I Finally Made a Homemade Sourdough Starter and It Worked!

As you can tell by the title (and the picture above!), this blog post has a very happy ending because not only did I successfully make my own sourdough starter, I was able to bake my very first sourdough loaf – and it was delicious. There is nothing more satisfying to me than an experiment that turns out successfully.

Table of Contents

Choosing a Sourdough Recipe

After reading through quite a few beginner sourdough tutorials, I decided to follow Lisa’s sourdough starter recipe from Farmhouse on Boone. I’ve come across her blog on several occasions, and she’s well known for her easy sourdough recipes and creative sourdough discard recipes.

Every morning I carefully reread the instructions before feeding my starter. Even though I was nervous, I was determined to persevere.

Making My First Sourdough Starter

This may surprise you, but your sourdough starter only needs one pantry staple: flour. Then you add water.

That’s it.

That’s IT!

Bread is absolutely amazing.

The thing about sourdough starter is that there’s a lot of waiting. Especially during the first three days. Then it gets a bit more exciting because you get to feed your starter twice a day. It’s really a “set it and forget it” mentality.

Unfortunately for me, I’m very good at just forgetting.

I completely forgot to feed my starter on the morning of Day 3, so my whole schedule shifted to evenings. Then I learned from several Instagram accounts that sourdough starter is really just flour and water. When you think about it that way, it’s actually pretty hard to mess up – and even if you do, it’s just flour and water. You can always start over.

Now, my starter was wildly active within the first few days. Holy guac, that thing bubbled up fast!

I used a combination of 100% whole wheat flour and bread flour. I think the whole wheat helped kickstart the natural fermentation because it became active so quickly. I had to switch jars almost every day because it kept overflowing.

Every morning I was genuinely excited to peek into the jar to see what had happened overnight. Watching it grow and bubble never got old.

I once read that sourdough starter is the millennials’ new Tamagotchi, and honestly, I think that’s pretty accurate. Though I find sourdough starter a lot harder to kill.

Time to Bake

Once my slightly off-schedule (but very active!) starter was thriving, I figured I must have done something right. So I moved on to the next phase: baking the bread.

This is where timing became a little tricky.

I’m really not great at following strict timelines, but sourdough is all about letting the dough sit and ferment (also known as the bulk ferment). On the first day I got off to a late start, which meant the dough ended up fermenting much longer overnight because…well…I was asleep! I was super nervous it would over ferment, which is a thing – who knew?!

The Results

Here’s what’s so fun though – it still turned out great!

Not only did it puff up beautifully, but it also had the famous “ear” that sourdough bakers get so excited about.

Was it perfect? No.

But man-oh-man, was it perfect to me.

Sadly, you do need to wait 2-4 hours before slicing into it. I convinced Ad to wait an hour and 45 minutes. 😂

He said, “But you’re supposed to eat bread warm!”

He’s not wrong…except apparently he is when it comes to sourdough.

When we finally cut into it, it had that beautiful hollow sound when you knocked on the bottom. The crust was wonderfully crunchy and crisp, and best of all – it passed the scrunch test! It bounced right back. 😍 Are you drooling yet?

It was so scrumptiously divine that I made another loaf just four days later. I also made two batches of English muffins using the discard, and now we’re attempting pizza dough.

We’ve practically turned into a bakery!

What’s Next

I decided I’m going to try making a loaf every week or so. We’ve been keeping the starter in the refrigerator, and it’s been surprisingly easy to get her bubbling again after a feeding and one night on the counter.

I definitely wouldn’t say I’ve mastered sourdough yet, but it’s been an awful lot of fun learning about it.

As many of you know, we received a bread machine for the holidays, and it actually has a sourdough setting! I think I’m going to test that recipe this week just to see how it compares. I can also use the bread machine to knead pizza dough since I don’t own a stand mixer.

I’m also really excited to try making a blueberry herb loaf soon. And of course, my annual lemon pound cake, which is completely unrelated to sourdough, but it’s been living rent-free in my head for at least a week now.

Final Thoughts

This whole experience has been so much fun. Ad has especially loved this little kitchen adventure, and honestly, I think we’re just getting started.

If you’re interested in trying sourdough yourself, I highly recommend checking out the sourdough starter recipe and easy sourdough loaf recipe from Farmhouse on Boone. They were easy to follow and gave this beginner the confidence to finally give sourdough a try.

And if you’ve used Lisa’s recipe before, I’d love to hear your tips and tricks – especially when it comes to timing!

I hope you’re enjoying this little kitchen adventure series as much as I am. 💕

xoxo