Want a healthy bread? A “true” sourdough bread is a great healthy bread to consume. You can read my article about all the health benefits in sourdough bread in my article A Healthy Bread That is Good For You. To make your own sourdough bread, you will need a sourdough starter. It is not hard to make a sourdough starter, it just takes a little time. In this post, I will show you how to successfully start your own sourdough starter. Once we master the sourdough starter, I will then show you how to make your own sourdough loaf.
Here is what you need to start your sourdough starter. You will need some whole grain spelt flour and some fresh oranges. Fresh pineapple juice can also be used instead of fresh orange juice. To start your sourdough starter, simply add 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice with 2 tablespoon of spelt flour. Place in a small bowl and mix well. Loosely cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours. We will continue a 7-14 day feeding schedule to make your sourdough starter. Once you have your starter, you won’t have to go through this whole process again, you will just use and save some of this starter for future uses. This recipe was adapted from The Fresh Loaf website.
DAY 1: Add 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice and 2 tablespoons whole grain spelt flour to a small bowl. Stir vigorously, cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave on counter for 24 hours.
Here is what your starter will look like after 24 hours at room temperature. I will post a picture daily so you can see how it changes and what you are looking for. If you notice, not much has changed after day one.
Day 2: Add 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice and 2 tablespoons whole grain spelt flour to your mixture. Stir vigorously, cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave on counter for 24 hours.
Here is what your starter will look like after 2 days. Not much has changed after day 2 but look for changes coming real soon.
Day 3: Add 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice and 2 tablespoons whole grain spelt flour to your mixture. Stir vigorously, cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave on counter for 24 hours.
Here is what your starter will look like after 3 days. Notice all the bubbles starting to appear.
Here is what the starter looked like after 3 days. Little change, as of now. Yours might look different by now and that is fine. Your sourdough starter will grow on its own terms.
Day 4: Stir down your sourdough starter. Measure out 1/4 cup starter and discard the rest. To this starter add 1/4 cup filtered water and 1/4 cup flour. At this point you can add any flour you would like (excluding coconut flour and almond flour). I usually stick with spelt flour because it has a better result. I tried all purpose organic flour and didn’t have the best results. Stir vigorously, cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave out at room temperature.
Repeat day 4. Repeat day 4 for days 4-14, (Stir down sourdough, measure out 1/4 cup and discard the rest, add 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup flour. Stir vigorously and loosely cover and leave at room temperature) once daily until your sourdough starter starts to expand and smells yeasty. Your sourdough starter might become very bubbly and then go flat. That is ok. If it doesn’t become bubbly again by day 6, add 1/4 tsp of apple cider vinegar with the daily feeding.
Day 6: Here is my sourdough starter on day 6 right before the feeding. You can tell it is time for a feeding because it has deflated. Notice how far it raised up by the lines on the sides of the bowl. When it falls it is ready for a feeding. I needed to feed mine about every 8-12 hours now.
Day 7-14: I finally have my starter. Here is what a healthy starter looks like. Look how high it has risen. It has more than doubled in volume and it has a lot of air bubbles.
I will continue to feed it (the normal feeding: 1/4 cup starter (throw out the rest), 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup flour) and keep it at room temperature for 1 more week (a total of 2 weeks) to make a strong more favorable starter. My sourdough starter is now ready for use. At this point, you can make a fresh loaf of sourdough bread.
After 2 weeks of storing and feeding your starter at room temperature, you will need to now store your sourdough starter in the refrigerator. At this point, you can feed it once a week by using the same method. At the top of the starter will be a liquid called the “hooch” and that is normal. Simply pour the hooch off and discard it and measure out your 1/4 cup starter and add to it 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup flour. Mix together and store back in the refrigerator.
When you are ready to make a loaf of bread, simply pull the starter out, pour off the hooch and give your starter a feeding (1/4 cup starter (discard the rest), 1/4 cup filtered water, 1/4 cup flour). Leave out at room temperature for 8 hours and give your starter another feeding. This might be enough to activate your starter (remember you are wanting it to almost double in size and you are wanting it to be bubbly, like champagne). If it is not bubbly then you might need to give it one more feeding. You are now ready to use your sourdough starter in your recipe. Remember to save a little for your next recipe and store it in the refrigerator.
I know you all might have questions along the way. Please feel free to leave your comments below in the comment section and I will answer your questions for you.
Liquid hooch picture courtesy of Bradyrevisited.com.
Hy, is something that I don’t really understand : if for a simple recipe I need 2 cups of sourdough starter and I have only 1 cup like you explain here, how I will be able to do my recipe ?(sorry for my english)
You doing a great job with this site and I will like to thank you !
