The Last SOURDOUGH STARTER RECIPE You Ever Need (updated 2022)

In this video , you learn how to make a super active sourdough starter .

After years of baking and interviewing many leading bread making experts .

I present to you all the knowledge that you need to master making and baking with the sourdough starter .

And these are the topics that we will be covering in this video for your convenience .

I added chapters to this video as well .

So you can skip ahead to the parts that interest you the most .

First , we'll be talking about the history of sodo starters .

Then I'll explain to you in detail what a so stutter is that gives you the basis and then I'll show you how you actually make a starter .

Many recipes .

Tell you wait seven days , but I'll show you exactly when your stutter is ready to be used to make things a little bit more .

Awesome .

I wanna show you my favorite trick next .

And then let's get our hands dirty .

We'll be making the first sourdough bread .

Then now that you made your first bread , let's talk about starter maintenance .

How do you prepare for the next bread afterwards ?

I'll be giving you a few more resources that you can continue to study on your Sardo Jour .

After watching all this , you will definitely be a sodo stutter master and to finish things off , I have a special surprise waiting for you .

At the end of this video , scientists have discovered very old sourdough bread .

The oldest one as far as I know is coming from Switzerland right now .

But the most popular story is the story of a lady making bread in Egypt .

She took her daughter to the Nile River and had to head home for urgent matters .

She returned a few days later just to find out that her bread has suddenly become very puffy , very light .

It also had a funky smell to it .

She would take that bread , she would bake that bread .

And afterwards , she was surprised because the taste of the bread had improved .

Also , the bread was much more fluffy than before .

So she kept doing the same thing and what she discovered was wild yeast and wild bacteria .

The first sourdough .

Now whether this story is true or not , I don't exactly know , but it sounds nice .

What is a stutter ?

A stutter is a unique composition of wild yeast and bacteria organisms .

They live everywhere on fruits , on your skin and on grains such as wheat , rye ammer , pretty much everywhere .

The yeast you buy in the supermarket today is an extract of some of the strongest strains of yeast .

However , in nature , the yeast very often lives in symbiosis with the lactic and acetic acid bacteria .

The yeast makes your dough fluffy , the bacteria makes it sour .

The sourness has a pickling effect and gives your Sardo the unique flavor .

The yeast and bacteria coexists in a careful balance and harmony .

What makes sourdough special is that every starter is unique .

You likely have cultivated different strains of wild yeast and bacteria than I do over time .

Your starter is going to become better at fermenting flour .

That's why making sourdough bread is a little more challenging than plain yeast based bread .

But don't worry , I got you covered and I will give you all the information you need to succeed at making delicious sourdough bread .

Making a sourdough stutter is so super simple .

All you need to have is around 1 kg of flour .

That should be a whole wheat , whole rye , whole spilled whole emer whole iron corn .

It actually also works with gluten free flowers , just something whole you want the outside of the grain to still be there .

The second tool I recommend you to have is a scale .

You could of course also eyeball everything , but especially if you're getting started .

A digital scale makes things so much easier .

It's gonna take a little bit of time probably around 2 to 3 minutes per day and it it takes a couple of days .

But it's really that simple .

Once you make your starter , you no longer have to buy yeast at the supermarket you can use your starter starter for everything and it stays good for years .

I'm going to be showing you a couple of flow charts in these videos because I'm an engineer and we love flow charts .

So let's get into it .

Are you ready ?

You're about to make the most amazing stutter .

And it's so simple on day one , you mix 50 g of flour , 50 g of water and you stir on day two , I get a new clean jar .

I take around 50 g of the mixture from day one .

And then I'm taking another 50 g of flour and another 50 g of water .

24 hours later , your starter might have increased a little bit in size already , but you still might have bad microorganisms inside the full process is just gonna take a little bit longer .

So repeat the same thing again , take 50 g of the previous day mix again with 50 g of water , 50 g of flour , stir everything together again , discard the rest .

Now , the starter could already in theory be ready after five days , but it might also take 10 days for every day until it is ready .

You will repeat exactly what you just learned .

Now , when is it actually ready ?

Most recipes tell you wait X days , but that doesn't work .

Let me show you exactly how you know that your sourdough stutter is ready .

It's very simple .

When is your starter ready ?

This is where many new bakers fail .

They use the sourdough starter too early or too late .

And let me show you exactly how , you know , when it's ready , the typical time frame is probably around five days to 10 days .

But , yeah , read the signs of your stutter .

That's the best thing that you can do around 12 hours after you fed your stutter .

You can check whether your stutter is ready .

Is it bubbly ?

Did it increase in size ?

If it didn't wait 12 hours and then proceed and feed it again just like you did before ?

Now , if it's bubbly , it still could be that you don't have achieved a good balance of yeast and bacteria smell a bottle of vinegar or a yogurt .

That's what your starter stutter should smell like .

If it's too strong , it might be that your balance is still a little bit off , then just proceed and feed your stutter again after 12 hours .

If it's mild and subtle and you can really smell that yogurt or vinegar , then you're ready .

You're about to make your first bread though .

Congratulations .

Now , my favorite trick , you just make your sourdough starter .

It's ready .

But if you have time , please bear with me for just a few more days .

Let's convert our sourdough starter into a stiff starter .

Now , especially if you're new to baking , using a stiff starter later is gonna be so much easier for all recipes that you previously used yeast .

You can now use the stiff starter .

It's definitely a game changer .

