Let's make a sourdough starter that actually WORKS! Most of us have eaten sourdough at one time or another in our lives. Some of us love that tangy sourdough flavor, while others of us don't really like the sourness of it. Wherever you stand, you're gonna wanna stick around and learn more about all of the amazing benefits of sourdough and about why you should consider making your own sourdough starter completely from scratch.
If you've tried making a sourdough starter before, you may have had some failures in the past. Maybe the sourdough starter didn’t grow as it was supposed to or perhaps you were successful with getting your starter off the ground and going, but when it came to baking your bread, you had loaves that were dense as a rock. (My hand is raised y’all, and even though we like the sour flavor in our house, our bread was so sour that even we didn't really appreciate it the first time).
On the flip side, in my house, my husband and I both really like the sour taste and flavor depth that you get with sourdough. But my kids aren't such big fans. If it has a hint of sourness in it they are turning up their noses and running the other way. Or, as has happened with my son in the past, hucking that sourdough sandwich in the garbage at school. (It’s very helpful when one knows the lunch lady at school when it comes to these matters).
Listen in to Episode #288, How to Start a Sourdough Starter, of the Pioneering Today Podcast, where we don't just inspire you, but give you the clear steps to create the garden, pantry, kitchen and life you want for your family and homestead.

I've definitely had a love/frustration relationship with making sourdough. Not to mention, there have been a few times I've had a successful sourdough starter going, only to accidentally leave it in the oven while it's preheating!
If you’ve found yourself in any of the previous scenarios and you're nodding your head, or you're like, I really want to get into sourdough, but I don't want to have any of those mistakes or things that happened that you just talked about, then this post is for you.
Alright, now let me tell you a little bit about my story and journey with sourdough…
My Sourdough Story

Way back when, when my husband and I were first married, I wanted to try my hand at sourdough because, as I said, I love the flavor of sourdough. Whenever we went out and I had the option of choosing sourdough bread or buns or rolls, that’s what I always went for, so I decided I had to try making it at home.
I had a recipe for a sourdough starter that had flour and water and some sugar and some yeast and you mixed it all up in a bowl. Then you just covered it up and you set it aside.
Well, as you can imagine, it grew lovely shades of different mold and ended up stinking to high heaven. My first attempt at a sourdough starter had totally failed. So do not feel bad if you haven’t had success with your sourdough starter in the past.
The good news is that there was a reason why that first starter failed. It had to do with the fact that sourdough is fermented, after all, which means it’s got a colony of both natural, wild yeast and lactobacilli bacteria.
If you've heard the terms “wild yeast” or “wild fermentation,” that’s what we're doing when we make a sourdough starter. We’re capturing that wild yeast and growing our starter with naturally occurring yeast and bacteria.
Once we understand our sourdough starter is a living thing, it’s easy to see why it doesn’t just taste good, but, like all fermented foods, it’s beneficial to our health too. Plus, the fact that it’s fermented means that it’s got natural preservatives because fermentation is basically nature's way of preserving food.
Health Benefits of Sourdough

And since that yeast and bacteria are essentially consuming the mixture of flour and water, they are actually pre-digesting them for us. This is really good for our gut health, which is why live cultured and fermented foods of all kinds are so good for our digestive system and overall health.
When it comes to sourdough though, the bacteria isn't alive when we eat it because we're not eating our sourdough starter raw. We’re using it to bake with. But when we put our flour in it or whatever grain medium we're using (ie. brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, gluten-free flour, etc.), whatever you're using, it's being pre-digested for you.
This means our bodies are able to get the nutrients out of it that much easier even though we’re baking it and killing the bacteria. When we’re doing our baked goods, we're not worried about that. It's already done the work for us.
Best Flour to Use for Sourdough Starter

You can use any grain or flour that you want to start your starter! In my sourdough class I teach you how to make a sourdough starter from 4 different types of grains:
- all-purpose flour
- ancient grain einkorn
- fresh-ground hard white wheat
- gluten-free brown rice
You can even switch out the flours once you have your starters established! You can use any type of flour that you want or you can do a combination if you want to. In my class, I also talk about the reasons why you might want to choose one flour over the other. Now, obviously, if you are gluten-free, you're going to pick the gluten-free grain.
Hard white wheat is generally what I feed my sourdough starter with now because most of the time I'm baking bread with my sourdough starter and I want that higher gluten and higher protein content that’s desirable for baking bread (meaning my loaf will actually rise).
For my recommendations on where to find hard white wheat and other grains, check out Where to Buy Grains in Bulk – My Favorite Sources.
How to Choose Which Flour to Use For Your Starter
Now if I thought, well, I'm really probably only going to be making pancakes and waffles or cakes, then you might choose to use spelt flour, which has lower gluten and protein content. You could also use soft white wheat or a pastry whole wheat blend.
As I mentioned before, I use hard white wheat because I know I'll be using my starter for baking bread. I want that extra gluten and protein for a nice rise and a beautiful, chewy and soft loaf. (This also works well for my best beginner sourdough sandwich bread.)
You're not limited to whatever you started it with. My main goal is to just get you started and going with it and for you to have success!
What is Sourdough Discard?

Discard is when you remove some of the sourdough starter from the container that it's in. Discard is very important in the beginning when you’re getting your starter established. It's also something that will come into play later on if you put your starter to sleep in the fridge and you need to bring it back to life!
With the “discard”, you're not actually discarding it, as in throwing it in the trash, but you are removing it from your main sourdough starter.
What Can I Make With Sourdough Discard
Before your starter is mature, meaning it's not yet strong enough to raise a loaf of bread, you can use the starter and the discard to bake all kinds of sourdough goodies.
But truly, don't try to bake a loaf of bread when your start is in its infancy, you'll just get discouraged when the loaf doesn't rise.
