HOW TO MAKE AND MAINTAIN A SOURDOUGH STARTER

So despite the name, sourdough bread doesn't actually need to be sour. What actually makes a sourdough bread is not the flavor, but the fact that it's made using a naturally occurring yeast rather than the dry commercial yeast that we're used to seeing in most modern baking. There's yeast and bacteria all around us, in the air, on your skin, on the flour and water that you use. So by creating an environment where this yeast and bacteria can thrive, we can actually capture it and utilize it in our baking. So this environment of yeast and bacteria becomes your sourdough starter and it's the starting point for creating a wide variety of delicious and deeply flavorful loaves of bread. Plus there's just something so satisfying about creating a delicious loaf of bread with only three of the most basic ingredients possible, flour, water, and salt. So today I'm going to show you how to create a sourdough starter just like this one using only two of those ingredients, flour and water, and I'll show you how to care for it and maintain it so you can use it to create delicious loaves of bread for years to come. So let's get into it. So making a sourdough starter is about a seven day process. It could take slightly longer depending on your environment but seven days is about the minimum. So all you'll need equipment wise is some sort of jar or container with a loosely fitting lid. I like to use this 24 ounce ball jar along with a food scale and something to stir with and for that I like to use a rubber spatula. I'll leave a link to all the equipment that I use in the description below. It'll be important to know the weight of your jar and you'll see why in a minute so just start by weighing the jar in grams and recording that weight somewhere where you'll remember it. I like to just put a label on the jar and write the weight straight on there. So after that's done in your jar combine 100 grams of whole wheat flour with 150 grams of room temperature water and stir until all of the flour is completely saturated. Then cover with your loosely fitting lid and let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours and that's all you have to do on the first day. As it sits that yeast and bacteria will start to accumulate and feed off of the flour so that's how your culture gets started. So after 24 hours we're back and you can see that our starter has developed a few bubbles which indicates that we've got a little bit of yeast activity already. You may even want to let it go longer than 24 hours for this initial step especially if you don't see any bubbles yet so you could let it go for up to 48 hours if you want but I'm going to move on here after 24 hours. So at this point my starter has a slight funky aroma but mostly just smells like wet flour. You'll see that over time as the starter develops it'll pick up a really nice citrusy aroma more like what you're used to smelling in a good sourdough bread. Now like I mentioned the activity of your starter is highly dependent on your environment so don't worry if yours doesn't look exactly like mine just keep following along and trust the process it'll happen eventually. Generally the yeast and bacteria are more active at higher temperatures so if you live in a warm environment you'll probably see it happen a little bit faster. But anyways essentially what we're going to do from here on out is feed our starter each day with some fresh flour and water to give it something to feed on. So in order to prevent the starter from growing larger and larger each time we feed it we'll actually need to discard some of it each day. It seems wasteful but it's a necessary step and once your starter is mature and ready to use there's actually a lot of ways you can use the excess instead of discarding it. So anyways for day two here we'll need to combine 75 grams of our starter with 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. So this is where the weight of the jar comes in. My jar weighed 387 grams so in order to be left with 75 grams of starter I need to discard until my total weight reaches 462 grams. By the way I listed all the ingredients and feeding ratios in the description below and I also made up a pdf that you can download which lays everything out as well. Now the last thing to consider and I promise it'll be super easy after this point is that from here on out instead of only using whole wheat flour like we did on day one we want to use a mixture containing half whole wheat flour and half unbleached all-purpose flour. It's very important to use unbleached flour because we need that flour to contain some good natural yeast and bacteria. To make this quicker and easier I like to just make a big batch of this flour mixture all at once. So in a sealable container just combine equal weights of whole wheat flour and your unbleached all-purpose flour. I just recommend making as much of this flour mixture as you can fit in your container because even after you get the starter going you'll have to feed it with this mixture regularly to keep it alive. So you'll definitely use up all the flour eventually. Alright so you did it all the hard parts are done now it's just a matter of feeding your starter every day to strengthen it and let it develop. For today's feeding we're going to add 100 grams of our flour mixture along with 100 grams of room temperature water to our jar with our 75 grams of starter. And again just stir until everything is completely saturated then loosely cover the jar and leave it at room temperature for another 24 hours. So we're back on day three and you can see that our starter has developed a few small bubbles here and there but still not much and it smells