Beginners Sourdough Starter recipe – Your one-stop Guide

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How to Build up your Levain

If you observe in our recipe, at all times there is 100 gms of starter in the jar.

But while making bread recipes you would need to build up your starter to be used as per the recipe requirement.

So let us see how to build your starter to make any recipe?

We will do this using an example.

Let us say you are making a bread recipe that calls for 200 gms of Starter (Levain) to be used.

And keep one thing in mind a Starter is always 100% Hydration.

So you will be adding 100 gms Flour and 100 gms Water to make 200 gms of Starter.

And if you are following the recipe that I am sharing then you will be having 100 gms of Mother starter.

You never want to finish off the Mother Starter as that is what we will be preserving for a lifetime right!!

So what to do??

Take out 50 gms from your Mother Starter.

To that add 100 gms Flour and 100 gms Water.

Stir so that there are no bits of flour left out. Allow it to rise and double and then proceed with the recipe.

In general, we always follow the 1:2:2 ratio while building up the starter which is 1 parts mother starter and 2 parts water and flour.

The reason for making additional 50 gms than what the recipe calls for is that we do not want to wipe the jar lid till the last drop right so it is always a better idea to have little more than what we need.

Now we have taken 50 gms from our Mother Starter right which means we still have 50 gms left in it.

So to that 50 gms we will be adding 25 gms Flour and 25 gms Water and storing it forever.

Hope this is clear.

How to build the starter in the same jar itself?

You can also build the starter in the jar in which you have your Mother culture.

Let us take the above example itself.

You need 200 gms for the recipe.

In you mother jar you have 100 gms of starter.

Just remember this key point, before every feed we need to discard right.

So discard 50 gms as always and instead of adding the usual 25+25 this time we will add 100 gms flour and 100 gms Water.

Your mother starter will now have a total of 250 gms out of which you can use 200 gms in your recipe.

To the remaining 50 gms add the usual 25:25 water:flour and store.

Just remember this golden rule of thumb:

Discard – Feed – Use – Feed Again – Store.