Sourdough Discard Recipes

- pancakes and waffles (to get my sourdough pancake and waffle recipe watch video 3 in my sourdough series)
- cakes and brownies
- cookies
- muffins
- tortillas
- pie crust
- crackers
- quick bread (specifically this AMAZING chocolate sourdough bread)
Now, if you have my book Handmade, you know we walked through making a sourdough starter and I've got quite a few recipes already in there for using your starter and your discard.
In my class, I walk you through doing sourdough pancakes and waffles with your discard. It's especially helpful to have these type of recipes when your starter is in its infancy because you can't use it to bake bread yet.
When is My Starter Strong Enough For Baking?

We're discussing sourdough starter, but how do we know when we can start baking up amazing loaves of bread? You'll want to catch my free class to know just when your starter is ready. But the short answer is at least 4 weeks of age and consistently doubling in size a few hours after being fed.
In my class, we even dive into how to make sourdough bread, which is really interesting because it’s a different technique than using regular yeast and making regular homemade bread.
Since it’s a living thing and it reacts differently to the different temperatures, humidity levels, etc., you have to learn how to nurture your starter until it’s ready to bake bread with. But once you know what it's supposed to look like and how you can manipulate that, it really is easy to make amazing bread!
I make sandwich bread with 100% sourdough starter (no active dry yeast in these loaves!). Lovely sliceable, barely-any-crumb sandwich bread that's not full of holes (because for sandwich bread, we don't want to have those huge holes because then all your stuff comes smushing out everywhere!)
And then you can take that same sourdough starter and turn it into the more artisan-style loaves too. You can do big round loaves and French bread rolls…
How to Revive a Sourdough Starter
The sourdough starter that I have right now is over seven years old. Normally the age of your food isn't something we brag about, but with sourdough starter, that's OK!
A couple of years ago I left my starter in the fridge for close to six months because I just needed a break. It was in the back of the fridge and we were super busy. I wasn't baking, it was in the summertime and then fall came and I was working on my new book.
Finally, in the fall I decided “I've got some time and I want to bake some bread, so I pulled out my sourdough starter from way in the back of the fridge (you know, where things go to die) and it had a very, very dark layer on it, which is the alcohol that occurs when the culture is running out of food.
And then it had this grayish-black sludge layer. I truly thought it was dead and I might have cried a little. I was so mad at myself that I had this thing for almost seven years that I just neglected and ruined.
Well, I decided to do a science experiment. I decided to take off everything from the top, get a brand new clean vessel, and see if I could revive it. Lo and behold, with just a week of regular feeding, that thing was back and was as strong as ever, if not better!
So the moral of the story is that sourdough starters are very, very resilient. But if you have neglected your sourdough starter like I just shared, you are going to be using the discard method of feeding, which I discuss in-depth in my sourdough class.
There are so many things that you can use the discard for that taste amazing.
It's so exciting and I warn you it is addicting but in a very, very good way. And as always, my goal is to share what has worked for me and what hasn’t, because I want you to have success so that you love it as much as I do.
So if you want to learn everything you need to know on how to get started with sourdough, including making your own sourdough starter that you may very well have for years to come, then make sure you sign up for my free four-part sourdough video series!

>> Sign up to join my sourdough class for free! <<
How to Make a Sourdough Starter
Now that I've filled you in on all the basics, here's how to start your very own sourdough starter.
Ingredients
¼ cup flour (30 grams)
2 Tablespoons warm water (30 grams)
Directions
Mix together 1/4 cup flour and 2 Tablespoons water (or 30 grams of each for 100% hydration).
It's ideal to use warm water, around 65 to 70° F. If your house is on the cool side, you can increase the water temperature to 80 to 85° F.
Every 12 hours (or so), discard half your starter and feed it again.
Feeding Your Sourdough Starter
At each feeding, you’ll use ¼ cup (30 grams) of flour and 2 Tablespoons (30 grams) of water. Your goal is a thick, pancake-like batter consistency.
Try to keep your feedings 12 hours apart, but don’t stress or set a timer. Twice a day is ideal to keep your new lactobacilli bacteria fed where they can multiply to establish your colony.
Why You MUST Discard Half Your Starter
Don’t skip the discard, this is important during this stage and means you’ll use less flour throughout the first week. The lactobacilli aren’t established and can’t sustain the full amount of flour and water if you don’t discard them.
If you'd like, you can use the discard in regular recipes that call for flour and water, but it's not truly a sourdough discard yet (not to mention, it's only a small amount).
Other options are you can add it to your compost pile, feed it to your livestock, or place in the trash. DON’T put it down your sink unless you want to call a plumber.
Where to Store Sourdough Starter
The best temperatures for your starter is 70 to 85° Fahrenheit. Our house cools down between 60 to 65° F overnight as the woodstove cools and then is back in the low to mid 70’s during the day and evening and my starter does just fine.
If you’re seeing good bubble action, don’t worry if your temperatures dip. If your house is colder, you can place your starter near a heat source (not on it, we don’t want to cook it) or in the oven with the light on and the oven door cracked (just don't forget it's in there when you need to preheat your oven!).
Signs your starter is active:
- Bubbles on the sides of the jar
- Bubbles on the top of the jar
- Domed on top a few hours after feeding
- Starter doubling in size a few hours after feeding
- Liquid on the top as you come due for the next feeding
Example Sourdough Starter Feeding Schedule

Day 1
Am feeding= add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Pm feeding= add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
You may start to see a bubble or two!
Day 2
Am feeding= Discard ½ the amount of your starter (this is very important to establish your starter with a healthy colony). Add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Pm feeding= add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Day 3
Am feeding= Discard ½ the amount of your starter. Add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Pm feeding= add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
You should be seeing quite a bit of bubble action now! Some starter will even double at this point BUT it’s not ready for bread. If your starter is extremely bubbly right now, don’t be alarmed if at day 5 or beyond it suddenly stops being so bubbly, this is normal for a young starter.
Day 4
Am feeding= Discard ½ the amount of your starter. Add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Pm feeding= add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Day 5
Am feeding= Discard ½ the amount of your starter. Add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Pm feeding= add equal flour and water and stir until well combined, scrape down side of jar and bottom.
