- In this video you'll learn how to make a super
active sourdough starter. After years of baking and interviewing many
leading bread making experts, I present to you all the
knowledge that you need to master making and baking
with a sourdough starter. And these are the topics
that we'll be covering in this video. For your convenience, I added chapters to this video as well. So you can skip ahead to the parts that interest you the most. First, we will be
talking about the history of sourdough starters. Then I'll explain to you in detail, what a sourdough starter is. That gives you the basis. And then I'll show you how
you actually make a starter. Many recipes tell you wait seven days, but I'll show you exactly when your starter is ready to be used. To make things a little bit more awesome, I wanna show you my favorite trick next, and then let's get our hands dirty. We'll be making the first sourdough bread. Then, now that you've
made your first bread, let's talk about starter maintenance. How do you prepare for the next bread? Afterwards, I'll be giving
you a few more resources that you can continue to study
on your sourdough journey. After watching all this, you will definitely be a
sourdough starter master. And to finish things off, I have a special surprise waiting for you at the end of this video. Scientists have discovered
very old sourdough breads. The oldest one, as far as I know, it's coming from Switzerland right now, but the most popular story
is the story of a lady making bread in Egypt. She took her dough to the Nile river and had to head home for urgent matters. She returned a few days
later just to find out that her bread has suddenly
become very puffy, very light. It also had a funky smell to it. She would take that bread. She would bake that bread. And afterwards she was surprised, because the taste of
the bread had improved. Also the bread was much
more fluffy than before. So she kept doing the same thing. And what she discovered was
wild yeast and wild bacteria, the first sourdough. Now, whether this story is true or not, I don't exactly know, but it sounds nice. What is a starter? A starter is that unique composition of wild yeast and bacterial organisms. They live everywhere, on fruits, on your skin, and on grains,
such as, wheat, rye, emmer, pretty much everywhere. The yeast you buy in the supermarket today is an extract of some of the
strongest strains of yeast. However, in nature, the yeast very often lives in symbiosis with the lactic and acetic acid bacteria. The yeast makes your dough fluffy. The bacteria makes it sour. The soreness has a pickling effect and gives your sourdough
that unique flavor. The yeast and bacteria co-exist in a careful balance and harmony. What makes sourdough special is that every starter is unique. You likely have cultivated
different strains of wild yeast and bacteria then I do. Over time, your starter
is going to become better at fermenting flour. That's why making sourdough
bread is a little more challenging than plain yeast-based
bread, but don't worry. I got you covered. And I will give you all
the information you need to succeed at making
delicious sourdough bread. Making a sourdough starter
is so super simple. All you need to have is a
round one kilo of flour. That should be a whole wheat,
whole rye, whole spelt, whole emmer, whole einkorn, but it actually also works
with gluten free flours, just something whole. You want the outside of the
grain to still be there. The second tool I recommend
you to have is a scale. You could have course
also eyeball everything, but especially if you're getting started, a digital scale makes
things so much easier. It's going to take a little bit of time, probably around two to
three minutes per day. And it takes a couple of days,
but it's really that simple. Once you made your starter, you no longer have to buy
yeast at a supermarket. You can use your sourdough
starter for everything, and it stays good for years. I'm gonna be showing you
a couple of flow charts in this videos because I'm an engineer and we love flow charts. So let's get into it. Are you ready? You're about to make the
most amazing starter. And it's so simple. On day one, you mix 50 grams of flour, 50 grams of water, and you stir it. On day two, I get a new clean jar. I take around 50 grams of
the mixture from day one, and then I'm taking
another 50 grams of flour, and another 50 grams of water. (water pouring) 24 hours later, your
starter might have increased a little bit in size already, but you still might have
bad microorganisms inside. The full process is just going
to take a little bit longer. So repeat the same thing again. Take 50 grams off the previous day, mix again with 50 grams of
water, 50 grams of flour. Stir everything together
again, discard the rest. Now the starter could already, in theory, be ready after five days, but it might also take 10 days. For every day until it
is ready, you will repeat exactly what you just learned. Now, when is it actually ready? Most recipes will tell you wait X days, but that doesn't work. Let me show you exactly how you know that your sourdough starter is ready. It's very simple. What is your starter ready? This is where many new bakers fail. They use the sourdough
starter too early or too late. Let me show you exactly how
you know when it's ready. The typical timeframe is
probably around five days to 10 days, but yeah, read
the signs of your starter. That's the best thing that you can do. Around 12 hours after
you fed your starter, you can check what are
your starter is ready. Is it bubbly? Did it increase in size? If it didn't, wait 12
hours and then proceed and feed it again just
like you did before. Now, if it's bubbly, it still could be that you don't have
achieved a good balance of yeast and bacteria. Smell a bottle of vinegar or a yogurt, that's what your sourdough
starter should smell like. If it's too strong, it might be that your balance
is still a little bit off. Then just proceed and
feed your starter again after 12 hours. If it's mild and subtle
and you can really smell that yogurt or vinegar, then you're ready. You're about to make
your first bread dough. Congratulations. Now my favorite trick, you just
made your sourdough starter, it's ready, but if you have time, please bear with me for
just a few more days. Let's convert our sourdough
starter into a stiff starter. Now, especially if you're new to baking, using a stiff starter later
is going to be so much easier. For all recipes that you
previously used yeast, you can now use the stiff starter. It's definitely a game changer. I, in fact, made a full
