Flavour & Fire
The Sourdough Journal
Making a Starter
Your bread does not begin with dough. It begins with a jar of flour and water.
At first glance, there does not seem to be much to it. Flour. Water. Perhaps a few little bubbles along the side of the jar. But beneath that quiet surface, quite a lot is happening. Yeasts and lactic acid bacteria live together in the mixture, using what the flour has to offer. They produce acids and carbon dioxide, slowly changing the environment in which they live. That is your starter.
Making one does not ask much of you. It does, however, ask for a little time. Allow roughly one to two weeks before expecting it to be reliable enough for baking. Not because the process is complicated, but because a living culture needs time to develop and settle into a stable rhythm.
What you need
Surprisingly little:
– flour
– water
– a clean glass jar
– a spoon or fork
– a rubber band, if you like
– time
I like using a glass Weck jar. Not because you need one, but because it lets you see what is happening inside. A rubber band around the jar, placed at the level of your starter just after feeding, is perhaps the simplest useful tool you can have. Later, it will show you at a glance how much your starter has risen.
Cover the jar loosely. A loose lid, a piece of kitchen paper or another non-airtight covering will do. Your starter does not need to be sealed away from the air, but you do want to protect it from dust and anything else that might find its way in. And remember that an active starter can grow considerably, so give it enough room.
Which flour Should You Use?
Wheat flour works perfectly well for a starter, but wholemeal wheat or rye flour can be particularly helpful when you are starting a new culture. They contain more of the grain itself and therefore bring more nutrients and enzymes with them. Rye, in particular, can get a young starter moving quite quickly.
If you can, choose a good unbleached flour. There is no need, though, to search for anything rare or expensive. A good everyday flour is enough to begin with.
And you are not committed to that flour forever. Once your starter is mature and reliable, you can maintain it with ordinary wheat flour, wholemeal flour, rye, or a mixture. Your starter will gradually adapt to what you regularly feed it.
Day 1 — The Beginning
Mix
– 50 g flour
– 50 g water
Stir well until you have a thick, even mixture. Scrape down the sides of the jar, mark the level with a rubber band if you like, and cover it loosely.
Place it somewhere at room temperature, away from direct sunlight and sources of heat. Then comes perhaps the hardest part of sourdough: doing nothing.
After about 24 hours, take a look. You may see nothing at all. Perhaps there are a few tiny bubbles. Perhaps it smells different from what you expected. All of that can be perfectly normal. Your starter does not need to look impressive on its first day.
Day 2 — Feeding Again
Add another 50 g of flour and 50 g of water. Stir well and leave the starter to rest again.
It may suddenly seem much more active now. You might see large bubbles, lots of smaller ones, or even almost a doubling in volume. It is exciting to see, but do not read too much into it just yet.
A young starter can have a burst of activity during its first few days and then become much quieter again. Different microorganisms are active at this stage, and the culture is still developing. A starter that goes quiet after an enthusiastic beginning is not necessarily failing.
Day 3 and Beyond — Refreshing
From this point onwards, you stop simply adding more flour and water and start refreshing your starter. You keep a portion of the existing culture and give it a fresh supply of flour and water.
A simple ratio to begin with is:
– 25 g starter
– 50 g flour
– 50 g water
Gradually, you should begin to see a pattern. The bubbles become more regular, the volume rises more clearly, and eventually your starter will begin to rise after feeding and then fall again in a recognisable cycle. That recurring rhythm tells you far more than one spectacular day ever could.
Why remove part of it?
At first, this can feel rather strange. You have spent time creating something alive — so why would you throw part of it away?
The simple answer is that you need to keep the balance between the existing starter and its fresh food under control. If you continually add flour and water without removing any, the amount of starter quickly becomes unmanageable, while the proportion of old culture keeps increasing. Removing a portion gives the remaining microorganisms a fresh supply of food and keeps the quantity practical.
That does not mean the excess always has to be wasted. Once your starter is mature and healthy, you can keep the extra as discard and use it for things such as crackers, pancakes or pizza. During the first few days, however, it is better not to use young starter discard in recipes that are not thoroughly cooked. At that stage, the culture has not yet settled into the stable community you are looking for.
When is your starter ready?
A few bubbles do not necessarily mean your starter is ready. What you are looking for is reliable activity.
A mature starter becomes clearly active after feeding, develops plenty of bubbles, rises noticeably and reaches a recognisable peak. More importantly, it does this consistently over several days. Its aroma can be pleasantly sour and fresh, sometimes with a yoghurt-like or lightly fruity character. A strong or unpleasant smell can be a sign that something else is going on.
This is where that simple rubber band becomes useful again. Place it at the level of the starter immediately after feeding and watch what happens. Does it double? How long does it take? When does it reach its highest point? And how long does it stay there before beginning to fall?
Those observations tell you far more than a rule such as “your starter is ready after seven days”. Some starters become reliable sooner; others need more time. Watch the pattern, not just the calendar.
Your Starter Does Not Follow a Clock
You can weigh everything carefully, use the same flour and feed at exactly the same time every day — and your starter may still respond faster one day than the next. That is not a fault in the process. You are working with living microorganisms, and they are constantly responding to their surroundings.
Temperature plays a major part. A starter in a warm kitchen may reach its peak within a few hours, while the same starter in a cooler kitchen may take considerably longer. The flour you use, the amount of water and the condition of the culture all influence the pace as well.
So use a feeding schedule as a guide rather than a rule. In time, you will get to know your starter: when it wakes up, what it looks like at its strongest, how it smells when it is becoming hungry and when it is ready to be fed again. Sourdough becomes less about waiting and more about paying attention.