Notes: even if you don’t see signs on day’s 1 and 2, continue with the feeding routine and have patience. Your starter will likely smell yeasty, sour, tangy and or even like alcohol in the beginning stages.
You now have an active but young starter and can begin using it in non-rising sourdough recipes like pancakes, waffles, muffins, quick breads, crackers, and cakes.
Day 6 through 28
At this point, you can continue along with the twice-daily feeding amounts OR use the alternate once a day feeding.
Alternate once a day feeding is ½ cup flour (60 grams) and ¼ cup water (60 grams). This can be used once your starter is bubbly and active. If you feel its sluggish, stay at the twice a day feedings and amounts.
Once your starter is 4 weeks old, it will likely show consistent signs of doubling a few hours after feeding and be ready to try in bread recipes.

Sourdough Starter
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup flour all-purpose, whole wheat, fresh ground, etc.
- 2 tbsp water warm
Instructions
- Mix together flour and water in a pint mason jar, cover jar with cheese cloth or coffee filter and set in a warm area of your house for 12 hours.
- After 12 hours, feed your starter the same amounts again, cover and let sit 12 hours.
- On the second day, discard half the starter, then feed with 1/4 cup flour and 2 tbsp warm water. Cover jar and let sit another 12 hours.
- After 12 hours, feed your starter the same amounts again, cover and let sit 12 hours.
- Repeat these steps for 5 days, discarding half the starter once daily, but continuing with the twice daily feedings.
- By about the 6th day you should have pretty bubbly starter that is great for baking pancakes, waffles and other pastries, but might not be ready to bake a loaf of bread.
- On day 6 you can switch to feeding once per day (see instructions in the post), and keep using your starter in the sourdough starter recipes listed above.
- By week 4 your starter should be ready to bake bread (see notes in the post on how to know if your starter is ready to bake a loaf of bread).
Video
Notes
- Be sure to feed with the same kind of flour (or the same combination of flours) throughout the whole first month.
- On days 1-4 of your new starter, your discard won't be ready to use in sourdough recipes like pancakes, waffles, muffins, etc., but you can use it in the place of flour and water in recipes that call for it.
- By day 5, you will finally have a sourdough starter, although it won't be strong enough for bread baking, you can use it in recipes like waffles, pancakes, muffins, and chocolate sourdough bread.
- On day 6, you can switch to once a day feedings, or continue feeding twice daily.
Nutrition
Melissa K Norris: Hey pioneers. Welcome to episode number 288. Today's episode, we are going to be talking all things sourdough, specifically sourdough starter. Because most of the time when people have failures or issues or you're not quite happy with your sourdough bread, it all comes back to that sourdough starter and your starter isn't as robust as it should be. So this is the episode for you if you don't have a sourdough starter and you're wanting to start one, so that you can get one going the correct way from the very beginning. And if you have a sourdough starter but like I said, maybe it's not performing as well as you would like, or what you think it should be doing, then you are going to glean a ton from this episode. So in this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you the basics on how to create a sourdough starter.
Melissa K Norris: And like I said, even if you have a sourdough starter, you can still use these tips to get it into tip top shape. But I also am doing a very special, live class that you have time to sign up for. So you go to melissaknorris.com/starter for my nine tips for a better sourdough starter that you probably aren't doing, and that will pick up where this episode will leave off. Because I can only do so much in one episode. So I highly encourage you to go and get signed up for that class. I will be doing live Q and A at the end, we're going to have some fun giveaways, some a great downloads with recipes and schedules that you're going to want to get your hands on, and all of it's for free, by the way. I don't know if I mentioned that. So I want to make sure that you know about it and that you go and get your seat. So melissaknorris.com/starter to go and get your seat reserved for that very special class. Let me officially welcome you to the podcast though.
Melissa K Norris: Sourdough is something that I find a lot of people get intimidated by, or they're not really sure that they want to jump into it. So I'm going to share with you ... Excuse me, a little bit of a frog in my throat there. Sorry about that. So I'm going to share with you my sourdough starter story, and that is how I came up with the tips and the way that I do sourdough now, that I'm going to share with you. So I have always loved the flavor of sourdough. I have always liked whole wheat, and I've always liked that tangy flavor of sourdough. So more of those hardy types of breads. But growing up, my mom actually does not like sourdough and she does not like whole wheat. So all we ever had was white bread. After I got married, my husband also always has liked sourdough.
Melissa K Norris: And so I decided I was going to start baking our bread and I wanted to do a sourdough starter. So, and this is where many of you are probably going to relate, so I started my sourdough starter based on advice that said to use a packet of regular store-bought yeast, flour, and water, which is a very bad way to start a starter, and mine completely failed. It developed all kinds of mold, black and pink mold. Did not work at all. Now, the reason that I start from that point is because a sourdough starter should only have two ingredients for a real true sourdough starter, and that is flour and water. So a sourdough starter recipe, two ingredients, flour and water. Now, when it comes to the types of flour that you can use, you can use pretty much any type of flour that you want.
Melissa K Norris: I have done sourdough starters with all purpose flour. I've done it with bread flour. I have done them with fresh ground hard white wheat. I have done them with iron corn, ancient grain, and I've also done gluten-free sourdough starters as well. Because I have been teaching people online, how to make sourdough starter now for a number of years, in my book Hand Made, I have had to do a sourdough starter and I had a lot of people asking how to do starters with lots of different types of flours. So I started all of these different starters, kept them going as I was filming my full sourdough bread baking course, and developed recipes using each of those different types of starters. So when I say you can use almost any type of flour to make a starter, you absolutely can, but there are some best practices for picking your flour to make your sourdough starter.
