The Chatty Homemaker

My Interest was Peaked

My interest was peaked about sourdough about 14 years ago when my husband took a part-time, supplemental job at a cute little hot dog shop, in the middle of our quaint little town. We were about to have our second child and the company Aaron had been working for suddenly folded. So, he did what any responsible young man would do and began his search for a job. In the meantime he took 3 small, part-time jobs in town. One of which was at a little hot dog shop that also served soup and paninis. I am not much of a hot dog lover but I do like a good panini, and they had some good ones.

Unfortunately this little shop also folded, about 9 days after our baby was born. At that point I had become pretty good at figuring out recipes and cooking mostly from scratch. I was very serious about my role in our home as a wife, mother, and homemaker. So, I set out to become the best panini maker there was in our town. Of course the first thing you need to make a great panini is great sourdough bread.

It Took a While

I knew nothing at all about sourdough at this time, so I began looking into it. Looking up some recipes on Pinterest I found out that it was not going to be as easy as just throwing a few simple ingredients together and baking some bread in a couple of hours. It was a long process and quite intimidating to me.

I was also very against ordering things on line, this was a fairly new concept and quite honestly it scared me. I was not going to buy a starter from someone and hope it was not poisoned. Not one post said anything about making your own starter. So, needless to say, for the next several years any time I wanted paninis I bought sourdough bread from the grocery store. Sometimes it was pretty good. Other times it wasn’t. I was searching for the best in flavor and quality. Feeding my family quality food with as little processing and added junk as possible has always been important to me. Finding a store bought option that fit into this standard was nearly impossible.

It took a while, about 11 years, but I finally put my fears aside and figured out how to cultivate my own starter from scratch.

Here it is all nice and bubbly, or active.

Tools to DIY your Sourdough Starter

To create your own active starter you will first need a nice sized glass container with a breathable lid. Here is a pic of the one I use.

Next you will need a good unbleached flour. You do not have to use the one I use and it does not have to be organic, but it absolutely must be UNBLEACHED. This is what I use. I buy this at Costco. When in a pinch I have used this one when I was unable to find the other one at Costco. The chemicals in bleached flours will prohibit the growth of environmental yeast and good bacteria in your starter.

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You will also need some filtered water and a wooden or silicone spoon. I just use whatever bottled water I happen to have on hand. It’s usually the Kirkland brand purified water, but any will do. The use of metal spoons could interfere in the fermentation process, so make sure you are using wood or silicone.

Making Your DIY Sourdough Starter

Now the fun part. Making your starter. This process will take between 3 and 5 days to complete.

There are several schools of thought about sourdough starters and how to cultivate and care for them. I am here to share my experience and what worked for me. I do not believe that it has to be complicated or daunting. Here’s how I created my DIY sourdough starter. First take your clean, dry, glass container and add to it 1 cup of unbleached flour of your choice. Add to it about 3/4 to 1 cup of filtered water. Using your wooden spoon stir it until all of the flour is hydrated. It should look like thick pancake batter.

Now, put the lid on it and forget about it for 24 hours. After twenty-four hours you will remove half of your start-up, and replace it with about 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water. Stir and replace lid. Walk away for about 8 hours and repeat the process. The next day repeat this process or removing and replacing twice more. There is no reason to keep your discarded starter. After this your starter should be getting pretty bubbly and active. If it isn’t just give it a couple more days of discarding and replacing flour and water. The temperature of your home will play a role in the time it takes to get a nice active, useable starter.

Once your starter is good and active you are ready to start using it and experimenting with it in all kinds of different recipes. I have several which I will be sharing soon. Until then you can find lots of inspiration on Pinterest or here. Lisa provided me a lot of inspiration to me early in my journey with sourdough.

Enjoy and happy sourdough creating!