Culturing Your Own Sourdough Starter

Using organic whole wheat flour and water, you can easily culture your own sourdough starter from scratch.  Organic flour naturally contains plenty of wild yeasts. In culturing a sourdough starter, you are simply providing an environment in which those wild yeasts can thrive and reproduce. Below is a step-by-step process to produce a starter that you can use in making all kinds of sourdough, including breads, bagels, pizza dough, pancakes and waffles.

Ingredients and Supplies

• 1/2 cup room-temperature, purified water. Be careful not to use chlorinated water because it may hinder the growth of your sourdough culture.
• 1/2 cup freshly ground organic whole wheat flour.
• Plastic wrap
• Clean, half-gallon glass jar

Steps

1. In the half-gallon jar, combine 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup water. Cover the jar with plastic wrap and let it sit 3-5 days until you begin to see bubbles forming on top of the mixture.

2. Once you see bubbles, discard all but 1/4 cup of the mixture. The jar may have a lot of dried starter on the side by this time, so you may want to transfer the 1/4 cup of mixture into a clean, room-temperature half-gallon jar. Feed the mixture by adding 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup room-temperature, purified water.

3. Once a day, discard all but 1/4 cup of the starter and feed it by adding 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup room-temperature, purified water. Continue to do this daily until the yeast can double in size within 4-6 hours.  One way to keep track of the results is to mark the outside of the jar with a permanent marker immediately after feeding your starter. Then you can easily compare its growth to its original volume.  When it becomes vigorous enough to double in size within 4-6 hours, the starter is ready to use in making breads, bagels, pancakes, waffles and other recipes.