The first time I made a sourdough starter, I followed all the instructions, watched it like a hawk, and waited for Day 7 when I would supposedly have a thriving little jar of starter ready to make beautiful loaves of sourdough bread.

Day 7 came (and went). My starter had other plans. This is probably a good time to tell you that sourdough does not care about our timelines.

I’ve learned a lot by making my first 9 loaves in 9 days, feeding my starter at all kinds of ratios, accidentally accumulating three jars of “discard”, and discovering that making sourdough is simultaneously more complicated and much less complicated than people make it sound.

If you’ve never made a sourdough starter before, this is for you. All you need is flour, water, a jar, and a little patience. Actually, sometimes a lot of patience.

First of All, What Is Sourdough Starter?

Sourdough starter is a fermented mixture of flour and water containing wild yeast and bacteria. Instead of using commercial yeast to make bread rise, we use the wild yeast living in an active sourdough starter.

That’s really all it is. Flour + water + time.

You feed it fresh flour and water to keep it alive and active, and once it’s established, you can use it to make sourdough bread and approximately 4,000 things with the discard you’ll eventually accumulate. We’ll get there.

What You Need to Make a Sourdough Starter

Bread flour. I use bread flour for my starter and for my sourdough bread, which keeps things simple, one flour for everything. Bread flour has a higher protein content and works really well for building and maintaining an active starter.

Note: Whole wheat or rye flour can sometimes help get a sluggish new starter moving because whole grain flours contain more nutrients and microorganisms, but they’re not necessary. I’ve simplified mine and use bread flour for both my starter and my bread.

Filtered water. If your tap water is heavily chlorinated, filtered water is a safer choice since chlorine can interfere with fermentation.

A jar. A wide-mouth glass jar makes life considerably easier. You want enough room for your starter to double or occasionally make a break for freedom over the top of the jar.

Kitchen scale. I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for sourdough. Grams make feeding your starter much simpler and more consistent.

Rubber band. Not essential, but surprisingly useful. Put it around the jar at the level of your freshly fed starter and you’ll be able to see exactly how much it rises.

Also, I put all of my favorite sourdough supplies in one place, if you want to see exactly what I use.

How to Make a Sourdough Starter From Scratch

Here’s where I’m going to ask you to resist the urge to micromanage your jar. Please, just do it for me. Your starter may move faster than this schedule. It may move slower. Both are normal. I’m just putting it here as an example.

Day 1: Mix It

Combine: 60 grams bread flour and 60 grams filtered water in a wide mouth jar.

Stir until everything is completely combined and there are no dry pockets of flour. Scrape down the sides of the jar and loosely cover it with a lid. You don’t want the jar airtight, but you also don’t need to cover it with cheesecloth and invite your entire kitchen into it.

Leave it at room temperature for 24 hours. That’s it. Your new hobby is currently a jar of wet flour. Congratulations, it’s very exciting stuff, haha.

Day 2: Leave It Alone

Take a look at your starter. You may see bubbles. You may see some rising. You may see absolutely nothing. All three are fine.

You can also get a surprisingly dramatic burst of activity during the first few days. Don’t assume that means your starter is already established and ready to bake bread.

Early activity is part of the microbial changes happening as the starter develops. For now, leave it alone for another 24 hours.

Day 3: Start Feeding

Discard all but 60 grams of starter (toss it, it’s too early to save).

Add: 60 grams filtered water and 60 grams bread flour

Stir well, scrape down the jar, loosely cover it, and mark the starter’s starting level with a rubber band. Leave it at room temperature for another 24 hours.

This is a 1:1:1 feeding, which is equal parts starter, water, and flour.

We’ll talk much more about feeding ratios in my post about to how to feed a sourdough starter, but 1:1:1 keeps things simple while we’re getting this new baby established.

Days 4 and Beyond: Keep Feeding

Every 24 hours, repeat the same process. Keep 60 grams starter, discard the rest, then feed with 60 grams water and 60 grams flour.

As the days go by, you should begin noticing more consistent activity. You’ll see bubbles throughout the starter. It will rise higher after feeding. Eventually, it will rise and fall in a predictable pattern.

And yes, it may smell weird at different points along the way. You’re fermenting flour on your counter. There are most definitely going to be…moments, haha.

When Is My Sourdough Starter Ready?

Some starters may become reliably active within a week. Others can take two weeks or even longer, especially in a cooler kitchen. You’re not waiting for a particular day. You’re waiting for consistent behavior (mostly talking to myself here).