I in fact made a full video on the topic , but this is the too long , didn't watch if you don't want to use this stiff starter .

That's totally ok too .

Especially if you know what you're doing .

If you're a beginner dough , then this is gonna make things so much easier .

You'll be able to make bread with every flour that you have even low quality , low gluten flour .

Every flower is gonna work with a stiff stutter .

Definitely a game changer .

If you ask me a stiff sowder Sutter is amazing because it boosts the yeast activity .

Your final dough won't be as sour .

The more bacteria you have the faster they munch your gluten resulting in a sticky dough .

This is the worst enemy of every home baker called over fermentation .

This is the biggest mistake ever .

Everybody makes and by making a stiff stutter , you can bake with the cheapest flour that you find and you won't run into issues of over fermentation .

It's such a game changer .

That's why if you're new to starter baking , I definitely recommend you to make a stiff stutter .

I'll be sharing a couple of more resources on this topic in the description of the video .

Definitely a worthy read for you .

So to convert your stutter into a stiff starter , this takes around three days .

You will take 50 g of flour , 10 g of your stutter , 25 g of water .

Previously , you always had a ratio of 1 to 1 .

Now , you have 50 grams of flour and 25 g of water .

That's a 50% hydration .

24 hours later , you take 10 g of that previous day , mix with 25 g of water and another 50 g of flour .

The rest that you don't need .

You start in a large jar in your fridge .

This is what we call your discard .

Never throw this away .

This is precious gold .

Again , there are going to be more resources on this topic in a description of the video 24 hours later .

Repeat exactly the same thing .

Gerardo Starter's microorganisms are going to adapt in this different environment .

The yeast is going to thrive the bacteria is a little bit slower and that you're ready flip over your starter Sutter .

You should be seeing a couple of pockets of air .

Also , please note how the smell of your starter has just changed just by changing the amount of water that you're using .

Isn't that mind blowing ?

You're gonna make an amazing first bread .

Are you excited ?

Because now that your starter is ready ?

Let's make our first bread .

The ingredients of your bread are super simple flour , water and salt .

That's about it .

So for a typical bread , that's around 400 grams of flour .

240 g of water , 8 g of salt and 40 to 80 g of sourdough starter .

So you just made your first dough and to make an actual bread out of it , I'm gonna be sharing my favorite recipe in the description of the video .

And up here you are going to loaf your bread no matter what you're making , making something with sourdough is gonna improve the taste dramatically .

You'll make everyone around you super happy .

So the quantity of sourdough starter that you should use depends on your ambient temperature .

This is a really good rule of thumb .

It's warmer than 22 degrees Celsius or 70 F in your kitchen .

If yes , you're going to be using around 10% stutter based on the weight of your flour .

If it's colder , that's for me in wintertime , that's around 20% based on the flour .

Then this is the recipe for your first loaf of bread .

400 g of flour , 240 g of water , either 40 g of stutter or 80 g of stutter .

And then 8 g of salt .

If it's way hotter where you live , consider you're just using 5% of stutter .

Your stutter is going to regrow instead of your main dough because your bread dough is pretty much a gigantic sourdough stutter if all went .

Well , you just made your first bread .

Now , the question is , what do we need to do for maintenance ?

How do we prepare for the next bread ?

Let's have a look at that in detail .

Now and for that , it depends a little bit .

Did you deplete all your stutter ?

If Yes , no worries .

Just extract a tiny bit of your bread dough .

That's going to be your next stutter .

If not take all but not more than 10 g of your stutter that you use to make the bread dough .

Feed it again with 50 g of flour and 25 g of water .

And now do you want to bake the next day ?

Then around 8 to 12 hours later , you can make your next bread though .

Do you plan to bake in the next two weeks ?

If yes , store your stutter inside of the fridge afterwards , you need to refresh it one more time .

If not , do you have a freezer ?

If so store your sole soter in the freezer .

If not dry your stutter , then reactivation is going to take a little bit of time .

Then you have the perfect balance of yeast and bacteria .

Again , I'm going to be linking all the flow charts in the description of the video as well .

First resource that I want to share with you is it's my default Sardo bread recipe .

It will make you an excellent bread .

It takes a little bit more work if you don't have that much time and only three minutes to spare .

The next resource is my three minute amazing sdo bread .

Then on my blog , I wrote a blog post on different sourdough stutter types with all the details .

It goes on much more lower level expanding you , the microbiology of your stutter .

It helps to understand what's going on next up .

When feeding your starter , you typically always have a little bit of this card starter at the start .

We toss some of it away , but then afterwards we use whatever leftovers we have and we store them in the fridge .

This is flavor explosion .

So please try making my discard stutter bread .

It's an amazing bread that has superb flavor .

You can also make really nice sour crackers out of your discard stutter .

Very delicious as well .

Another crazy idea is to make pasta out of it .

You can make sourdough pasta , very delicious .

Sharing the link to the recipe as well .

And lastly , if you have questions , we have a free Discord community with lots of bakers from the channel .

Feel free to join and ask your question questions over there .

And now comes my special surprise that I promised you being a total nerd .

I like to take my starter with me .

My starter is named Bret Pitt .

I take him wherever I travel to because I want to collect wild yeast and wild bacteria from all around the world .

My starter has visited several countries so far .

So please enjoy some footage of my starter traveling .

Please let me know in the comment section which questions you have because I'll be doing another video with frequently asked questions .

Hope you had fun and made the gluten be with you Welcome to the Sour World .