Is homemade sourdough bread hard?

Short answer…no. Long answer….keeping a sourdough starter and making homemade sourdough bread is worth the time!

And honestly? It doesn’t take a lot of hands-on time. It's the rising and fermenting that takes the time, and you don’t need your hands in the dough for these things to happen. If you’re in the kitchen at all throughout the day, you have the time. My friend Sarah has 5 kids, one of them being a newborn, and she just started making sourdough from my starter. If she can, you can!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I sent an email to my email list a few weeks ago (join my list by subscribing below!) all about sourdough….what my doc says about it, the benefits, and how I started to make my own bread with a traditional, old-world, homemade sourdough starter. The overwhelming response? 

Sourdough scoring design ideas.

I’m not the only one who’s interested in this Ma-Ingalls-style of making bread!

I decided to write a blog about it so you can easily access my best practices for years to come!

In this blog you’ll learn my best tips for not only growing your own sourdough starter from scratch, but also baking a crusty loaf of sourdough artisan bread, and you’ll also get a few links to my favorite sourdough discard recipes.

Let’s start with how to grow your own sourdough starter.

Ingredients
1 cup filtered water
1 cup organic, unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 quart mason jar

Method
Day 1
1. Combine 1 cup filtered water and 1 cup organic, unbleached, all-purpose flour into a 1-quart mason jar.
2. Mix with a wooden spoon, or rubber spatula.
3. Set the lid on top, but do not screw on/seal. You want some airflow! 
4. Place your starter in a warm spot, but not in direct sunlight, for 24 hours.
5. Optional but recommended: name your starter! Mine is Sally after my grandma, the same one I mention in my cookbook. Sally the Sourdough Starter; has a nice ring, don’t ya think?

Day 2
1. Discard ½ your mixture into the trash (we’ll discuss the waste later).
2. Refeed your starter 1 cup water and 1 cup flour; mix well with, making sure yesterday’s mixture is well-combined with the fresh water and flour.
3. Again, place your starter in a warm spot, but not in direct sunlight, for 24 hours.

Days 3 and 4
1. Repeat the same process you performed on day 2.
2. You *should* start to see bubbles forming in your starter, but don’t worry if you don’t! (We’ll also discuss this later!)

Day 5 and 6
1. You will follow the same process as days 2, 3, and 4, except you will now refeed your starter every 12 hours instead of 24!

Day 7
1. If your starter is bubbly and rising/doubled in size, it's ready to bake with! If this is you, proceed to the portion of this blog that talks about baking your sourdough bread.
2. If not, keep following what you did on days 5 and 6 until your starter is bubbly, active, and rising/doubling in size.

What does a sourdough starter look like?

Okay, now let’s talk about what you can ACTUALLY expect when growing sourdough starter.

Many blogs will make this sound SO easy, and paint a picture that by day 8, you’re going to have perfectly baked artisan loaves that could win awards from Food and Wine magazine. This likely won’t happen, and that’s okay!

Bread making doesn’t take a lot of hands-on time, it just takes patience, trusting the process, and NOT GIVING UP. So when you don’t see your starter bubbling, don’t quit. If by day 7, you have bubbles but no rising, again…make like Dory and, “just keep swimming!” Continue discarding and refeeding until your starter is bubbly, rising, and active.

I read so many different blogs and watched so many different videos before I finally jumped into making my own sourdough starter, and these are the best tips I not only learned through researching, but also trial and (a lot of) error!

Sourdough Artisan Bread

• Do not use metal. I can’t vouch for this because I never used metal, but I just kept reading not to use metal spoons/measuring cups, etc…so I didn’t. Apparently, the yeast-filled environment you’re trying to promote in a healthy starter doesn’t like metal. I use a wooden spoon my son made for me :-)

• Use the same type of flour to refeed that you used to grow your starter. Once your starter is mature you can switch it up, but as it's being established, stay consistent. 

• Choose refeed times where you can stack habits. For example, I wake-up at 6AM and we eat dinner around 6PM…so it made sense to feed my starter at those times, too, because those times are habits for me. If you feel like you’ll forget, set timers on your phone!

• Keep your growing starter in a warm spot but not in direct sunlight. Apparently, yeast will die at 140 degrees, so you want to make sure it stays warm, but not too hot.

• Don't keep your sourdough starter near anything containing food on your counter that could spoil, like a fruit bowl. If something molds in there and you don’t know about it, the mold can actually go airborne and transfer to your starter! This happened to me, right before my starter was ready to bake with, and I had to start all over again. Whomp.

• When you're letting your starter rise after feeding it, keep the lid resting on the opening, but don’t tighten it. You want airflow, but no fruit flies. 

• When not using your starter, keep it in the fridge with the lid screwed on. You can let it go up to 2 weeks without feeding it…I’ve even heard of people letting it go for 3-4 weeks, but I haven’t tried that, personally. I have teenagers, so mine gets used multiple times per week.

• Use a rubber band on the jar to mark where your starter level is so you can see if it's rising or not. 

• It does feel like a lot of waste as you’re growing your starter, but it's worth it later, as once you have a mature starter you can use the discard in other recipes. So really, you’re only throwing away discard for a short period of time. Especially if you’re someone who buys good quality, organic bread from the grocery store or even an online market, you know how costly that can be. Once your starter is ready to go, the cost of ingredients…even organic ones and especially in bulk…is WAY less than buying bread products weekly. 

