Making a Sourdough Starter From Scratch – Day 5

So yesterday I mentioned I wasn’t going to feed my starter, as it was acting pretty sluggish in the cold weather. Well, just check it out after it hung out under my switched-on airconditioner last night. It’s a sourdough explosion and doubled in size after only an hour! Things are definitely back on track now 😉

There is obviously a lot of growth in my starter today (as of posting it has taken up 3/4 of the jar. The smell is more pleasantly sour again and I finally have a (very thin) layer of hooch. I’m pretty happy with my efforts so far; how is your starter going? Is it the same as mine, or very different? Smelly, watery, thick, bubbly? Tell me all about it! 

You may need to start stirring your hooch back into the starter 1-2 time a day now, as it can collect more frequently as the activity builds. Today also marks a change in our feeding schedule, as now that your culture is maturing and growing it would need a lot more food (flour) to feed on to stay active. At this stage you can start dividing your starter at each feed and in these early days we’re tossing the discarded amount straight in the trash.

While this may initially seem wasteful, in general we aren’t ‘throwing away’ our starter when disposing of it – we’ll be baking with it. This early on in the process though, it’s not very useful to keep this portion of the starter until beneficial cultures have had more time to mature. Once we have a healthy and consistent starter we can start our discards in some nifty recipes.

Making a Sourdough Starter From Scratch - Day 5

 

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You may need to start stirring your hooch back into the starter 1-2 time a day now, as it can collect more frequently as the activity builds.
Today also marks a change in our feeding schedule, as now that your culture is maturing and growing it would need a lot more food (flour) to feed on to stay active.
At this stage you can start dividing your starter at each feed and in these early days we're tossing the discarded amount straight in the trash.

Author: Alison Murray @ Om Nom Ally

Ingredients

• 100g (approx. ¾ cup) flour
• 100g (100ml) spring or filtered water.

Instructions

1. Stir the hooch back into your starter 1-2 times daily.
2. Remove ½ - ¾ of the total starter amount in your jar and discard.
3. Add the flour and water and mix to combine. Put aside in a warm place for another 24 hours.

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All Posts in This Series (will be updated as we create our starter culture)

• Making a Sourdough Starter From Scratch:
  Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
• Sourdough Bread for Beginners
• Feeding and Storage of your Established Sourdough Starter
• Recipes for Discarded Sourdough Starter