The Moment It Becomes Yours
Once your starter is reliably active, you can use it to bake your first loaf. Perhaps it will be a simple loaf. Perhaps focaccia, pizza, rolls or something you discover along the way. The lovely thing is that they can all begin with the same small culture living in the same jar.
You start with 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water. A week or two later, you have a living ingredient that you can keep feeding, using and growing again.
Your starter is not simply something you make for baking. It is the first part of the baking itself — and perhaps the part that teaches you the most.
Seven days of almost nothing happening, until suddenly it does.
Continue your journey
Making your Starter
Your bread doesn’t begin with dough. It begins with a jar of flour and water.At first glance, a jar like this doesn’t look like much. Flour. Water. Maybe a few bubbles along the side. But in reality, quite a lot is happening. Yeasts and lactic acid bacteria are living together in that mixture. They use nutrients from the flour, produce acids and carbon dioxide, and slowly change the environment they live in. That is your starter — and before you can bake with it, you first have to make it.Allow about one to two weeks. Not because the process is complicated, but because a living culture simply needs time to become stable.What you needSurprisingly little:- flour- water- a clean glass jar- a spoon or fork- optionally, a rubber band- timeI personally like using a glass preserving jar — not because you have to, but because you can see exactly what is happening inside. A rubber band around the jar, placed at the level your starter reaches when you feed it, is a simple trick for seeing exactly how much it has risen later on.Cover the jar loosely. Not airtight — a piece of kitchen paper, a loose lid, or cling film that isn’t tightly sealed will work perfectly well. An active starter can rise quite a bit, and it needs room to do so.Which flour?Wheat flour works perfectly well, but whole wheat or rye flour is often a good choice for getting a starter going. It contains more of the whole grain, and therefore more nutrients and microorganisms. Rye flour is particularly active and can help a starter get going quickly.Preferably use unbleached flour — for a new starter, it is simply a better choice. And you don’t have to stick with the same flour forever: once your starter is mature, you can easily maintain it with regular wheat flour, whole wheat flour, or a combination.Day 1 — the beginningMix:- 50 grams flour- 50 grams waterStir well until you have a fairly thick batter. Scrape down the sides of the jar and cover it loosely. Leave it at room temperature, preferably somewhere that isn’t extremely cold or warm.Now the waiting begins.After about 24 hours, take a look at what has happened. Maybe you’ll see nothing at all. Maybe a few tiny bubbles. Maybe it smells a little strange. All of that is possible — a starter doesn’t need to be impressive on day one.Day 2 — feed againAdd another 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water, stir well, and leave it for another 24 hours.During these first few days, your starter may suddenly seem very active — lots of bubbles, sometimes almost doubling in size. Fun to watch, but don’t let it fool you. A young starter can show a burst of activity at the beginning that largely disappears again later. That is part of its development, not a sign that something has gone wrong.Day 3 and onwards — refreshingFrom here on, you start refreshing your starter rather than simply adding to it. You don’t need to keep an ever-growing amount of starter every day — before long, you’d have half a kitchen full of jars of flour.A simple ratio to start with:- 25 grams starter- 50 grams flour- 50 grams waterThat’s a ratio of 1:2:2. Mix everything well and leave it at room temperature again. Repeat this daily.You’ll notice your starter becoming more stable. After a feeding, it becomes predictably active: more bubbles, more volume, and after a while it will begin to roughly double in size. That’s when you know you’re getting somewhere.Why do you keep throwing some away?At first, this may feel strange — you’ve gone to all that effort to create something alive, and then you have to throw part of it away.The reason is simple: you keep the quantity manageable, while giving the microorganisms that remain enough fresh food. If you only keep adding without removing anything, the ratio of old starter to fresh food becomes increasingly unbalanced — and the balance inside your jar changes.You don’t always have to throw it away, though. Once your starter is mature and healthy, you can save the excess as discard, for crackers, pancakes, pizza, and more. During the first few days, however, a young starter doesn’t yet have a stable culture, so don’t save the discard for recipes that won’t be thoroughly baked or cooked.When is your starter ready?This is perhaps the trickiest part — not every bubble means your starter is ready.A usable, mature starter:- becomes clearly active after feeding- produces plenty of bubbles- visibly increases in volume- reaches a recognisable peak- does this for several days in a row- smells pleasantly sour, fresh, or slightly yoghurt-likeThe rubber band around your jar is your best tool here: mark the level immediately after feeding and watch how much it rises afterwards.And more important than the clock: watch your starter itself, rather than relying on a fixed number of hours. A packet of yeast more or less does what you expect. A starter is alive — temperature, flour type, hydration, and the condition of your starter all determine how quickly it responds. Four hours in a warm summer kitchen is very different from four hours in a cold winter kitchen.Not an exact scienceYou can weigh everything carefully, use the same flour every time, and feed your starter at exactly the same time every day — and it can still suddenly respond faster on Tuesday than it did on Monday. That’s because you’re working with living microorganisms, not a machine.In the beginning, feel free to use a schedule to give yourself some guidance. But the real goal is learning to watch what your starter actually does: when it bubbles, when it rises, when it peaks, when it falls again, and what it smells like. After a while, you’ll recognise all of this naturally.And then?Once your starter is reliably active, the real adventure begins. You can use it for your first loaf — and later for rolls, focaccia, pizza, cinnamon rolls, crackers, and everything else you can make with the same starter.You begin with flour and water in a jar. A few weeks later, you have a small living ingredient in your kitchen that you can use to make something new again and again. Your starter isn’t a by-product of baking. It is where baking begins.—Part of the Starter Hub. Continue reading: What is a starter? · Feeding your starter · Recognising a starter