Your starter is ready to bake with when it reliably rises after feeding, develops lots of bubbles throughout, has a pleasantly fermented smell, and follows a predictable rise-and-fall pattern.

A mature, active starter will often double in volume (or more) after feeding, but I wouldn’t obsess over whether it happens at exactly four hours, six hours, or some other arbitrary number. Temperature and feeding ratio have a huge effect on how quickly that happens. This was one of my biggest sourdough lessons, watch the starter, not the clock.

What If My Starter Suddenly Stops Doing Anything?

This is SO common. First of all, don’t panic. You may get tons of bubbles and activity during the first few days and think, Well look at me, I am obviously excellent at sourdough. And then…nothing. Your starter appears to have died.

Whatever you do, do not throw it away. That early burst of activity doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve already developed a mature yeast population. It’s common for activity to quiet down while the microbial balance of the starter changes.

Just keep feeding it. This stage can last several days, and it’s probably responsible for a whole lot of perfectly good starter being dumped down the drain.

What If My Kitchen Is Cold?

Welcome to my life. My kitchen in North Idaho runs cool, and I’ve learned firsthand how much temperature affects sourdough. A cool starter isn’t necessarily an unhealthy starter. It just moves much more slowly.

If your starter is taking forever to rise, try moving it somewhere slightly warmer. I sometimes use my oven with only the oven light turned on. The oven itself stays OFF, however, haha. I feel compelled to emphasize that because baking your sourdough starter in its jar is one problem I cannot help you recover from.

Generally, somewhere comfortably warm is all you’re looking for.

Why Do I Have to Discard Some Starter?

Because otherwise this gets out of hand remarkably quickly (ask me how I know this). If you kept all 120 grams from Day 1 and continued adding equal amounts of flour and water at every feeding, you’d need a bucket before long. Discarding allows you to maintain a manageable amount of starter while still giving the portion you keep enough fresh food.

Once your starter is mature, you can save that discard in a jar in the refrigerator and use it for all kinds of recipes. But during these very early stages, I prefer to chuck it and wait until the starter is established before saving and cooking with the discard. There will be plenty of it down the road. Trust me.

What Does a Healthy Starter Look Like?

Once established, your starter should become pretty predictable. After you feed it, it’ll be thick and relatively quiet. Then bubbles will start appearing. It’ll rise up the jar. Eventually it’ll reach its highest point—its peak—before slowly falling back down.

And here’s another thing I’ve learned too, you don’t have to stand next to the jar waiting for the precise second it reaches peak before you’re allowed to make bread.

I use 100 grams of active starter in my easy same-day sourdough bread, and I’ve made excellent loaves with starter that’s active and bubbly but already beginning to fall or even flattened out (but not all the way down to the rubber band). I’ve also made gorgeous loaves with cold, unfed, but active discard, so there’s that too.

Turns out, sourdough is much more forgiving than I originally thought. And can I just say, thank goodness.

How to Maintain Your Starter Once It’s Established

Once you’ve got a reliably active starter, you have two basic options. If you’re baking constantly, you can keep it at room temperature and feed it regularly (go you).

If you’re more of a I’d like bread this weekend, but I don’t need another dependent in my house type person, keep it in the refrigerator. That’s what I do. The cold dramatically slows fermentation, which means you don’t need to feed it every single day.

When you’re getting ready to bake, take it out feed it according to when you want to bake, and let it become active at room temperature.

And this is where our next sourdough lesson comes in. Because 1:1:1, 1:3:3, and 1:5:5 aren’t different levels of sourdough achievement.

They’re just different amounts of food.

In my post on how to feed a sourdough starter (coming soon), I’ll show you exactly what those ratios mean, how many grams to use, and how I choose a feeding based on when I want to make bread. It’s much easier than it sounds. I promise.

Making Your First Loaf

Once your starter is reliably active, bubbly, and rising after feedings, it’s time for the good part. Bread. My same-day sourdough bread is the recipe I’d start with.

It uses 100 grams of active starter and a beginner-friendly dough that’s easier to handle and shape. You can mix it first thing in the morning and bake your loaf later that afternoon.

And if your first loaf isn’t beautiful? Welcome to the club, but also contratulatios, now you’re making sourdough. Just eat it and make another one. Mine got better every single time (well, most of the time anyway…I still have the occasional too flop haha).