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    How to Make Sourdough Starter

    Updated May 7, 2025 / By Holly Erickson & Natalie Mortimer

    Making sourdough starter at home is as easy as mixing water and flour. Patience is the hard part, but it’ll pay off, we promise. Wild yeasts, here we come!

    Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    How Many of Your Friends Are Making Sourdough Starter Right Now?

    Learn how to make an easy sourdough starter with us! All it takes to make a sourdough starter is flour and water and some time, so you’ve probably got everything you need already. Once you’re starter is active (meaning that the wild yeasts are ready to make your bread rise) you’ll be able to use it to make a gorgeous loaf of Sourdough Bread. This will take at least a week, or maybe two, so we should get started! 

    Before we jump into the sourdough starter recipe, let’s take a collective deep breath. There’s a lot of lore in the bread world and TBH bread people are totally intimidating! You’ll hear words like hydration, and stuff about percentages and you might want to run for the hills! But we firmly believe that making homemade bread from scratch is for everyone. Bread is humble! It’s an ancient food that humans all over the world have been making for millennia. You can definitely do this. 

    Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    What Is Sourdough Starter?

    In short, a sourdough starter is a leavener, meaning that its purpose is to make your bread rise, the same way that store bought yeast would in other non-sourdough bread recipes. What you’re doing when you make sourdough starter is encouraging wild yeasts and good bacteria to make a happy home in a simple mixture of flour and water. When your sourdough starter is ready (we’ll explain how to tell when it’s ready soon) and it’s finally time to bake a loaf, you’ll use part of your starter instead of commercial yeast. A strong, healthy sourdough starter will ensure that your loaf of bread has plenty of rise, delicious flavor, and a tender, light, airy crumb.

    items on the counter to make sourdough starter: food scale, whole wheat flour, water and a glass jar

    What You Need To Make Sourdough Starter from Scratch

    • Flour. Regular, all-purpose flour. You’re going to need quite a lot of flour to cultivate a sourdough starter. You’ll be feeding your starter about a cup of flour a day for the first few days, and then you’ll increase to two feedings a day. So, you’ll ultimately need anywhere from 15 to 25 cups of flour to really get a starter going. We’re calling for regular old all-purpose flour, but you could use whole wheat flour instead, or even a combination of the two.
    • Water. Filtered water if you can easily get it is the best.
    • A jar or container. Clear glass is ideal, so that you can see growth and monitor volume changes easily. A large mason jar is perfect.
    • Something to cover it with. A tea towel secured with a rubber band works well.
    • A kitchen scale. Not technically 1000000% necessary, but any baker will tell you that a kitchen scale (you can find basic ones for about $10 everywhere from Target to the Amazon) is one of the best tools you can buy to ensure that your baked goods turn out. Investing in a kitchen scale will save you money (and heartbreak) in the end, because you won’t have to toss out failed baking projects! 
    Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    Sourdough Starter FAQs 

    • How long until the starter is ready to use? A lot of sourdough starter recipes say that you may notice bubbling after the first 24 hours, but that hasn’t been our experience. Two eager days into making sourdough starter, we had zero action. We reached out to friends, and heard a variety of times. Friends said: “my starter took almost a month to really get going” and “give it two weeks, at least”. Sometimes, under ideal conditions, a sourdough starter is ready to bake with in a week, but it’s normal for it to take two weeks.
    • You’ll know it’s ready when the starter doubles in size within 8 hours after a feed.
    • Keep your starter warm, but not hot. If your house is cool, keep it somewhere a little warm, like on top of the fridge.
    • What do you mean by “cover it loosely?” We use a tea towel held on with a rubber band. You basically want the starter to be covered so that nothing yucky gets in there but you still want there to be air exchange happening.
    • Filtered water is best if you can use that. 
    Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    More Tips + Some Bonus Encouragement

    • Sourdough starter is a leavener, and the first leavened breads ever made likely rose by accident. In his classic book On Food and Cooking, food scientist Harold McGee notes that “the earliest archeological evidence for leavened breads comes from Egyptian remains of around 4000 BCE. The first raised doughs arose spontaneously, since yeast spores are ubiquitous in the air.” In other words, sourdough starter wants to exist. We repeat: it grows by accident! With just a smidgen of intention, you surely can’t fail.
    • Want to really nerd out? We love the King Arthur Flour website sourdough guide. It has a lot of information about the science of sourdough starter! You don’t HAVE to have a deep understanding of what’s going on between the wild yeasts and lactobacilli bacteria you’re cultivating in your starter that give it those exciting bubbles and such wonderful flavor but it’s kind of fun to learn about it anyway.
    Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

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    How to Make Sourdough Starter Recipe

    Updated May 7, 2025

    By Holly Erickson & Natalie Mortimer

    • Serves:  1
    • Yields:  1 sourdough starter
    • Prep Time:  10 min
    • Cook Time:  0 min
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    Description

    Making sourdough starter at home is as easy as mixing water and flour. Patience is the hard part, but it’ll pay off, we promise. Wild yeasts, here we come!