Melissa K Norris: And I like to use organic, unbleached, all purpose flour if I am using store-bought flour. So you can use store-bought whole wheat flour. You can do any of those types of flours that you want, but ideally organic and unbleached is going to give you the best bang for your buck. Now, when it comes to gluten free flours, in my experience, the ones that work the best has been a rice flour, buckwheat works great, and also quinoa works really well. What I would stay away from when making a gluten-free starter as far as flours go would be things like coconut and almond flour. One, because these are nut flowers. They're not grains that have a lot of starches and carbs in them. And one of the important things that you need to understand about your sourdough starter is it is a living organism. So it is a combination of yeast and lactobacillus bacteria, which is good bacteria.
Melissa K Norris: I know often times we think bacteria and we think, oh no. But there's a lot of good bacteria out there and those organisms need food to eat. And so they consume the starches. So I would not recommend doing your sourdough starter with something like those nut flours. Like I said, something that has a starches in them, with the rice, the buckwheat, and the quinoa have in there, and they have sustained gluten-free sourdough starters very well. Now, the other ingredient is our water. I get a lot of questions asked about that. Now, if you are on city water that has a lot of chlorine in it, or is treated with a lot of chemicals, then you either have the option of letting that water set out for about a day or overnight to let those chemicals off gas or evaporate out. Or you can bring that water to a boil and let it cool back down to room temperature and you can use that.
Melissa K Norris: We are on our own private well, and I have had no problem using our well water. There's no need to go and buy distilled water or some type of special water for your sourdough starter. Unless like I said, it is very heavily treated with chemicals or you don't have a really good filter system to filter out some of those chemicals if you're on a city type of water. So that being said, it is just your flour and your water. Now, where does the yeast come from? Because that is essentially what we're doing is we are creating an environment with the flour and the water that is very friendly to the yeast and the good bacteria so that they have a breeding ground and that they can breed and grow. Which sounds kind of weird. We're talking about food. But you have the yeast and the lactobacillus bacteria. It's already on the surface of most grains.
Melissa K Norris: It can be in the surfaces of your home, your skin, et cetera. And so what we're doing is, like I said, we're actually creating an environment that it's going to be very happy in and it's going to proliferate and it's going to grow. We're not actually making yeast per se. It's already on the grains. Now, a lot of people prefer to do, like I said, the unbleached and organic and/or the whole wheat. You'll oftentimes hear people say they will start with rye flour for their sourdough starters because those tend to be grains, but the whole wheat flour, as well as rye, that there seems to be a lot of natural yeast on there, in a higher content than say, just regular all-purpose flour from the store. And so a lot of people feel that they get started easier by using those flours. However, like I said, I have made numerous starters and walked over a thousand people in my bread course, thousands of people that went through my sourdough starter series videos, and have been able to create their starters without purchasing any type of special flour.
Melissa K Norris: But just so you know why you will see that and why some people choose to use those flours more so than other ones. That's kind of the reasoning and the thought process behind there. But you can be very successful with any of those flowers that I've already outlined for you. Now, when you're first getting ready to start your starter on day one, I like to use a Mason jar or a glass bowl. I just find that a ... I like to use a wide mouth pint size Mason jar. It's works really well, and I just use the same Mason jar all the time. I very rarely ever clean out my Mason jar, sourdough starter vessel.
Melissa K Norris: Now, the amount of flour and water that you're going to use to start your starter, you will see, again, varying amounts all over. And if you have my book Hand Made, then you'll see that in that one, I started out saying that I use six tablespoons of flour with four tablespoons of water. I've done sourdough starter videos, if you went through any of my sourdough starter videos online, and you'll see that I used four tablespoons of flour. There is a difference in the amount of flour and my friends, that's because you can use as much or as little flour, really, as you want. Now, I would not go beneath the four tablespoons of flour, but really, you just need to have enough flour and water to be able to feed the yeast and the bacteria and to keep it going and happy and healthy. And I prefer to use less flour because I don't want to just be feeding it a whole bunch of flour. I don't keep a large amount of sourdough starter on hand at any given time because there's really no need to do so.
Melissa K Norris: So I have seen where people have huge crocks of sourdough starter. And I got to tell you, I am just too frugal. I am not going to invest that much flour feeding just a sourdough starter. And you can quickly get as much amount of starter as you need, if you need a large amount of starter for a recipe, very easily without maintaining this huge amount of sourdough starter. So if you were doing a sourdough starter in the past, you've seen it and it's like, man, it's using a ton of flour, then I think you're really going to like the method that I use. So day one, you're going to have a glass vessel and your flour and your water.
Melissa K Norris: So I use a quarter cup, which is four tablespoons of flour, to two tablespoons of water. Now, if you have a scale ... Now, I know in days gone by when they were making sourdough starter out on the prairie and all the different ... You know, sourdough starter has been around for a very, very long time as a way of leavening our bread before we had commercial yeast, which wasn't the active, dry yeast that we have in packets that you and I are used to seeing now on the store shelves, or on the store shelves prior to the pandemic. There's been times where it's been out and unable to get, but that yeast was really, became big during the 1940s when they needed yeast to be able to bake bread and to do things like that. Prior to that, you had yeast cakes, which I have never used, but I've seen in older cookbooks. And then before that we had sourdough.
Melissa K Norris: So you're going to just take your quarter cup of flour, and you're going to take your two tablespoons of water. Now, like I said, that is considered 100% hydration, which means if you have a scale, which a lot of people will use scales now to do sourdough because it makes it really easy to get the exact amount that you need if you're doing 100% hydration. 100% hydration simply means that it's 50% water and 50% flour by weight, not volume. And that 50% plus 50% equals 100% hydration. So that's all that means if you've heard that terminology before.
Melissa K Norris: Now, I've been doing sourdough so long now that I can tell. I don't even measure. I just take the flour out, put it in, add the water, and I can tell by the thickness if it's at 100% hydration, because I've been doing it for over a decade. But when you're first starting out, you don't have that experience. So if you have a scale, it's 30 grams of flour and 30 grams of water. If you don't have a food scale, quarter cup flour, two tablespoons water. So put that in your jar, and you're going to stir that and combine it until the flour is incorporated with all the water so we don't have any little dry bits of flour. Then I use just the white plastic screw down lids, and I just screw it a couple of threads because I don't want to get any ... You don't want it to be airtight so don't use a regular canning lid.
