The first thing required to begin on this Journey is a healthy Sourdough Starter.

There are a million ways to go about this, but I continuously remind myself that our ancestors made bread by candlelight with very little resources. Let’s don’t overcomplicate every thing. I do prefer to use a scale when baking, because volume is completely different than weight, BUT – I have made very healthy starters from both methods.

Let’s just simplify this by using the 50g method, and if you don’t have a scale, 50g= 1/2 cup (approx).

So, starting with a clean glass jar-

Add 50 grams of Bread Flour and 50 grams warm filtered or bottled water. Give it a good stirring and let it rest with the top on loosely.

On your second day, this is where you start to discard. You won’t have to do this all the time, but it’s necessary in the beginning to build a strong starter.

Remove ALL but 50 grams of your starter. Toss the rest. (You will be able to use this discarded starter in recipes after Day 10, but for now it’s full of harmful bacteria, so toss it!)

Now add the 50g of warm water and flour to the 50g of starter.

This is basically creating a 1:1:1 ratio of starter, flour and water.

Continue this process of discarding and feeding daily for 7-10 days.

When your starter begins to double in size for 3 days in a row after feeding, you are ready to find a good recipe and start baking! But remember, it must be after 10 days! It takes that long to for good bacteria and combat what is harmful. At this point you’ll need to start doing two feedings per day.

If you don’t intend to bake much, you can store your starter in the fridge and feed it once weekly. But be sure you feed it 4-8 hrs before baking so it can double and reach its peak. Otherwise you’ll have very lifeless bread. 🤍

If you have trouble getting your starter going, I do sell dehydrated starter in my Etsy shop. But this is the exact method I used and I have extremely active yeasts growing!

Good luck!

Xoxo- Jenny