how to make sourdough starter from scratch without a scale
I'm in quarantine and left my scale and starter behind in my apartment. I'm making a starter from scratch without a scale, and it's working out quite well! Next project will be sourdough without a scale. Here is the link to my post with a video, may you find it helpful!
https://sororm.com/how-do-i-make-sourdough-starter-from-scratch-with-no-scale-part-1-with-video/
Day 1:
Equal parts flour and water more or less (20 grams each if you have a scale. Water is technically milliliters but you can use a gram scale for our purposes). This amounts to more or less 2 tablespoons of flour and one tablespoon of water. Mix together in a clean glass jar (or any non-reactive clean container you have available). Use a non-reactive spoon, fork, knife or chopstick to mix it (wood, ceramic or stainless steel all fine). Leave it in a warmish (such as fridge top) spot. If you your room is cool it’ll just take a little longer for the starter to establish itself.
Day 2: Add to your glob the same as above.
Day 3. Same as above.
Day 4: Discard 3/4 of your starter so you are back to around what you started with, and then add equal parts flour and water. If you are using a scale, weigh the starter then add equal parts flour and water. If eyeballing it, for a tablespoon of starter add about about 1 tablespoon of water and 2 tablespoons of flour.
By day five you should have a starter with a few bubbles in it that smells funky, like smelly socks or vinegar or wet paint. Continue discarding some and feeding roughly equal parts flour and water until the starter is established, TBD in part 2 of making sourdough starter from scratch without a scale!
First of all, isn’t baking a comfort in these unusual times? And hat’s off to you for making a go of it without scales... I’m sure it will work out really well :)
It reminds me of the first few times I tried to make a starter... everything always seemed to go well for the first few days, but then this hideous smell would emerge and everything just seemed to die. I kept trying but the same thing happened every darn time... Eventually in desperation I googled around and found Debra Wink’s “pineapple juice” posts on this site, which were a revelation. Well I wasn’t using pineapple juice, but it was a lifesaver to learn that ‘the stink’ was just leuconostoc bacteria that would eventually disappear once the culture got acidic enough, and I just had to keep feeding and discarding. And that’s what happened!
Just worth sharing, I think, on any instructions for beginners as so many people give up at that stage :-)
It is a comfort thank you! The woman in the video kind of talks about the stink and says to just persist through it....I assume pineapple expedites things by creating a more acid environment? For now I will just continue feeding it, as long as there's no mold! Thanks for the tip> I am always so befuddled by how anyone actually is able to pinpoint the bacteria! Mine smells like parmesan and smelly socks at the moment.
Hope you are well in these crazy times,
SM
right now to making starters and amazing! Kat
Good for you!