Melissa K Norris: You don't want it to be airtight and I'm fine using the plastic, reusable lids, but I don't really want to use plastic wrap. And so I just love those white, screw down lids. You can't can with them, but they're for the fridge or the freezer. And I just keep a whole bunch of those because I use my Mason jars for pretty much everything, leftovers and including my sourdough starter. Now, if you have though, glass jars are called like a Fido jar, and those are the glass jars that have like the wire and it's a glass lid and they have the rubber gasket and they're like the little wire Bell lid that you can then close them. I have used those for my sourdough starter in the past as well, and just tooken off the rubber gasket, but still closed it.
Melissa K Norris: And without the rubber gaskets, it is not airtight either, but you want to make sure, however you're closing up your vessel, that it's not airtight. It needs to be able to breathe. It needs the oxygen for the yeast and the culture. So it's an aerobic culture, not an anaerobic. So we want to make sure that there's oxygen present. Now, the warmer the room, the happier, or I should say the faster, a sourdough starter will consume its food and be more active. And this is true of really, any ferment. And that's why in the summertime, if you're used to doing ferments or even yeast with regular active dry yeast or instant dry yeast, whatever that yeast is, you know that the warmer the room, the faster the bread rises. Well, it's kind of the same thing with our ferments. And so ideally, between 70 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit is considered a really great temperature.
Melissa K Norris: But my home is usually pretty much even in the summer months. So we'll get a little bit hotter in the thing of summer, but I live in the North and the Pacific Northwest. Usually in the morning when I get up, my house is about 60 to 62 degrees Fahrenheit. And then we build a fire, and by the evening, afternoon, it's usually between 70 to 74 degrees Fahrenheit. So my home fluctuates between that temperature range and my sourdough starter does just fine. But in the beginning, when you're really trying to create that optimal environment for the yeast and the lactobacillus bacteria, then if you have a oven that you can turn just the light on in.
Melissa K Norris: Make sure you put a note so nobody preheats the oven with your starter in there. That can create a proofing box and it's in sort of really nice, warm environment. Or if you happen to have a microwave over top of your stove, which is how our house is, I can turn just the light on that lights ... It's the light over the stove. But because my microwave is in that same unit, it also makes the microwave really warm too. Obviously without turning it on. And so I can put my starter in there as well.
Melissa K Norris: So if you can find a warm spot like that, it's ideal, but if you don't have a warm spot, as long as your home is above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you should be okay, but you can try and find a warm spot. Usually the fridge. Heat rises, right? So on top of the fridge, maybe next to a heat vent or a stove, whatever your heat source is. Obviously not on it, but next to it can also be some great spots. Now, with that sourdough starter, so we've mixed in that quarter cup of flour and the liquid.
Melissa K Norris: Then I like to start mine in the morning, but you can do it at night, but 12 hours later, you're going to add in another quarter cup of the flour and another couple of tablespoons of water, and you're going to stir it again. So that's day one. So I like to do, when I'm getting my sourdough starter established or trying to get it robust, maybe it's really not rising and doubling as much as I would like, or I feel like my bread is a little bit dense, it's not rising my bread, then to get that yeast and the bacteria in it's tip top, most robust shape, I have found that twice a day feedings work so much better. This also helps it from becoming too sour.
Melissa K Norris: So to walk you through the first five to seven days, and that's usually how long it takes to get a sourdough starter really going. But we got to talk about that because oftentimes people give up on sourdough starters. I get a lot of emails asking questions about my sourdough starter is only five days old or it's seven days old, and it's not doing this or that. Most people are giving up much too soon on their sourdough starter. So day one, which is the day you start your starter, all the way through day five, you're going to feed it twice a day. And then every other feeding, which if you're feeding it twice a day equals out to once a day. So if you start it in the morning, you feed it at night. Then on the second day, which is the next morning, you're going to remove half of the flour and water that's in your sourdough starter jar.
Melissa K Norris: Now, use that flour and water in another recipe, or put it in another jar and pop it in the fridge. It's called discarding. The reason we're discarding down is, you have to have more food that you're feeding into it than you do volume of starter. Otherwise, your yeast and bacteria are not going to get enough food to keep going. And that's oftentimes when people will see the development of hooch, if you're getting a lot of liquid on top of your sourdough starter, or it's turning gray, or it's just not bubbling and rising, it's oftentimes because they have a very wrong ratio of too much starter to too little amount of food. So you're just going to discard down. Like I said, you can stave that discard, or if you're making anything that has flour in it, it's such a small amount, right? You're discarding that down to just a remainder half of it, which is about a quarter cup. Go ahead and use that in another recipe. It's totally fine.
Melissa K Norris: It's not really considered sourdough yet because you're at the beginning stages. And so it's totally fine just to use in any type of recipe. Now, about day two or three, you will start to see some bubbles forming. So you may only see a bubble or two on the very top. Maybe you'll see a few bubbles on the bottom if you're looking through your glass jar. Those are all signs of activity that the yeast and the lactobacilli, the good bacteria, are there and they're beginning to proliferate. Those are all signs. So this is a really good thing. Now, in the infant stages of a starter, which is really those days by through seven, sometimes you'll see, like on day two or three, a huge amount of bubbles and the sourdough starter will actually start rising and falling.
Melissa K Norris: And these are all really good signs. But what happens is usually a few days later, this will all stop. With an immature starter, this is very normal, but a lot of people think that it means that their sourdough starter has died. And that is totally not the case. It's just to be expected with a very immature starter. So you're going to keep going through these steps of feeding it the same amount of flour and water twice a day, discarding to half once a day for the first five days. Now, at the five day mark, you should see bubbles and this is now considered a sourdough starter. It's too weak in most cases though, to bake bread, but it is perfect to use in things like pancakes and waffles, anything that doesn't require it to rise, like rolls or actual bread, like sandwich bread or an artisan loaves, et cetera. Cinnamon rolls.
