Easy Sourdough Starter and Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How much sourdough starter to use in bread? ›

As with any sourdough recipe, before you start baking bread, you want to make sure that your sourdough starter is as strong as possible. My basic sourdough recipe uses just 50g of starter for 500g of flour (so just 10% of starter).

The most common feeding ratio is 1:1:1 (sourdough starter: flour: water). This is also known as a 100% hydration starter. For example, let's say you have 40 g of sourdough starter in a jar. To feed it, you'll add 40 g of flour + 40 g of water.

There is no single best ratio, but I've found a ratio of 1:5:5 fed twice daily at 12-hour intervals to produce a sourdough starter that's strong and healthy. This ratio corresponds to 20% ripe starter carryover, 100% water, and 100% flour (a mix of whole grain rye and white flour) at each feeding.

Can sourdough starter be made with bread flour only? Yes. Adjust the texture with additional water if it's too thick.

The colony of wild yeast and bacteria inside your starter jar are fairly resilient, however, like most living things, they can be overfed. When you overfeed a sourdough starter you dilute the natural population of yeast and bacteria, making your sourdough culture weak and inactive.

It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.

Room-temperature starter should be fed every 12 hours (twice a day) using the standard maintenance feeding procedure: discard all but 113g, and feed that 113g starter with 113g each water and flour.

Adding whole grain flour: Whole grain flour, particularly whole rye flour (pumpernickel), tends to promote more sour flavor in bread for two reasons. First, the type of sugars available in whole rye (or whole wheat) flour encourage a shift toward acetic acid production.

Your starter is like a baby, don't forget to feed, stir every day and treat him with love. You can give your starter a name, I called mine Lemmy. Discard half of the mixture and feed your starter. If you don't notice significant growth each time, feed the starter twice a day.

If you can find or create a warm place to let your starter sit, like on top of the fridge or near the oven (not ON the oven), or in the oven with only the light on, you will see results much faster. If you don't have a decent warm spot, use warmer water, 80f to 90f when you feed your starter.

Why is sourdough starter so difficult? ›

Essentially making a sourdough starter is not an overly difficult process, but it does require a commitment of time and patience, as well as some dedicated equipment. Sometimes there are factors which mean making sourdough starter could be difficult. Perhaps you're working long hours or go out of town regularly.

Does it matter if my starter is thick or thin, you ask? Nope! Thick and thin starters are both full of wild yeasts and bacteria which is what your bread is begging for. The viscosity of your starter is really just a personal preference because thick and thin starters will both make bread.

The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour.

The World's 'Oldest' Sourdough Starter Was Made With 4,500-Year-Old Yeast. There's no bread quite like sourdough. In addition to being tasty as a sandwich bread, delicious as sourdough croutons, and even great just toasted with butter, sourdough's production process is decidedly unlike other breads.

If you've ever wondered how to convert a yeast recipe to sourdough, then I'm going to show you how easy it can be! As a general rule, 100g of sourdough starter is equivalent to a 5-7g packet of commercial yeast. You can use this conversion when using sourdough starter instead of yeast in a recipe.

So basically, whatever you have in starter, double the amount for water, and triple the amount for Flour. -1-For example, if you have 170g ripe sourdough starter, mix in 340g water and 510g flour (preferably bread flour or any flour with high protein content).

I maintain around 220g of starter each day, translating to 20g carryover ripe sourdough starter, 70g all-purpose flour, 30g whole rye flour, and 100g water. I keep my starter in a large 3/4 Liter Weck jar and the jar in my small dough proofer daily.

I like to start by eyeballing approximately how much sourdough starter I already have and feeding it at least that much in equal parts of flour and water. For example, if you have about 1 cup of sourdough starter, you will want to feed it at least 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour.