Sourdough Bread: How To Make Your Own Easy Sourdough Starter

I absolutely love fresh from the oven sourdough bread. I was feeding my starter culture this morning and wanted to share my love of sourdough with you. If you're interested in learning to cook with sourdough you're going to need a starter, that's the bubbly, living batter where your yeast colony lives, waiting to be turned into delicious wholesome bread. The easiest way to get a starter is to ask a friend to share their starter with you. anyone who keeps a sourdough will usually be more than happy to share their starter with you and may even help show you how to care for it.

I didn't know anyone with a sourdough starter, so I studied up on how to make my own from scratch.

 

There are only a few simple steps to becoming a sourdough baker. To begin, create a starter (a bubbly batter you keep in your fridge). By adding the starter to dough, you can make it rise. Bake and serve. Yum!

Craft your own Sourdough starter from wild yeast

So the first step is to create your starter. This is a living culture made of flour water and yeasts, it's kind of like a kitchen pet, that requires a small amount of regular care to be healthy and happy.

It's pretty simple really:

1. mix equal parts (1 cup) flour and (non-chlorinated) water in a glass bowl - no metal bowls or utensils please
2. wait 24 hours
3. stir twice a day
4. feed equal parts flour and warm water (discard half of mixture before feeding)
5. repeat steps 2-4 until you have a bubbly sour starter

With regular use and feeding your starter will mature into a wonderful source of delicious sourdough bread

For complete and detailed step by step instructions on making your own sourdough starter check out Sourdough Bread: How To Begin (easy sourdough for the beginner or novice).. This is the exact recipe and tutorial that I used to create my sourdough starter here at The Crafty Homestead.

Or just buy a ready made starter

If you're just starting our with sourdough, or if you're having trouble starting your own sourdough culture, it's better to start with a good established starter so that you can learn what a healthy starter looks smells and acts like.

You can purchase a starter culture from Donna at Cultured Food Life She has a wealth of information about sourdough and other live probiotic foods. 

 I believe that along with the overly processed foods, soil depletion, and the loss of fermentation and probiotic foods that heal and protect our bodies, our diets are wreaking havoc on our guts. This, in turn, is causing the rise in all kinds of food allergies. Our diets are a dim reflection of the nutrient-dense whole foods we used to eat years ago. Someone at a recent class asked why we are living longer if our diets are so bad. But this is actually not the case any more; we are not living longer, this trend has stopped. Not only that, the quality of our lives is in sad shape. How often do you see someone living vibrantly and without sickness or ailments?  It is increasingly becoming the exception and not the norm. Pharmaceuticals are the norm and not the exception, and food allergies and gut issues are rampant along with a host of other health issues. The average consumer is unaware of these changes in our food supply and then labels gluten and breads as the enemy, when they don’t realize the culprit is the dramatic changes in the actual process of making bread today.

Or get this one for free

Another good source for a starter is Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail Starter. The starter has been in his family since at least 1847 when his family moved west on the Oregon Trail. I haven't actually tried this starter yet but I have just sent in a request for some.

 Carl T. Griffith,gave a sourdough starter to anyone who asked, or who sent him a self-addressed stamped envelope, he died early in the year 2000 at the age of 80. He is known for his generosity and the high quality and vitality of his sourdough starts, which came from a sourdough culture carefully nurtured and preserved in his family for over 150 years.

Carl always gave his starter away for free and when he passed away his family and friends carried on that tradition. You can still get his starter for free. I just sent off for my sample and can't wait to try it. Get Carl's Free Sourdough Starter It's totally free just send in a SASE, but it would be well worth a couple bucks donated to the folks who keep Carl's tradition alive.

photo credit: V. H. Hammer via photopin cc