A Sourdough State of Mind ~ You've Got Questions, I've Got Answers (2024)

Hello. My name is Cery. I’m a bakeaholic…

Seriously, y’all know that I love to bake, right? Especially bread. Well, I’ve had a lot of people asking me lately about sourdough. More specifically, about how to start a sourdough starter. There are all kinds ofarticles on the web that will tell you to use sugar or mashed bananas or some other fruit to get something started. And it can be really confusing to have so much information in your face. But I’m here to tell ya that you don’t need anything except flour and water. Yep. It’s really that easy. Just flour and water.

And something to put it in.

And stir it with.

And cover it with.

But, mostly, just flour and water. 🙂

Sourdough Woes

The first time I tried to make a starter I started with one in a little package from the grocery store. The instructions were like 6 bazillion pageslong! Honest. And I got so intimidated by that Ididn’t even open it for about 3 months. And when I did, and followed all those 6 bazillion pages of instructions, it didn’t work. It was extremely confusing. And I’m a pretty smart cookie. I almost gave up, but I love sourdough bread, so I really wanted to make it work.

And success!

I’ve done a lotof research since that packaged starter with 6 bazillion pages of instructions,and I understand the process now. I’ve started several different types successfully and I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like the smellof freshly baked sourdough coming from your very own oven! You can use any kind of flour that you want to, the process is the same with all of them. (I have not yet experimented with gluten-free flours for sourdough.) Of course, the baking part is a little different depending on the flour you use for the bread.

Thestarter that I use is made with organic, white, unbleached flour. I have found itsmore versatile than some of the others, and I don’t really have room to keep 2 or 3 going at the same time. I keep mine sitting out all the time because I use it quite frequently.

The beautiful thing is, if you don’t use it a lot you can keep it in your fridge and you don’t have to feed it but once a week or so. It’s really very forgiving, too. Don’t get too panickyif you think you may have killed it. There’s always a chance for revival. 🙂

And there are so many things you can do with it! It’s not just for bread as you willquickly see. I’ve documented the process of starting a starter in easy, one-day-at-a-time snippets. It takes about 7ish days to get a starter strong enough to use, with about 5 minutes of hands-on time per day.

So, are you ready for your sourdough journey? Click the link below to get started.

Go to Sourdough 101: Everything You Always Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask

Blessings!

Sourdough recipes you should try: