Sourdough Starter Guide

Hi friends!

If you follow my Instagram (@lifeoflyssipoo), I'm sure you have seen that I have been having fun making my own sourdough. A lot of people asked for recipes, but some just don't know that there is a lot that goes into making sourdough bread. It is overall a 6 to 7 day process and you have to have a strict schedule that is absolutely required that you need to stick to or else you're going to fail. Failure is absolutely okay. I have failed at this a handful of times before I figured out what works best for me. What worked best for me was sticking to that schedule.

This is one of the loaves I made using this starter guide!


The 6 to 7 day process revolves around what is called "starter". This process is making the sourness in the sourdough and is ultimately making a live yeast. You can do more research on it, but your sourdough starter can last you years. In fact, the oldest known sourdough starter that is still alive today is over 4,500 years old. That is amazing. This is an art. The reason why this lasts forever is because it is alive! It needs to be fed and it will grow. It will mainly double in size every time you feed it. But it also involves a lot of waste. In order to feed it, you must discard a bit of it each time.

You take your sourdough starter when you know it is alive and you incorporate it into your sourdough bread recipe. You can do any recipe, whether is involves no yeast or if it features yeast. Ultimately, you will end up finding your favorite recipes and you know what you are comfortable working with it.

Let's just hop into this because I know recipes sites love telling their life story before getting to the actual recipe.

WHAT YOU NEED! (This is my way of doing my starter):
  • 1-2 quart GLASS bowl (You can use a mixing bowl or mason jar. It needs to be glass. If it is plastic, you can risk adding unnecessary bacteria into your starter and you may kill it)
  • Kitchen scale (I only do weight by grams. I do not measure by cups. I find weight to be more successful)
  • Whole wheat flour
  • A lot of all purpose flour
  • Water at room temperature
  • Calendar reminders
  • Patience
Day One (9PM): 
My day one usually starts at 9 PM because starting on day four, you will need to "feed" your starter exactly 12 hours later, which will be at 9 AM. Imagine if you started your starter at 2PM one day, you will need to be up at 2AM on day four and through day six or seven. This is the only day you will use whole wheat flour. 
  • 113g Whole wheat flour
  • 113g Water (room temperature so about 68 to 70 degrees)
  1. Weight glass bowl and write down weight just to reference
  2. Zero the weight out with glass bowl
  3. Combine whole wheat flour with the water using a mixing spatula until there is no visible dry flour
  4. Place in semi-warm spot and let it rest for 24 hours (I place mine in a cabinet above my microwave) and lightly cover (do not air-tight cover it. I place a kitchen towel over the container)
Day Two (9PM):
Welcome to day two. You should not see too much going on. You should see that it has grown just a little bit in size. It is okay if you see a couple bubbles. The goal is to get this growing and bubbling. Now you will only use all purpose flour. You can store your whole wheat flour away. This is now when we start to discard half of the starter. This is because it is growing and doubling and if you don't discard, it definitely will be a pain in the butt to manage. You can also start a second starter from this discard if you wanted to. Or you could toss it out. I just toss it unless I need a second batch. This is our first feeding!
  • 113g All purpose flour
  • 113g Room temperature water
  1. Discard all but 113g of the starter
  2. Combine APF and water with the remaining starter until you do not see any dry flour
  3. Place in semi-warm spot and lightly cover and let it rest for 24 hours
Day Three (9PM):
Welcome to day three. You should definitely start to see some bubbles and you should also notice that it is starting to smell sour! Yay. You should see small bubbles. If you see any pink, orange or mold spots, unfortunately, you gotta throw it away. Again, cover the starter with a kitchen towel that way it can breathe. If it smells like acetone, throw it away. It could also be a temperature issue. If you do not have any of these issues, go ahead and feed it like you did on day two. After this feeding, you will feed it 12 hours later.
  • 113g All purpose flour
  • 113g Room temperature water
  1. Discard all but 113g of the starter
  2. Combine APF and water with the remaining starter until you do not see any dry flour
  3. Place in semi-warm spot and lightly cover and let it rest for 12 hours
Day Four (9AM & 9PM):
Welcome to day four!! You will now be feeding it twice a day for the next three to four days 12 hours apart. You should definitely see it doubling and bubbling. Keep feeding it!
  • 113g All purpose flour
  • 113g Room temperature water
  1. Discard all but 113g of the starter
  2. Combine APF and water with the remaining starter until you do not see any dry flour
  3. Place in semi-warm spot and lightly cover and let it rest for 12 hours
Day Five (9AM & 9PM):
You should still see it starting to bubble and double. Keep feeding.
  • 113g All purpose flour
  • 113g Room temperature water
  1. Discard all but 113g of the starter
  2. Combine APF and water with the remaining starter until you do not see any dry flour
  3. Place in semi-warm spot and lightly cover and let it rest for 12 hours
Day Six & (if needed) Day Seven (9AM & 9PM):
These are the days where you should keep an eye on it after feeding. Your starter should be ready either of these days or if you need to do more than seven days, that is totally normal! How do you know when it is ready? Really keep track of where it is doubling in the container. If it doubles and bubbles after feeding within 7 to 8 hours, you are good to use it in any recipe, just remember to feed it after! 
  • 113g All purpose flour
  • 113g Room temperature water
  1. Discard all but 113g of the starter
  2. Combine APF and water with the remaining starter until you do not see any dry flour
  3. Place in semi-warm spot and lightly cover and let it rest for 12 hours

How to maintain your starter:
After I know my starter is alive, I keep it in the fridge and I do my normal feeding once a week. I keep it in a jar with a lid on it. It will still bubble if you do that. If there is liquid on the top, just mix it. If the liquid is a dark color, you may need to toss it. But please do a feeding once a week. I feed mine every Friday. I also feed it after I use some starter. I just keep it to the 113g of water and APF. If you keep it out, you will need to feed it twice a day like you were with the process before!

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Alyssa

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