Sourdough Starter From Scratch

It’s easy to make your very own sourdough starter from scratch. With just two ingredients and a few minutes each day, you’ll have a thriving, bubbly, naturally-wild yeast to use in baked goodies like muffins, cookies, cakes, breads, and more!

I love my sourdough starter. I made it from scratch myself about seven years ago. It was during a time that I made all our bread from scratch at home. I bought yeast by the bulk. I was on a journey of a healthy lifestyle and homesteading. That’s when I came across the whole new world of the wild yeast sourdough starter.

The feeling I had when I pulled my first loaf of bread made completely from ingredients I had purchased along with wild-caught yeast I harnessed into a flour/water sponge I made myself on my kitchen counter? Well, let’s just say … I felt that I had FINALLY. ARRIVED. (insert booming male echoing voice)

Like I arrived at my own homesteading-the-prairie like the ‘ol Ingalls family. BOOM baby! Oh yeah.

Seriously though, I love that I made something that I’ll one day pass on to my girls. They’ve grown up around lots of sourdough goodness. As a result, they’ll definitely know how to use it when they have their own little houses on the prairie.

Why I love sourdough

You probably can’t figure out why on earth somebody would go through the trouble to craft their very own culture of bacteria – that we know as yeast – instead of just purchasing it in a little red and yellow packet from the local grocery store.

Did you know that just a few generations ago sourdough starters were a common kitchen commodity, passed down from generation to generation? Sadly, in our modern age we have lost that knowledge, craft, and art.

Health Benefits

Have you ever heard of phytic acid? It’s the naturally occurring preservative found on grains, nuts, and seeds. In other words, an antinutrient. In order for your body to digest it, the body draws from its own mineral resources to break down the phytic acid to properly digest the food. The cause and effect is the loss of mineral and nutrition absorption. Also, wasted money. Also, not healthy.

Enter sourdough! By soaking or souring these otherwise shelf-stable grains, the phytic acid is mostly, if not all, removed, allowing for the absorption of nutrients the way the body was intended. Traditional cultures somehow knew this, and thus this method was a normal way of life. However, today’s society hasn’t a clue about this process. And we wonder why this generation has developed so many allergies/diseases, gut-health issues, and intolerances? Things that make you go “hmmm”. (So sorry if that just instigated the never-ending musical phrase in your head)

Sourdough Starter From Scratch Video

Two Ingredients, Two Steps

Making your own sourdough starter from scratch couldn’t be easier! Harnessing your local bacteria into a simple bowl of flour and water – it doesn’t get any better than that. Oh wait, yes it does. That same bowl with little bubbles floating on top and all through the starter. Cue song: Tiny bubbles (tiny bubbles) Make me warm all over With a feeling that I’m gonna Love you till the end of time. Why, yes. Yes I did grow up in Hawaii. Uh-hem, OK – back to our regularly scheduled posting.

The Ingredients

• 1 cup of flour – wheat, white, einkorn, spelt, rye, kamut, etc. If you use rye or einkorn, start with half the water and add more as needed to achieve a thick pancake batter consistency.
• 1 cup of water – NOT chlorinated; room temperature

What you need

• a glass bowl or jar – DO NOT USE METAL. There’s a science that “ain’t nobody got time for” (*cheesy grin*). Basically a reaction occurs that deactivates the process. So don’t use it.
• wooden spoon or silicone spatula
• tea towel

The Steps

In a glass bowl or jar, mix the flour and water together until completely combined. Cover with a tea towel or cloth napkin. Every twelve hours, remove half the contents and “feed” your starter with half a cup flour and half a cup water. Mix well, scraping down the sides each time. The easiest way for me to remember to do this was to feed my starter when I was in the kitchen making breakfast and again in the evening while cooking dinner or before I went to bed.

That’s it! You do this twice a day for about a week, keeping your sourdough starter warm. If it’s winter and your kitchen isn’t warm at night, you can keep your starter in the oven with the light turned on, in a cupboard, or on top of the fridge. Keeping a towel wrapped around the jar helps, as well. You want to keep it somewhere around 70˚ F. Too cold, the yeast can’t grow., and too warm, you’ll have a starter that outgrows your container and is extra “happy”, which really isn’t a problem, just messy to clean up. Too hot, the yeast will die.

After about a week, depending on how warm/cold the surrounding environment, you can give a batch of bread a go.

Helpful Resources

When I first started on my health journey, this website GNOWFLGINS was super helpful. In fact, I would say most of the knowledge I have now came from Wardhee and her website. Thank you, Wardhee!

Her Sourdough eCourse and eBook are a wonderful resource and what I recommend getting started. I personally own it, and found it was definitely worth purchasing!

Sourdough Maintenance

I don’t know about you, but I don’t bake EVERY. DAY. Although, my family would love it if I did! When I know that I won’t be using my sourdough starter, I keep it in the fridge. By the way, because we are a large family, I keep a large amount of starter on hand. I store mine in a half-gallon glass, mason jar with a plastic lid.

When I’m ready to bake bread, I will pull out what I need, then feed my starter with the amount of what I took out. Then I place it back in the fridge until the next time I need it. I don’t worry about feeding it because most of the time it gets used (and subsequently fed) at the very least once a week, and it’s always kept in the fridge. Also, I have gone over a month before without touching it once and it was just fine.

My favorite way to use my sourdough starter

No-wait sourdough. That’s my kinda love language right there, baby. Check out my no-wait recipes:

Sourdough Skillet Pancake

Sourdough Wraps

Also check out another more of my faves:

RUSTIC EINKORN SOURDOUGH BREAD

RUSTIC SOURDOUGH SKILLET CORNBREAD

How will you use a sourdough starter from scratch?

What kinds of things would you make with a sourdough starter? Do you have one? Will you make your own? I’d love to hear all about it! If you make one from scratch, let me know in the comments below.

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