01/28/2026
Hey, Happy Wednesday! I've had a couple questions about how to get a sourdough starter going!
So I thought I would share my experience with it. These are my personal thoughts and in no way reflect those of others. It's a long post, so scroll now if you're not interested 😂🥰
Starting a starter: buy one or get one from a friend. Thats the absolute easiest way. Then give your starter a few doses(feedings) of flour and spring water, stir, cover, put in a semi warm place. Do this twice a day at a 1 part starter, 1 flour, 1 H2O. This will build a strong starter. Later you can change your feeding ratios to less, so you can keep it going, but not have to feed it as much (water & flour) for a maintenance starter that you can store in the fridge if you're not baking a lot. If you insist on starting your own, just know that starter can take days to weeks to get going from scratch. It took mine 14 days, lol and even after that Ihad to tweak it and mess with it to get it atronger. If you want some of my starter thats already going, let me know and you can have some! I have plenty and it only takes a tiny amount to get it growing and ready to bake bread, just bring a empty glass jar.
Once it's developed and strong enough to bake with, I can feed in the morning and it's ready for baking within 2-5 hours later or I feed just before bed and bake in the morning. Sourdough can be finicky and temperature, humidity and other environmental changes can all affect it, but it's also very hardy once you get a strong one going. I had found a simple, easy recipe and got a good rise and great bread! But then it stopped getting good oven spring when the snow hit. I tried a different recipe yesterday and it turned out fantastic, so go figure 🤔
You're going to want to get a small digital scale for weighing your feeding ratios. You're going to want to start small. Then you start feeding it equal portions of flour and water. Take out some before you add, otherwise you'll have gobs and gobs of it, because you're constantly adding the same flour and water ratio at each feeding. For example, If you start with 25g starter, 25 grams flour and 25g water. You'll now have 75 grams total. Your next feeding would be adding 75 grams of flour & 75 grams water. Now you're going to have 225 grams that will need to be fed another 1-1-1 ratio. 225 x 3 = 675 grams. You will use alot of flour and create this huge starter and most recipes only call for 100- 150 grams per loaf. Definitely use the leftover starter (discard) in recipes and don't throw it away! Its still Sourdough starter just not active (bubbling and growing, which is when you use it to make bread and it's how your bread rises...active starter producing gas to inflate the bread loaf). I just added about 1/2 of "discard" to a batch of box mix pancakes and they were so delicious. Sourdough discard recipes of all sorts exist for that very reason. Look them up and add that s**t to everything! There is one exception though, and that's with a brand new scratch starter. The "discard" between feeding should be thrown away for about 2 weeks because the live bacteria in the sourdough starter hasn't build enough of the good stuff to overpower any bad bacteria, which could make you sick. Thats ONLY when making your own starter from scratch. Using an already established starter is safe and healthy.
I have learned a lot by watching videos on Facebook reels, Instagram and TicToc. I encourage anyone that wants to know more to start researching BUT, its also easy to get overwhelmed with all the information that's out there. EVERYONE, and I mean everyone has a different way of doing things. I can only share what I have learned and how I do it 😆 YOU'LL learn what works for you along the way too. Some bread is more sour, some not as much. Adding whole wheat or rye to your starter can give it a boost. Some use it at its peak (when the active yeast has made the starter rise up double or more its size and get very bubbly), while some let it deflate a bit before using. Some make bread with starter straight from the fridge.
So in the end, it's important to build a very strong starter (and when I say strong, I don't mean in odor or smell...it should always smell slightly sweet and not too much like alcohol or vinegar). Strong meaning bubbly and rising up in the jar. Try a few different recipes but try to perfect one recipe first. Get it down, learn the feel of the dough and the visual signs that its ready for the various stages of baking. You're going to have more bread than you know what to do with at first and some of it will be flat. Some dense inside. Some will get a little oven spring and then suddenly you'll get a perfect loaf, only to get a flat one on the next bake! 😆 BUT, most are still delicious tasting so don't throw them out. Eat what you can and give away what you can't eat. It will be a learning experience and very addicting in my opinion, because you're always chasing the "perfect loaf" haha!
But when you get that one, oh how rewarding it feels! Thats why many call it a journey...its alot of steps to reach the final destination, but once you get there, it's so worth it. Are you ready to start? If so, welcome to the world of sourdough!
If this sounds like something you are absolutely not doing, don't worry! We take preorders, custom orders AND have some fresh loaves available in the roadside bakery box here in Camden, TN on Flatwoods Rd. for pickup on Saturday and Sunday 11am-3pm
We do all things sweet and savory! Custom special occasion cakes, cake slices, cookies, sourdough and yeast breads like our cinnamon swirl loaf, plus specialty breads like Italian Focaccia, garlic, onion, cheese, jalapeno, tomato basil, chocolate, lemon blueberry, pumpkin, zucchini, banana.
Our custom cakes and specialty breads are all done by preorder only. We are currently not busy enough to bake that much fresh bread, when we are not selling out. Baked goods can be frozen and taste perfectly fresh once thawed, but when we advertise "fresh baked this morning ", it is fresh baked that morning.
Here's an interesting tip: you can freeze your sourdough loaves to preserve their freshness. Once you're ready to eat, simply remove, let thaw, place the loaf under water and get it really wet. Place it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes to re-crisp! It turns out beautiful, as if you had just baked it yourself! You can also freeze individual slices or half loaves! Toast it or put a few slices into a casserole dish, add a bit of water, cover and let the steam soften it into delicious, tender bread again.
If I can help in any way let me know. Like I said, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface but then again, its just bread...water, flour, salt.
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Here's my little secret. Sometimes when I've had a couple less than perfect flat loaves in a row so I'm feeling down on myself or when I've been researching so much that I get overwhelmed with information, I bake up a loaf of regular no fail yeast bread or cinnamon rolls, just to make myself feel better! It helps!
ANYONE can make their own bread!🍞😉✨️🥪 It's easy....so they say.
Have a great day!😄 appropriate music for today. Thank you lord for your blessings 🫶 keep our neighbors, friends and family warm and safe today.