Have a nice day
Hey Halle, you have an awesome recipe that I need to try. I have a question though, I bought a huge bag of sprouted spelt flour and was wondering if this type of flour would work for the sourdough starter and breads. If not, I will just buy regular stuff! Thanks for the recipe, pictures and answering of all the questions (I looked through all of them before I asked this one :))
I read that you can use any flour but you said spelt flour works better for you. I guess I should rephrase my question, would the sprouted flour work just as well? Thanks!
Hi and thanks for your article. Can I ask what is the purpose of fresh OJ as opposed to water? Cheers, Nataliya.
Alright, I’m on day 4, and my starter does NOT smell good — it’s more of a “food going bad” moldy smell than a yeasty smell of something I’d want to eat. Yuck. Also, it separates very quickly into liquid and solid parts. I’m using a glass jar and a wooden spoon to stir: everything was clean as far as I know.
Any ideas on having it not go bad? Was using pulpy orange juice a bad idea — should I try cider vinegar or water and honey or another liquid?
It shouldn’t smell bad. I’d toss it and make sure you are using fresh juice from the oranges.
Tossed it, for sure. I was using fresh-squeezed juice, absolutely. Any alternate juice ideas?
Hi, would sprouted spelt flour work just as well as regular spelt flour? Or will I need to test this out myself? Thanks!
Sprouted spelt should work just fine.
the most complicated sourdough starter recipe I’ve ever encountered. I believe it would discourage all but the most dedicated ocd’d bread lover. A friend who is a pro traditional sourdough baker has a family heirloom crockery bread bowl. The bowl is so alive with yeasts from decades of daily bread making that they simply put in the warm water swish it around and go. Ancestors carried their little sack of sourdough starter in some warm body crevice during their transplantation to new homes. In severely cold climes that is where it was stored to retain viability. I agree 25 years on that the older the starter the better the product.
I made my original starter with 1 cup light spelt and water in a 1.5 liter Mason wide mouth. Fed it daily, 1Tbl flour and water for ten days, covered with 4 layers cheese cloth;pour off the hooch each time; the last hooch smelled like sweet fresh apple juice, so left it. Have not been failed in 25 years. Particularly on a low pressure day I lay some old clay brick on the oven rack. It gives a nice punch to the spelt loaves
I love this – Da, can you please be clearer in the final part. Once the hooch smelled like fresh apple juice, what did you do?Can you bake it? How much do you use and how much do you leave? And how do you use it from then? Do you feed it every time you bake? Pls be as clear and detailed as possible. I’ve been looking for a long time for an easy and good starter recipe. Hate to discard parts of the starter as spelt flour is very expensive where I live (Singapore). but also know how important sourdough is for health, good digestion, good beneficial gut flora, etc. Thanks in advance :)))
Are you looking for a spelt loaf? I have two recipes for you. Here is a spelt sourdough loaf: https://wholelifestylenutrition.com/recipes/how-to-make-a-real-sourdough-spelt-loaf/ and here is a super easy sourdough bread made with white bread flour: https://wholelifestylenutrition.com/recipes/traditional-san-francisco-sourdough-bread-recipe/ Both are very detailed recipes so you shouldn’t run into any issues. Good luck!
Sadly, I have to agree with Da. After day ten of grooming and petting and trying ALL of the above I tossed this lousy attempt of a starter and started over again. I’m trying Da’s method now because it seems to be a lot easier and if I fail again, it wasn’t such a big deal.
Question: After feeding your starter for two weeks, do you continue to feed it for one more week? I was confused on that part.
You can put it in the fridge after 2 weeks and then feed it at least once a week from that point.
Hi. I would like to try sourdough. I have some gastro problems and burning mouth syndrome and I try not to eat gluten.
Can I use quinoa flour or bean flour to make the sourdough bread? I thought spelt had gluten in it. Pease try to answer my question because I am very limited as to what kind of bread I can eat and would like to try the sourdough.
Thankyou!
Hey Lou,
I have a series of posts coming out this week that will tackle all of this. Quinoa and bean flours would not work. You need the gluten for bread but when you ferment the dough, a lot of the proteins that make people gluten intolerant are broken down and many can eat sourdough for this reason.
Can I use boiled water instead of filtered as I dont have a water filter?
I am pretty sure the boiled water will still have fluoride and that will react with the growth of your starter.
Thanks for your reply, I have now got filtered water today is day 5 so have only fed on boiled water 1 day, should I start again,or can I carry on with my existing starter now using filtered water?. Thanks
Try it with what you have first. My guess is that you will eventually have to start over though…but worth a try to see if it works with existing starter first.