How to make sourdough starter: the practical guide and secrets for a perfect dough.
There are different schools of thought on how to create and refresh sourdough.
Today I want to talk to you about my experience and the great satisfaction that this “living organism” manages to give me.
Sourdough is nothing more than a simple dough of well-measured flour and water, left to ferment spontaneously with an “activator” (such as honey, apple pulp, or yogurt) to give the initial boost to the bacterial load. Unlike industrial brewer’s yeast, sourdough is a complex ecosystem of yeasts and lactic bacteria. This balance gives baked goods superior digestibility, an unmistakable aroma, and much longer preservation.
When starting to make sourdough starter, you need to have a lot of patience, especially in the initial phase, and follow all the refreshes regularly. All this will allow our dough to become strong and use it after 30 days; however, if you can’t wait that long, it is possible to use it after 15 days, but only if we have been regular with the refreshes. Now let’s see together how to make sourdough starter, the various tips and refreshes until it is ready for baking.
I usually try to bake in the evening and cook in the morning, but we will talk about this at a later time.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 30 Days
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 331.64 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 72.31 (g) of which sugars 4.61 (g)
- Proteins 11.52 (g)
- Fat 1.00 (g) of which saturated 0.18 (g)of which unsaturated 0.78 (g)
- Fibers 2.90 (g)
- Sodium 4.39 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 100 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
How to make sourdough starter
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 7/16 cups Water
- 1 tsp honey
Tools
- 1 Jar tall and capacious glass
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Scale
- 1 Spatula
Preparation
How to make sourdough starter
Place in the bowl: the flour, water, and teaspoon of honey. Initially knead with a spatula or a fork, then with your hands, until you get a smooth dough. Place the dough inside the jar and cover with a gauze or a cotton cloth and let it rest at room temperature away from drafts for 48 hours.
After 48 hours, do the refresh with:
200 g All-purpose flour
100 ml water
At this point, take 200 g of dough from the center of the starter, the remaining unfortunately must be discarded. Put it in a bowl and add 200 g of all-purpose flour and 100 ml of water. Knead and put the dough back in the jar, cover, and let it rest for another 48 hours.
Continue doing these refreshes for at least 15 consecutive days, but my advice remains to do them for 30 days. After 30 days, our dough has gained strength and has become sourdough starter.
Once you start using the sourdough starter for baking, you can decide how to store it. If it will be stored in the fridge, it should be refreshed every 5/6 days. If, on the other hand, you want to keep it outside, the refreshes should be done every day.
Since sourdough starter is a living organism, it always grows, so once ready, my advice is to refresh only 100 g. So, every time it needs to be done:
Starter + Flour in the same proportion and half water:
100 g of starter
100 g of Flour
50 ml of water
The excess dough from each refresh should be discarded or can be used for many other recipes. I always try to use it, for example, this is a recipe I made with the excess.
Advice
Jar cleaning
The jar used to maintain your sourdough should be glass or plastic with a lid. After each refresh, the jar should be cleaned of previous residues only with hot water and never with detergent.
It can also be frozen
As I wrote above, if sourdough starter is stored in the fridge, it should be refreshed every week; otherwise, if kept outside, it needs to be refreshed every day, or it will die. It may happen not to use it for a period of time, “maybe in summer,” in which case it can be frozen, even for a month. But before freezing, it should be refreshed and then placed in a freezer food bag. When defrosting, just leave it at room temperature for about 12/15 hours, and once defrosted and grown, always do a new refresh and store it as before freezing.
If you store the sourdough starter in the fridge, let it sit for at least 2 hours at room temperature before refreshing, and once refreshed, put it back in the fridge after 2/3 hours
Which flours to use for refreshing the starter?
I never use the same flour for the various refreshes, but alternate between all-purpose, whole wheat, and durum wheat flour. I try not to refresh with all-purpose flour, but if at the time of refresh you have nothing else, it is fine too. Sometimes the dough can be stickier, depending also on the flour you use. After refreshing, before putting it in the fridge, grease the jar with a little extra virgin olive oil or some flour.
Sourdough starter can also be made with gluten-free flour.
Here are some recipes made with sourdough starter
Wholemeal rolls, white focaccia, Homemade bread,
If you like baked goods, I also leave you with the category with desserts 😉