    Ingredients

    • 1 cup flour (whole wheat or all-purpose)
    • ½ cup cool (but not cold) water

    To Feed the Starter

    • 1 cup flour (whole wheat or all-purpose), plus more as needed
    • ½ cup cool (but not cold) water

    Method

    1. In a 32-ounce glass jar, add 1 cup flour and ½ cup water. Stir together until a sticky paste forms and there is no longer any dry flour left. Scrape down the sides and cover the jar loosely with a tea towel or plastic wrap and set in a warm (aiming for about 70°F) place for 24 hours. 

      items on the counter to make sourdough starter: food scale, whole wheat flour, water and a glass jar

    2. After 24 hours, it's time to begin feeding the starter. If you don't see any bubbling yet, it’s ok. Transfer ½ cup of the starter to a medium bowl, discard the remaining starter left in the jar. Add a scant cup of flour and ½ cup water to the starter in the bowl and mix thoroughly. Transfer the mixture back to the jar. Cover the jar loosely, and set it in a warm spot for another 24 hours.

      Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    3. After 24 hours, it's time to feed the starter again. By now (day 3) you should see some bubbling, and the starter will likely smell fruity and yeasty. Stir the starter, discard all but ½ cup. Feed the starter again with a scant cup of flour and ½ cup of water, stir vigorously to combine, cover and store for 12 hours.

      How to make a sourdough starter 5

    4. At this point, it's time to begin to feed the starter more frequently, about every 12 hours (or as close to that as you're reasonably able to do). Every 12 hours, scoop out a slightly-heaped ½ cup of starter and discard the rest. Then feed the starter with 1 scant cup of flour and ½ cup of cool water, stir and store. Repeat this process every 12 hours until your starter is ready. Your starter is ready when it is very, very bubbly, and doubles in size within 6-8 hours after a feeding. This can take anywhere from 7 days to two weeks.

      Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    5. Storing And Maintaining The Starter: Transfer a generous ½ cup of starter to its permanent home—we use a 32-ounce mason jar. Feed it with 1 scant cup of flour and ½ cup water, and let it rest at room temperature for several hours. If you're storing your starter in a jar with a screw-top, screw the top on very loosely to store.

      Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    6. After a few hours, move the starter to the refrigerator, and feed it regularly, at least once a week. To use, bring the starter to room temperature and feed. Once it doubles in size, it's ready to use.

      Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    7. If you decide to store it at room temperature, you'll need to feed your starter every day.

      Bubbly sourdough starter in a glass jar with visible rise and fermentation bubbles along the sides.

    Notes

    Glass containers are best, stainless steel, or ceramic containers are also fine. If you are feeding your starter every day, it is best to rotate the jar one time a week. If you are keeping your starter in the refrigerator and only feeding it 1-2 times a week, then you can rotate the jar every 2-4 weeks. 

    Nutrition Info

    • Per Serving
    • Amount
    • Calories 432
    • Protein 14 g
    • Carbohydrates 91 g
    • Total Fat 2 g
    • Dietary Fiber 8 g
    • Cholesterol 0 mg
    • Sodium 7 mg
    • Total Sugars 0 g

    How to Make Sourdough Starter

    Questions & Reviews

    Join the discussion below.

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    • Barbara

      I have a jar of starter given to me by a friend. I have been feeding it and stored it in refrigerator for 3 days without feeding it. I took it out this morning and let it sit out all day, it is very bubbly and doubled in size from when I last fed it (3 days ago). What now? Is it ready to make bread dough? Should I feed it and let it sit out all night then make bread dough in the morning?

      Hi Barbara,

      You should always feed it after taking it out of the refrigerator. After feeding it, let it double in size and then it's ready to go if its doubled in size in less then 8 hours.

    • Regina

      I just mixed my first starter today. Why does it seem so dry? I measured using a food scale. All the pictures show wet,bubbly starter

      It will take a little while for it to get bubbly!

    • Teresa

      Should you keep the starter you are discarding and just add to it to have several starters going at the same time? Or will this just become a monstrous project?
      Thank you! I'm eager to get started on my starter (no pun intended!).

      Feel free to keep it, but yes, your collection will basically just keep growing. You can also add it to pancakes! : )

    • Jennie

      I’ve heard I need to use better quality flour like King Arthur. Does it work with just regular Gold Medal brand?

      Yes! Any flour will work. Whole wheat flour "feeds" it more nutrients than regular all-purpose, so you'll likely see a bit more activity with whole wheat. But any brand should work!

    • Kay

      For those having trouble getting their flour to bubble...I have a gluten sensitivity, but I can tolerate the breads/pasta in Europe. I ordered a flour produced in Italy on Amazon. I didn't want the glyphosate that the US puts on our wheat products. It was bubbling after the first day. Maybe that will help? A different kind of four?

      Very interesting! Thanks for sharing this info Kay.

    • Jenn

      Thanks for all these tips my sourdough came out pretty darn good for my first try, excited to try again!

      That's so great Jenn, great job!