Melissa K Norris: Anything that doesn't require rising, you can use this in. So sourdough muffins, all the different things, and you're going to keep feeding it to get it robust enough to bake bread. I have found most starters aren't strong enough to bake bread and to get a really good rise until about four to six weeks. So you're going to keep feeding it. If at seven days, it is really strong, it's very predictable in the amount of bubbles that you're seeing in the activity, some people like to go down to a once a day feeding and that's completely fine. You can keep it at a once a day feeding. Totally not a problem. Once a sourdough starter is established, and I don't consider a sourdough starter to be mature until that four to six week mark, when it is actually doubling predictably in size when you feed it.
Melissa K Norris: So that means you will feed it and, within about three to four hours, it has completely doubled in size. When it's doing that on a very predictable basis, so kind of day in and day out, then I consider it a mature starter and I will start using it to bake bread. And once it's reached that point, then you can put it in the fridge and not feed it every day and only bring it out when you are wanting to use it. And so this is how I maintain just a half. Usually about a half a cup of starter is all I ever have on hand at one time. So I'm not feeding it a whole lot. And then I just bring it out of the fridge when I'm ready to do some baking, or I want to make a recipe and I'm not having huge amounts of flour.
Melissa K Norris: And it's not really even a daily maintenance unless I'm choosing to cook with it every day, and then I just need to feed it every day because I'm using it. So the sourdough starter is really easy. And like I said, you can choose to do a once a day feeding, but I have found if I want to keep it really robust and I want to make sure that it has a less sour taste ... So I love the sour flavor of a sourdough bread, but my kids do not. So if I'm baking loaves for them like sandwich loaves or things like that, then if I do the twice a day feeding, I have found that it helps to keep the acidity level and the sourness down. So it's more like a yeasted bread without that really tang, tart taste to it. Now, if you're like, well, I really like it to taste sour, then keeping it at a cooler temperature and feeding it less often will produce more of that sour flavor.
Melissa K Norris: So you can just do once a day or even every other day and keep it at a cooler spot in the home. And that will produce a more sour flavor. Now, I have a lot more tips to share with you. If you want to go and actually check out the sourdough starter posts, because all the podcast episodes have a blog post. So if you want to look at that so that you can see the amounts and the daily feeding schedule all written out for you. I know sometimes when we're listening to something like this, it can be a little bit harder. You can get that at melissaknorris.com/288. Just the number 288, because this is episode number 288. And again, you can also sign up for, depending on the time that you're listening to this, the live sourdough class that I'm going to be teaching. We'll go into a lot more depth and we'll have a live Q and A session at the end, and you can get some of those written recipes for my sourdough pancakes and sourdough waffles, and really fun things like that.
Melissa K Norris: So highly encourage you to sign up for that. But sourdough is a great thing for you to get into, one, because you don't have to buy yeast from the store. Secondly, a fully cultured or fermented sourdough product, because we have that yeast and the lactobacillus bacteria that is consuming the starch, truly fermented, which usually means that it sets in cultures for at least eight hours, sourdough bread or sourdough baked goods, they have a lower glycemic index, meaning that they don't spike our blood sugar and cause such a large release of insulin when we eat them, because they are lower in starches because the yeast and the bacteria has been consuming them. They're also easier for us to digest. They're better on the digestive system. And a lot of times, people who may have issues with wheat products or regular bread have found that if they eat a fully cultured sourdough in a true sourdough starter, which we're talking about here, that they can consume those and it doesn't bother them.
Melissa K Norris: But as I shared, you can also do it gluten-free and I have to say of all the gluten-free baking that I have done the gluten-free sourdough bread was what piece did the absolute closest and mimicked, taste-wise and texture, bread made with wheat, but was a gluten-free variation that I personally have ever had. So I was very, very happy with that.
Melissa K Norris: So I hope that you guys enjoyed this episode and I hope that I get to see you in the live class. We're going to have a lot of fun. So until then, blessings and Mason jars.
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the 4th part of the sourdough video is locked I can not watch
I use instant potato flakes in my starter instead of yeast.
You shouldn’t use yeast in true cultured sourdough
Melissa, Am I right by saying that on the sixth day of your starter you do not discard half and add you just keep adding the food of flour and water, correct? Thank you, Mark
Yes, video 4 releases Monday morning
I can’t seem to get any sound from the videos. Do you have a suggestion?
There’s a little button on the top right of the video that says click for sound if you’re not hearing anything
Thank you Melissa! Great podcast. I love sour dough, though I did more bread making when I first started making my sourdough starter. I am needing to revamp mine up so I will increase it to twice a day as you suggested. I want the best bread I don’t want to have hard bread which is what I normally do about half the time. I am not an experienced breadmaker but really do want to be, so I will have to work at it obviously :-). See you on Wednesday!! 👩🍳
Thanks for making this easy. Do I continue to feed my starter after 28 days?
Yes, you can feed it less often by using the fridge but it will require food or the yeast/bacteria will die.
I am on day 5 on my sourdough starter. I am confused as to what to do after the 5th day. I want to make bread. What is to process to keeping it going? Do you feed it before you make bread? Do you store it in the refrigerator? I need your help.
Thanks, Sheila
I’ll be opening up my free sourdough series video training again soon (here’s the link to get on the wait list) https://melissaknorris.com/sourdough/ but you need to continue feeding it until it’s about 2 to 3 weeks old. You can begin to use the discard in recipes for things that don’t require doubling yet, pancakes, waffles, etc. It won’t be ready for bread until about 21 days or when it’s doubling in size when you feed it after a few hours. Don’t put a young starter in the fridge, it’s not strong enough to be that cold when it’s young.
I signed up for the homemade sourdough series & can not find part 3 (& whichever other)episodes.I was wondering if there is a written transcript for directions to follow when I make the starter.Please let me know.Thank you.