• It MIGHT take longer than 7 days for your starter to mature and be ready for baking. My second attempt (remember the mold?) took 17 days! I trusted though, and kept going…and I’m so glad I did. Even on day 17, my starter didn’t seem to be rising, but it was SO bubbly and active (active means you can see bubbles forming and popping.) I decided to do the float test to just see what was up; to do this, simply drop a scoop of unstirred starter into a large glass of water. If it floats, it's ready!

Sourdough Starter Recipe

Your homemade sourdough starter is ready to bake with; now what?

Once my starter was ready, I decided to follow a recipe from the blogger I learned the most from, Lisa at Farmhouse on Boone! This is the one I first used, and have made many times since:

https://www.farmhouseonboone.com/no-knead-sourdough-bread

Now, let me share how I modified this sourdough artisan bread recipe so that I didn’t have to buy anything new to start out. I have gotten some equipment for making sourdough bread since, but you don’t need it…and I’ll share how to make some swaps so you can get started right away.

• First, I do not own a food scale. Basically, I used the recipe linked above as a starting point and converted the grams measurements to cups. I’ve tweaked it a bit based on how my loaves were turning out, and these are the measurements I use:

  • 4 cups organic, unbleached, all-purpose flour 

  • 1-3/4 cups organic whole wheat flour 

  • 2 cups organic bread flour 

  • 1 cup sourdough starter

  • 3-1/2 cups warm water

  • 3-1/4 tsp real salt

• If you also don’t have a scale, you'll probably have to trial and error those measurements a bit based on the temperature and humidity in your house, but this is a good place to start. Our house tends to be a bit dryer because we burn wood for heat, so my water measurement is a bit more than the original recipe. Just know that wherever you start and whatever you make, it’ll be edible, I promise! I never threw away a single loaf as I was perfecting my measurements.

• Before you want to use your starter, refeed it; pour out half of the starter and feed it with 1 cup flour and 1 cup water. Let it sit at least 4 hours before you begin the first step of the baking process. I usually feed mine at about 8AM and start step 1 after lunch.

• You do not have to waste the sourdough starter discard you pour out...I hate wasting food, and one of the many benefits of baking your own bread is that it’s far more economical…but not if you’re always throwing away starter! We have made pancakes, pizza crust, focaccia, waffles, and even a same day bread with our discard. Even if you’re not ready to use the discard immediately, just pour it off into a container, cover it, and stick it in the fridge until you’re ready to bake with it. Here are some of my family’s favorite sourdough discard recipes:

  • https://www.farmhouseonboone.com/sourdough-discard-sandwich-bread

  • The Best Sourdough Pancakes - Farmhouse on Boone

  • Easy Sourdough Waffles Recipe - Farmhouse on Boone

  • Sourdough Discard Focaccia - Farmhouse on Boone (We use this recipe as a pizza crust!)

  • Sourdough Brownies - Farmhouse on Boone

Sourdough discard bread.

• I do use banneton baskets, a pastry scraper, and a scouring blade now...but I don't think you need any of that. I'd use what you have at home first before you buy anything. In place of banneton baskets, you can use any basket you have laying around and line them with tea towels. You can use a butter knife or a turner instead of a scraper when working with your dough, and you can use a super sharp knife instead of a blade for scouring patterns into your loaves of artisan sourdough bread!

• DEFINITELY don’t skip the long-fermenting stage in the fridge! This process is where the magic happens, and where all of that yummy-sour flavor really comes to play. It also makes your scouring patterns pop, should you decide to create them!

Banneton bread proofing baskets.

The LAST thing I want to talk about is timing; that is the question I get the most from people just starting to make their own sourdough bread, because the whole length of time it takes just seems overwhelming and like you’ll be in the kitchen working dough for 2 days…I promise you, that’s not true! Here is a rough timeline I follow when making my loaves of artisan sourdough bread. The morning before we want fresh bread is when I feed my starter; so, if we want fresh loaves on Friday morning to enjoy through the weekend, I feed my starter on Thursday morning:

Thursday

• 6AM: Remove sourdough starter from refrigerator, pour off half (and use to make pancakes for kids) and refeed with 1 cup flour/1 cup water.

• 12PM: Combine warm water and flours with hands, cover with damp towel or plastic, and let rest for 30 minutes

• 12:30PM: Add your active sourdough starter and salt and dimple in with wet hands; knead together for 5 minutes. Cover and let rest for another 30 minutes.

• 1PM: Start your stretch and folds, making sure to cover and let the dough rest in a warm spot throughout the process; in the oven with the light on works best for me.

• 3:15/3:330PM: Keep your dough covered and allow it to bulk ferment in the same warm spot, until doubled in size.

• 6:30PM: Split the dough in half, careful not to pop any bubbles created during the stretching and folding, allow to rest for 15 minutes, and transfer to floured banneton baskets. Wrap your precious loaves in plastic grocery bags and allow them to long ferment in the refrigerator overnight.

Friday

• 6AM: Preheat your oven.

• 7AM: Bake your bread!

What should my sourdough look like before baking?

I know that seems like a lot of work to get a perfectly baked loaf of sourdough artisan bread.

I remember thinking, “With all these steps, there is no way I’ll be making bread any more than once per month.” But again, never say never…I bake bread at least twice per week, and use my starter for other goodies about the same amount. Each time feels easier, and each time I get a little more efficient with adding the art of baking bread into my day. What my family gets out of our homemade sourdough starter has been invaluable, and definitely beneficial, as I haven’t had a single stomach-ache since making our own sourdough bread!

I call that a win.

Questions? Post a comment! I’d love to chat!