# Sourdough Starters



## BGKYSmoker (Jun 30, 2022)

There are many many vids and recipes on sourdough starters. There is no wrong way to make a starter.
Remember a starter is just flour and water with some time and added patience.
You can change your feeding flour to your starters anytime after it has matured. Mature active starters can take from 24 hours to 7 days.
Discard your starter before feeding? Well you dont have to but you will have a large amount of starter and too much you can choke off the activity.
If your going to (try) to bake daily or every other day you will need to feed your starter 2x daily. If you only bake one or two times a month you can put your starter in the fridge. If you fridge you will need to feed a few hour before baking.

Below i have my 3 starters. 
1. I use plain gold medal unbleached flour
2. King Arthur bread flour
3. Janies mill high protein.

Not labled is the Janies Mill.







When i feed i discard and save 50g of starter. I also stopped using bottled spring water and switched to distilled. If you use tap water just make sure you dont have salt or chlorine in the water.

Here is my feeding of my starters.

50g of starter
50g water
50g flour.












This is my AP starter.
Just use a spatula to scrape down the starter from the jar. Yeah my jar is crusty. I only switch my starter to a new jar when its get way to crusty and the lids dont sit right.












Janies mill







I add my water to the starter first then stir it, then my flour.







My 3 in the proofer. Lids on loose.






Proofer temp.






This way works for me.


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## SmokinEdge (Jun 30, 2022)

Thank you.


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## pushok2018 (Jun 30, 2022)

Thank you for sharing! Very needed information for me!


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## smokeymose (Jun 30, 2022)

BGKYSmoker said:


> There are many many vids and recipes on sourdough starters. There is no wrong way to make a starter.
> Remember a starter is just flour and water with some time and added patience.
> You can change your feeding flour to your starters anytime after it has matured. Mature active starters can take from 24 hours to 7 days.
> Discard your starter before feeding? Well you dont have to but you will have a large amount of starter and too much you can choke off the activity.
> ...


You're right about the many videos (and websites). When I got into this I was baffled by all the differing "correct" methods. Use only organic flour/stay away from organic; use filtered water or bottled/any water will do, keep track of the days/don't worry about days but watch for the rise, etc, etc.
What I finally came up with that works for me is to start a new starter with white whole wheat (King Arthur). After a couple of days when it starts rising and falling I switch to feeding just plain AP. 
Usually when I bake I save some of the starter to carry on, but with my last bake I just let it go and started over.
This is the 2nd day of white wheat and now I'll switch to AP for feeding.





After this feeding I'll send to the fridge for a weekly feeding because I don't have a bake planned soon.
I also mix the starter and water before adding flour.....


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## chopsaw (Jun 30, 2022)

I'm on day 5 following the Carrot lady info . 
I'm just using tap water , and out of 5 bags of unbleached flour , it turns out I used the one open bag that's bleached . 
2nd day it was very active . 3rd day was the same . 
Now it seems it's not doing anything . Smell is good , has bubbles , but it's not doubling in volume . House is to cold , but I jump start it in the oven with the light on after I feed it . 
At this point I'm just gonna wait it out another few days . 
Feed with the unbleached flour tomorrow and see what happens .


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## smokeymose (Jun 30, 2022)

chopsaw said:


> I'm on day 5 following the Carrot lady info .
> I'm just using tap water , and out of 5 bags of unbleached flour , it turns out I used the one open bag that's bleached .
> 2nd day it was very active . 3rd day was the same .
> Now it seems it's not doing anything . Smell is good , has bubbles , but it's not doubling in volume . House is to cold , but I jump start it in the oven with the light on after I feed it .
> ...


It'll come back.
What's with bleached flour, anyway? What's it good for?I bought a bag a few weeks ago by accident and don't know what to do with it. I guess I'll just use it for flouring chicken and chops for frying....


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## chopsaw (Jun 30, 2022)

smokeymose said:


> What's with bleached flour, anyway? What's it good for?


I don't know . I think I bought it when things were hard to get . 
I have 3 bags of KA all purpose , 2 bags of KA bread flour , and 4 bags of KA 00 for pizza . Grabbed the open bag that was bleached .


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## Colin1230 (Jun 30, 2022)

Watching and learning. You guys are the best!


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## BGKYSmoker (Jun 30, 2022)

chop

it will come back.

watch for mold, green or black then you need to toss it.
kahm yeast can develop at times, its safe but just take it off the top and feed your starter.


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## Brokenhandle (Jul 1, 2022)

Very interesting!

Ryan


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