When you sign up you have a week to go through the videos and each one has a written download guide. Otherwise I have my sourdough starter and recipes in my book Hand Made or the full bread baking course. http://handmadethebook.com/ or the bread course https://melissaknorris.lpages.co/homemadebread/
I have never had sourdough before and yet for a while now I have been wanting to get into it. This is really helpful for those who are just getting started. Can’t wait to get my sourdough starter going and to make all kinds of wonderful things with it.
I went through your Sourdough Web Series, started my new sourdough starter. First day it looked great, but day 2-4 every time I went to feed it, the water had separated to the top & was really thick on the bottom. I ended up dumping it, want to try again, but wondered if you knew what I was doing wrong? Thank you~!
I wouldn’t have dumped it, just discard down to a few Tablespoons and feed it on the thicker side.
Love your website! It has been an inspiration and an amazing source of information. We have made sourdough bread for years (with starter that we estimate originated over 100 years ago). We’re ready to try a more gluten free bread. I have purchased the Mockmill100 along with Einkorn and Spelt berries and am ready to get started. Can we make bread with Einkorn flour and Spelt flour? Do you have a book or resource that will help us through the process?
Thank you!
What an awesome starter to have! Einkorn and spelt both have gluten, though it is a form of gluten many who are only gluten sensitive can handle. My home baking course does cover Einkorn and Spelt along with a fresh ground baking series here https://melissaknorris.lpages.co/homemadebread
3rd times a charm! I’ve had to sign up for the free sourdough starter videos 3 times now because I never get the chance to watch videos 3 or 4 before my time is up on the access. Wish me luck this time around!
Lol so true Jennie!! 👩🍳👍
My starter is at 5 days old and I watched the online webinar yesterday – you touched on getting the amount you need to use in recipes but I couldn’t quite follow it! To get my starter from the half cup mark to the 2 cup mark, did I just need to feed the starter that extra amount or the discard, or both?! So far your recipe above has been easy to follow and working great – its just this bit between creating the starter and making enough for the recipes that I’m a bit lost on!
I feed my 1/2 cup of starter enough to equal 2 and 1/4 cups so I can use the 2 cups for the recipe and have 1/4 cup of starter left as my main starter.
Thanks so much
So how much flour and water would that be? If you have a 1/2 cup of starter but wanted 2 1/4 cups, would that be 2 1/4 cups of flour and then water that equals in weight of that flour?
Melissa, in the email course for sourdough starting it says to equal parts flour and water, but this post says to use more flour then water.
Which method is correct? Thanks!
It’s equal parts flour and water by weight, to achieve that without a scale, you use more flour than water. So both are the same. 🙂
I’m confused by this as well. Watching your video, you used 1/4 cup of flour and then 4 tablespoons of water. But equal amounts by weight is 1/4 cup flour and 2 Tablespoons of water… and over time; following the video-wouldn’t I have too much water if I continue 1/4 flour and 4 T of water?
I have kept to 2T of water and so far all is well-but it’s only day 4. Just looking for clarity.
I should clarify: The video attached to this post says 2T of water, however your 4 part video series said and demonstrated 4 T of water. That’s where my confusion came from. I am well into week 2 and my starter is very active w/ 1/4 c flour and 2T water. I have used my discard to make banana bread, and I created a second jar of starter for a friend with it also. Thank you!
I’m excited to try this I’m just wondering if when it’s time to switch to once a day feedings do you still continue to discard 1/2?
My sour dough starter was getting so much hooch so i’ve been doing the discard down to 2 tablespoons for a few days method. My starter now has almost a glue smell and is quite runny? Will it smarten back up? 🙂
Use more flour to get it thicker. It can take a few weeks but it will leave the glue/finger nail polish remover smell once it’s more established.
My starter has a too thin layer that dried out. Is it unusable now?
No, just scrape off the dried out part and feed it again.
Wow! Terrific podcast! This podcast helps me so much. Thank you. I needed to know what made the taste more sour and less sour. Plus you gave me the confidence to start mine on my own, and to know how to store it in the fridge and continue using it. LOVE IT! THANKS!
Hi Melissa,
Given me courage to try😊! Question question though- how to I tend to the starter after week four if I only use it maybe once weekly or bi-weekly?
Thanks,
Irene
I have a question and I could have just overlooked it in the post. From day six and on do I need to continue to discard half of the starter or just continue to feed without discarding?
Continue to discard.
Hi Melissa! In the last few days, I’ve discovered your youtube video on sourdough starter, and your blog here…VERY INTERESTING! I can’t wait to read and make more of your recipes, read your blog, and learn more from you. But for now, I have an important question. I’ve been baking with sourdough successfully for the last 9 months. In the past few weeks only, my all-rye starter has had a thin whitish layer on top. I am keeping it in a dough proofer at 70degrees, and feeding it once a day. It’s fermenting well and I have been stirring in the whitish layer until today. I decided to scoop off that layer, discard it, and see what happens in the next days. Do you know why it’s there and if I should discard it? Any help would be appreciated.
As long as it’s not fuzzy black/white mold it should be fine. I’m suspicious it might be Kahm yeast (which isn’t harmful) but hard to know without a photo. If the starter tastes well, smells well, performs well then I wouldn’t worry about it.
This was the easiest starter I have ever made! I loved that it wasn’t a huge amount and I saved the discard all week to use in baking on the weekend (I work full time). I added the discard to my regular yeast bread recipes- which improved the flavor in my opinion–and no waste!. I also tried the sourdough brownie recipe–Oh. My. Goodness. Amazing! Today I baked an artisan loaf using the master sourdough recipe. It looks fantastic. One question- do you have any suggestions for increasing the “sour” in the recipe for the “All-purpose Artisan Loaf”? I made it and it came out beautiful but lacked any “sour”. Thanks so much! BEST SOURDOUGH STARTED EVER!!!!
So happy to hear of your success! To make it sourer you’ll need to increase the ferment time, in order to avoid an over-proof, which means a colder environment for a longer time.
