Simple Sourdough

No-Bullsh#t Bread

Starter: No-BS

The No-BS Summary

When feeding your established Starter, use the ratio:
1 part starter : 1 part water : 1 part flour

But first, make it from scratch as follows:

Sourdough Starter

Sourdough Starter is goop. Sticky, bubbly, goop made of flour and water.

It's your yeast. It's natural, and you're about to grow your own.
Right then. Let's make some.

Top tip

You can use plain flour, or bread flour, for this but I use rye wholemeal flour because you get serious bubbles. Just don't use 00 grade pizza flour, definitely don't use self raising, and absolutley avoid bleached stuff.
We want au naturel - full of the bacteria we need.

Ingredients

Instructions

Get a clean jar. (Here's the set I use). Put in the flour and water. Mix it to a gloopy paste. Rest the lid on top of the jar (don't screw it on). Congratulations, you just started your starter. Leave it on the counter or a shelf or whatever, and let it brew for a day.
Go away. Come back tomorrow.

Repeat: just shove another 50g water and 50g flour on top and mix it in. Congratulations, you just fed your starter. Drop the lid on again (don't screw it on - like, ever).
Go away again. (You'll start to notice a theme here. It's 3 mins of work, then you need to p*ss off).

Repeat what you did yesterday.
And again.
And again.

By now, you probably have a lot of goop in your jar, and questions.

Am I meant to have this much? Yes, the jar is filling up, that is normal.

Am I doing it right? Yes, you are.

Dude, it stinks wtf. Yes, that is also normal.

You see, when you mix it all together (feed it) and leave it alone, the bacteria starts to do its thing. Bubbles will form. The top will rise!
...and then it'll start to deflate. Awww. No problem, it happens to everybody. Just feed it to fluff it up again.

By the 5th day it's probably bubbly and stinks of puke or alcohol or both, and there's tons of it.

So, today we do something different, and pay attention because this is your new routine, forever. Ready?

Feeding your starter

Is it tomorrow already? Awesome.
All being well, you now have about 150g of bubbly starter, a lot like the image at the top of the page.
If so, go and bake some Bread. Now, you will note that the bread recipe demands 100g of starter. This will leave you with 50g. An ideal starting point, amirite?

So, we feed it to replace what we used:

Congratulations! You've done it - you have a sourdough starter. Have a cookie!
(You'll have to go and find your own sourdough cookie recipe though).


More info: the BS, tips, and reassurance

So what have you just done? Well, you've taken some flour which naturally contains bacteria, and you've mixed it with water and you've left it to ferment and create yeast so that when you bake with it, your bread rises.
Why do we want our bread to rise? Well, if it doesn't, it's a pancake. I assume you're here because you want a loaf.

It takes a few days to get your starter going from scratch, but once it's bubbling, rising and deflating, you've pretty much done it.

When is it ready to use?

The water test: after day 5, when your starter is at peak bubbles and risen as high as it goes in the jar, just drop a teaspoonful of it into a glass of lukewarm water.
Did it float?
If it did, it's ready. If it didn't, it might need a few more days of feeding to get it going.

I still don't understand what feeding is

Yeah, I didn't either. Honestly, it's just a stupid name for topping up your starter mix, after you either use, or throw some out.
It's feeding because your mixture contains live bacteria and you are literally feeding them.
...well, you're feeding the ones left behind, because you've callously dicarded, or murdered-by-baking all the rest...

Why the hell don't we screw the lid on

Because the bubbles contain gas, and if you seal the jar the pressure will build, and if you really screw it up and have too much starter and gas it might explode. Only screw it on when you put it in fridge, and even then, not tight. You do not want an air seal.

On that note: the fridge?

Yeah so your starter will bubble and rise beautifully when it's warm, but maybe you don't want to bake every day, or even every week.
Well, just store it in the fridge - the fermentation slows to a crawl, and it can stay in there for weeks - months even! However. When it comes out, it won't really be usable, so you'll have to discard a bit, feed the rest, and give it a while to come back to life before you can bake with it. If you leave it for too long, it'll get a layer of dark, absolutely rancid smelling fluid forming over the top. This is called 'hooch' and it's basically moonshine. Don't drink it, ya filthy animal; just stir it in for tangy flavour or pour it off and down the sink.

Sometimes it rises fast after a feed and sometimes it's feeble. What did I do wrong?

Nothing. The bacteria in the starter likes warmth. In the summer I found mine was epic, but now the weather is getting cooler, it's not so fizzy. Sometimes I'll put mine in the utility room near the tumbledryer, if I want it to hurry up and bubble after a feed. Or on the counter over the dishwasher overnight. Gentle heat only - obviously don't microwave it or cook it. Direct sunlight has a pretty decent effect.

What's going on with the 50g/50g/50g amounts

So it might seem like a lot to discard, or it might seem like it's not enough to do anything. That amount is just what you need for the bread recipe on the Bread page.
It doesn't have to be 50g, in fact for pizza you'll make a whole bunch more - but just remember the golden rule: The ratio of starter:water:flour is 1:1:1

Holy hell, but that smell

But yes, the pungent smell is normal. Early on in the first days you might get a pukey smell too - also normal.
Eventually it's just pungent - you'll soon work out what passes for normal.

Even with the option to store in the fridge, this seems like a lot of work

It's not. And if you miss a day or two you won't kill anything but the starter will go dormant and stop doing things.

If you find it's gone mouldy, specifically if you have nasty pink or orange crap, you've screwed it, and it's poisonous.
Throw it away, wash the jar properly and start again.

I'll add some photos soon, so you know what we're dealing with.

Summarise what I'm doing from here onwards?