has videos that show you day by day what the starter should be doing and what you should be doing. As a beginner I found this the most helpful and uncomplicated site of all and I still refer to it. I’ll be happy to send you a link to it. Sourdough starter and bread making does not have to become all-consuming and complex. I don’t fuss or obsess and still get great results every time.