video on the topic, but this is the too long to watch. If you don't want to use a stiff starter, that's totally okay too. Especially if you know what you're doing. If you're a beginner to dough, then this is gonna make
things so much easier. You'll be able to make
bread with every flour that you have, even low
quality, low gluten flour, every flour is going to
work with a stiff starter. Definitely a game-changer if you ask me. A stiff sourdough starter is amazing because it boosts the yeasts activity. Your final dough won't be as sour. The more bacteria you have, the faster they munch your gluten, resulting in a sticky dough. This is the worst enemy
of every home baker called over fermentation. This is the biggest
mistake everybody makes. And by making a stiff starter, you can bake with the
cheapest flour that you find, and you won't run into
issues of over fermentation. It's such a game changer. That's why if you're
new to sourdough baking, I definitely recommend you
to make a stiff starter. I'll be sharing a couple of
more resources on this topic in the description of the video. Definitely a worthy read for you. So to convert your starter
into a stiff starter, this takes around three days. You will take 50 grams of
flour, 10 grams of your starter, 25 grams of water. Previously, you always
had a ratio of one-to-one. Now you have 50 grams of
flour and 25 grams of water. That's a 50% hydration. 24 hours later, you take 10
grams of that previous day mixed with 25 grams of water
and another 50 grams of flour. The rest that you don't need, you store in a large jar in your fridge. This is what we call your discard. Never throw this away. This is precious gold. Again, there are gonna be
more resources on this topic in the description off the video. 24 hours later, repeat
exactly the same thing. Your sourdough starters
microorganisms are going to adapt. In the stiffer environment
the yeast is going to thrive. The bacteria is a little bit
slower, and then you're ready. Flip over your sourdough starter. You should be seeing a
couple of pockets of air. Also, please note how
the smell of your starter has just changed, just by
changing the amount of water that you're using. Isn't that mind blowing? You're gonna make an amazing
first bread, are you excited? Because now that your starter is ready, let's make our first bread. The ingredients of your
bread are super simple. Flour, water, and salt. That's about it. So for a typical bread, that's
around 400 grams of flour, 240 grams of water, eight grams of salt, and 40 to 80 grams of sourdough starter. So you just made your first dough, and to make an actual bread out of it, I'm gonna be sharing my favorite recipe in the description of
the video and up here. You are going to loaf your bread. No matter what you're making, making something with
sourdough is gonna improve the taste dramatically. You'll make everyone
around you super happy. So the quantity of sourdough
starter that you should use depends on your ambient temperature. This is a really good rule of thumb. Is warmer than 22 degrees
Celsius or 70 degrees Fahrenheit in your kitchen? If yes, you're going to be
using around 10% starter based on the weight of your flour. If it's colder, that's
for me in winter times, that's around 20% based on the flour. Then this is the recipe for
your first loaf of bread. 400 grams of flour, 240 grams of water, either 40 grams of starter
or 80 grams of starter, and then eight grams of salt. If it's way hotter where you live, consider just using 5% of starter. Your starter is going to regrow
inside of your main dough, because your bread dough is pretty much a gigantic sourdough starter. If all went well, you just
made your first bread. Now the question is, what do
we need to do for maintenance? How do we prepare for the next bread? Let's have a look at that in detail now. And for that, it depends a little bit. Did you deplete all your starter? If yes, no worries. Just extract a tiny bit
of your bread dough. That's gonna be your next starter. If not, take all, but
not more than 10 grams of your starter that you
used to make the bread dough. Feed it again with 50 grams of
flour and 25 grams of water. And now do you want to bake the next day? Then around eight to 12 hours later, you can make your next bread dough. Do you plan to bake in the next two weeks? If yes, store your starter
instead of the fridge. Afterwards, you need to
refresh it one more time. If not, do you have a freezer? If so, store your sourdough
starter in the freezer. If not, dry your starter. Then reactivation is going
to take a little bit of time. Then you'll have the perfect balance of yeast and bacteria again. I'm gonna be linking all the flow charts in the description of the video as well. The first resource that
I want to share with you is my default sourdough bread recipe. It will make you an excellent bread. It takes a little bit more work. If you don't have that much time and only three minutes to
spare, the next resource is my three minute
amazing sourdough bread. Then on my blog, I wrote a blog post on different sourdough starter
types, with all the details. It goes in much more lower level, explaining you the
microbiology of your starter, and it helps to understand
what's going on. Next up, when feeding your starter, you typically always have a
little bit of discard starter. At the start, we tossed some of it away, but then afterwards we use
whatever leftovers we have, and we store them in the fridge. This is flavor explosion. So please try making my
discard starter bread. It's an amazing bread
that has superb flavor. You can also make a
really nice sour crackers out of your discard starter,
very delicious as well. Another crazy idea is
to make pasta out of it. You can make sourdough
pasta, very delicious, sharing the link to the recipe as well. And lastly, if you have questions, we have a free Discord
community with lots of bakers from the channel. Feel free to join and ask
your questions over there. And now it comes to my special
surprise that I promised you. Being a total sourdough nerd, I like to take my starter with me. My starter is named Bread Pitt. I take him wherever I travel to because I want to collect
wild yeast and wild bacteria from all around the world. My starter has visited
several countries so far, so please enjoy some footage
of my starter traveling. Please let me know in the comments section which questions you have, because I'll be doing another video with frequently asked questions. Hope you had fun and made
the gluten be with you. (chill music) Welcome to the sourdough world.