pretty much the same as yesterday so it definitely has a ways to go. But don't worry just keep feeding and it'll eventually activate. There won't always be a lot of visible activity at the beginning. So as far as feeding days three and four are going to be exactly the same as day two. So again we're just going to discard all but 75 grams of our starter and add to that 100 grams of our flour mixture and 100 grams of our room temperature water. Then loosely cover the jar and let it sit at room temperature for another 24 hours. For anyone wondering the reason that it's important to use room temperature water is because we want to keep our starter relatively warm to keep it active. Using colder water even though it would work it would slow down the activity of the bacteria and yeast so it'd just take longer for the starter to become active. Now like I said day four is going to be the same as the previous two days so again just combine 75 grams of your starter with 100 grams of your flour mixture and 100 grams of room temperature water. Then let sit for another 24 hours. Now here we are at day five and you can see that we're finally starting to see a bit more activity and the starter has developed a noticeable really nice citrusy aroma indicating that we're starting to get some good development. It still doesn't have a ton of rise but there are a lot of little small bubbles throughout so there's definitely some yeast activity going on. So now as the starter is beginning to strengthen we're actually going to decrease the amount of starter that we use for feeding so we're only going to keep 50 grams of starter this time and add to that again 100 grams of our flour mixture and 100 grams of room temperature water. Then as always just loosely cover the jar and wait another 24 hours. Then just do the same thing on day six. 50 grams of starter with the usual 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of room temperature water. Now we're finally at day seven and at this point your starter should be just about ready to use. If it's not quite there yet don't worry just keep following along and it'll get there but from here on out we're just going to keep 25 grams of our starter each day and feed it with 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. So now that ratio will never change for the entire remainder of the starter's life and your starter should pretty much stay alive indefinitely as long as you're consistently feeding it. In my case I still don't think my starter is quite ready to use yet but it's definitely close so I'm just going to keep feeding it until it is. But just to double check I'll show you a test here that you can use to see whether your starter is active enough to bake with. So this is called the float test. It's pretty self-explanatory based on the name. Basically you just take a small amount of your starter and drop it into a bowl of water and if it floats then it's ready. If it sinks at all then it needs more time. So in my case it's very close but it's not quite floating as much as it should be so it needs a bit more time. Now to be honest a better way to do this would be to test the starter about 12 hours after feeding rather than a full 24 hours because after 12 hours the starter should be at about its maximum rise and after 24 hours it's probably fallen quite a bit already. So anyways I just fed my starter with the usual 25 to 100 to 100 ratio and let it sit for another day. So here's what it looks like 24 hours later and I'd say the starter is definitely ready at this point. It has a very strong citrusy almost vinegar like aroma and we can see from a quick float test here that it's actually floating now. So perfect you've got an active usable starter. So now what? Well baking your first loaf of sourdough bread is a whole other beast which we'll cover in a different video but for now let's talk about maintaining your starter. Remember it's essentially a living creature so it needs love and care just like the rest of us. You can't just neglect it and expect it to be fine. So you could just keep feeding your starter every day as you have been with the 25 to 100 to 100 ratio and if you plan to bake more than once per week this is what I recommend that you do. But most people probably won't bake quite that often so if you bake once a week or less you can actually get away with feeding the starter only once per week. So to do this you'll just feed it with that same 25 to 100 to 100 ratio but then you'll store the starter in the fridge between feedings. This will basically just slow down the activity of the bacteria and yeast so your starter will rise and fall much more slowly. If you do it this way I just recommend leaving the starter out at room temperature for at least an hour or two before and after each feeding to let it come to room temp and get some activity going. Now if you forget to feed your starter a few times it's no big deal just continue with your regular feedings and it should return back to normal after not too long. Of course if you go months without feeding it you may need to start over but I think you'd actually be surprised at how hard it is to completely kill your starter. Now I know this is a lot of information so definitely leave any questions you have in the comments below but I hope you give it a try. Sourdough is probably the most satisfying thing you can make in my opinion and it's really fun once you get into it trying to master your technique and make better and better loaves of bread all with just three simple ingredients. So there you go if you like the video please remember to hit the like button and check out some of these videos on screen to keep watching. I'll see you all in the next one.