Melissa! You are amazing! I followed everything you said and it’s worked perfectly! I’ve had fun making different things with the starter discard (pancakes, waffles, biscuits) and now I’ve successfully made two amazing loaves of bread in the last two days. The bread is so good I cannot even believe it and I regularly bake homemade bread. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’d messed up a previous sourdough and was hesitant to try again just to waste so much. Thank you so much.
I’m going to need to pop my starter in the fridge while gone over a long weekend. I’ve just been keeping it on the counter with a partially unscrewed plastic mason jar lid, will this lid type work for in the fridge storage? Or do I need something more airtight?
Nope, that’s fine for the fridge.
Hello Melissa!
I started my sourdough starter 5 days ago. I’m seeing a few bubbles on the side, but it seems to be struggling to double in size. I’m using milled hard white wheat berries, but I’m storing the flour in the freezer. Should I let the flour come to room temperature before I add it to the starter, and should I store the starter somewhere warmer than the counter? It’s only 70 in our house. Thanks in advance!
Your starter won’t double in size at 5 days old, it’s too young. It should be predictable doubling in size at 4 weeks (28 days). The flour at room temperature is fine, it doesn’t need to be any warmer than room temp.
Hi Melissa, just want to know if it is needed to discard half of the sourdough starter after day 6. thanks in advance.
Yes, because if you don’t you need to feed double the amount of flour.
Hi Mellissa
I think I snagged your recipe for Frozen Sourdough for Pizza dough!! I can’t find seem to find it! Could you please send it to me or send me the link !
Thank You
Lynnette
I didn’t realize how long a no yeast starter takes and when I go on my extended trip I want to take my starter with me. It will be three weeks old when I start my trip. It’s in a mason jar and I’m thinking about putting cloth over the top and securing it without the sealing lid. Or could I put the sealing lid on as I’ll be at my destination in about five hours.
I need a reply from my May 2. Post on traveling with your sourdough starter.
It would be best if you use a lid that’s not air-tight. One of the plastic screw down lids are fine (it won’t spill) but still allows for air flow
In your Bonus Sourdough Recipe e-book the amount of flour is missing for the brownies, how much is needed?
How much flour is used in the brownies in which the which the starter or discard is used, it is not listed in the Bonus Sourdough Recipe e-book
I am half way through making them and realized it was missing
You don’t add any additional flour
In the Bonus Sourdough Recipe e-book the amount of flour is missing for the brownies, how much is used?
You don’t add any additional flour, it’s a sourdough discard recipe
My starter is day 3 and grow double size now. I’m so happy. I use whole wheat flour and leave it in the garage.
Thank you for the article and video Melissa! You make things seem so do-able! I have one question though- how to I tend to the starter after week four if I only use it maybe once weekly or bi-weekly? Do I still need to halve and feed it every day, or is stable at some point?
I misunderstood the directions and have been discarding every feeding. Will my starter be okay if I switch to discarding every other feeding? I’m heading onto day 3 and my starter is already super active and I don’t want to kill it.
Hi! Could I double the starter recipe and just use a bigger jar? Thanks!
You can, you’ll just go through a lot more flour.
1. So day 6 thru 30 I’m still feed n discard everyday?
2. I could use a discard from days 6-30 to give to a friend for a starter, right?
Thanks so much for doing this video tutorial! We are on day 6, but there are several spots of hard crusty stuff that won’t come off the side of our container. Is it okay to switch containers?
Would oat flour work for a starter?
Yes it does work I will say it’s not as forgiving as regular flour in my opinion but I have used it in the past I prefer rice flour as a gluten free sourdough option
I have been working on this since mid december. It was doing well in the beginning for about a month, then it stopped rising every day and has no sour smell at all. It never did have a sour smell. Not sure what I did wrong.
Love your lessons
Hi Melissa,
My sourdough starter, after 1 week, still hadn’t started fermenting. I did a little research and read that it may have been because I was using my reverse osmosis water. I started over using my tap water, and after t days, it still isn’t fermenting. I’m using organic unbleached all purpose flour.
I just saw your question so apologies for a long delay.
I too was having this issue. Tap water is chlorinated. I started boiling my tap water for 15 minutes and the cooling and storing in a clean bottle with lid. This eliminated the chlorine and my starter took off great.
Also, don’t trust purified or store bought bottled waters as they may also have bacteria killing compounds.
So excited to begin my sourdough starter journey! Thank you for the great instructions. Since I don’t want to waste the discard, wondering whether the discard should be stored in the fridge or on the counter and since the discard isn’t being fed, will it develop hooch and if so should it be mixed back in or discarded. Thanks so much
After day 6 I start feeding daily, when can I use it to make sourdough bread? And how much of the starter will I need for bread?
My starter is 40 days old now, when can I put it in the fridge for once a week feedings? Also- it’s in an old pickle jar, do I need to put the lid on it on the fridge or keep the cheese cloth on it? Thanks!
Putting it in the fridge isn’t a specific day mark, but if it’s showing signs it’s strong enough to bake bread, doubling in size after feeding, active, etc. When in the fridge I put a regular lid on
After day 6, should the discard be done daily or just feeding?
I am on day 4 and am excited to see a lot of action in my jar!! I am confused on what to do after day 6. When do I put it in the fridge/freezer?
Also- if a recipe calls for more than 1/4 c of sourdough, how do I add more flour and water? Do I add a bit more gradually or just put it in the day of baking? Thank you!
I’m on my 29th day of my sourdough starter and found mold growing all around the edges and it stinks pretty bad. Is it ok? What happened and what do I do now?? Thanks 😬
I am at the stage where I feed my starter once a day. Do I still need to discard half? I am adding 60g of flour and 30g if water. Is this correct?
Hello. I am interested in making sourdough starter. I leave my milk kefir on my counter. Will this interfere with the sourdough starter?
Thanks
Yes, they need to be 6 feet apart to avoid crossing
I just want to be clear as I’ve ruined a starter from following another website. When do you put the starter in the fridge? I can’t seem to find that info stated.