How To Make A Sourdough Starter From Scratch •  Tasty

Hey guys , it's Katie and today is a brand new day and I thought it would be really fun if I made my own starter for sourdough bread from scratch .

Let's call my friend Marissa who makes bread for a living and she's gonna help us figure this out .

Let's do it .

Hey , hello .

How are you ?

I'm great .

First question .

What is a starter ?

So a starter is just a mixture of flour and water and it's what you're eventually going to use to love in your sourdough bread .

I use a mix of 100 g of warm water , 50 g , whole wheat flour and 50 g of bread , flour .

I'm gonna mix it up and cover it with a lid .

Then I put a rubber band around the outside to mark movement .

You're looking for consistent rise and fall of the starter .

Let's walk through like what that first week is like ?

We're gonna check in on the starter .

I'm gonna take a look at it and I'm gonna see if there are any signs of fermentation .

I'm looking for a sweet funky smell .

See if there are any air bubbles and if we're seeing those bubbles , we know , it's time to give it feeding .

If you still don't see those signs , you can wait another day .

The feeding is when we discard a lot of the starter from the container and we feed it fresh water and flour and that allows the colony of yeast to grow within the new flour and water .

Keep doing this process daily for about a week .

It's possible that it could take a little longer though , depending on your environment .

This is super helpful , Marisa .

I'm gonna get to it .

Get in it .

Awesome .

I'm excited and check in with me during the week .

If anything that I will check in with you , I , you know I'll need to .

Bye .

OK , after talking with Mersa , I'm gonna start my starter first .

I have a scale .

This is just gonna help you measure a lot of bread recipes are in as you can see grams or ounces .

A scale is awesome to have .

I've got a clear container that I'm gonna put it in .

Tear this .

So this goes to zero and then I have some wheat flour and I have some bread flour and some water .

Well , I'm gonna set this on my kitchen counter because it's pretty warm in my kitchen day one and done .

See you tomorrow .

It looks like it rose like up just a tiny bit .

Oh , you guys can see those bubbles that are going on there .

So definitely have some life .

It has a little bit of sweetness .

I definitely think like Marisa said , we should wait another day and check on it and we'll see you tomorrow .

Yeah , I just got out of the shower and I saw my starter and I'm pretty excited .

Take a look at it .

Oh , it's so alive .

It was pretty warm because I shot in my kitchen yesterday .

So I think that really helped look inside LA o who ?

All the bubbles .

So , since this is going strong , Marissa said we need to discard almost all of it .

We're gonna keep two tablespoons and I'm gonna give that 100 g of water and 100 g of flour .

And then with the disc card , you don't have to throw it away , you can cap it , put it in the fridge .

I'm gonna use it for pancakes tomorrow morning .

Bye day three .

Done .

Ok .

It's another morning and my starter has risen again .

Not quite as fluffy , but it looks like it came up .

You can see that line right there and it kind of shrunk back down and there is a lot more bubbles .

Oh , definitely more sour smelling today .

Still sweet , but it's got more sour in there .

So I'm gonna discard all of this except two tablespoons again .

I'm gonna add 100 g of warm water , 100 g of flour and I'm gonna make pancakes with this discard and my discard from yesterday .

Who , how do you get it ?

More round Chris is filming my husband .

Show yourself .

Hey .

Oh , yeah .

All right .

Good .

Yeah .

What are you ?

Good for you .

Those are really good .

There might be more of like , um , I had whole wheat pancakes and they're kind of more like that .

It's really good .

I think they're great .

How's it going ?

It's going , I'm checking in because it's day five and I'm just not getting like , a lot of movement on my starter and I don't know if it's because it's so cold in my house right now .

Yeah , I think like you could wait for a little bit more bubbles on the top .

Um , those signs that we've talked about and then feed it , it , it will start to level out .

It's still really new and young and like burning the process .

Ok , great .

All right .

Well , I'll just keep , I'll keep going .

I'll keep observing it .

Ok .

Good luck .

Yay .

All right , bye .

Ok .

So it's day 75 and six .

I just left this guy alone .

Marisa said if it's not really rising that much , let it sit and do its thing before you feed it .

But now today on the seventh day it has a lot more action going on .

So I'm gonna discard most of it , especially because I let it sit for two days and then I'm gonna feed it again .

100 g of water and 100 g of flour .

And then I think that we're gonna have starter that I can make bread with like tomorrow .

Hey , everyone .

I know I said I'd be checking in with Marissa tomorrow , but I just , I had to show her my starter today because it basically doubled in size just so , you know , like day five and day six .

Like not much was happening .

There wasn't many bubbles on top today .

I had all these funky bubbles when I opened it up and then I fed it .

I mean that to me , it sounds like you're being intuitive like we can save feet every day .

But those first few days , like if you wanna let it go a little longer to see a little more of those signs of funkiness before feeding sounds like you did the right thing because look at it now , right ?

As long as you don't see any like black mold , if it's like a sludgy brown , black layer that's called Hooch and you can like , pour that out .

But if it , it's fuzzy at all black mold blue , unfortunately , you might have to start over it , but it , this , this is looking great .

Let's just try the float test .

Get a cool cup of water and a spoon .

OK , on it .

I'll be right back for the float test .

You're gonna take a clean scoop of the starter and then you're gonna put it into the water and when I say clean scoop , it's just what you did .

We're , we're trying not to like stir it up because you want to see those bubbles .

Oh , it's so floating .

Marissa .

Oh my gosh .

Oh my gosh .

I wish I could be closer .

Oh , it's just kind of fun to do , but I don't wanna waste my starter .

What should we name this baby ?

The name Priscilla came into my house .

Oh , Priscila .

I love Priscilla .

This can definitely be Priscilla .

Do you think she'll be ready to like mix and make a loaf , like in a couple days ?

Yeah , I think we should give it a shot .

Let's say after you make that bread , you know , you're not gonna bake for a few weeks .

What I would do next is feed your starter and then put it in the refrigerator .

You can keep it there indefinitely , just feed it once a week , do a refresh .

So final question .

If people walking , wanna make bread , when should they feed their starter ?

If you wanna mix your bread in the morning , you could feed it right before going to bed about eight hours .

If you wanna make dough in the evening , you could feed in the morning about eight hours .

You just need to make sure it passes the float time .

Marissa , this was so helpful .

Thank you so much .

I'm so proud of myself and Priscilla .

I hope you guys tried this at home .

If I can do it , you definitely can do it .

And if you guys have any more baking questions , hit Marisa up at Baker Buoy on Instagram .

And check out our bread making video when that comes out and make a loaf with us .

Peace and love , peace and love .

Peace and los .

All right .

Uh I'll see you later .

Bye .

Oh yes .