hey guys it's Bettie from BakerBettie.com and welcome to day four of getting
your sourdough starter going now hopefully if you're watching this video
you have been following along the series you have done day one two and three of
getting your sourdough starter going but if you are new here there is a link in
the description for this playlist so you can get caught up to us
now I was really excited when I looked at my starter today because I can see
that there are bigger bubbles in it and it has about doubled in size so this is
a really good sign it is getting stronger and more active and if you
still don't see this activity trust the process keep going forward I promise
it's going to get started so today we are going to do a little bit of a
different feeding than we did the past two days the past two days we kept 25
grams of starter and fed it 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water now this is
called a 1 to 2 feeding meaning one part starter to two parts flour and two parts
water now what we're going to do today is what is called a 1-3-3 feeding so
we're going to keep one part starter and add 3 parts flour and three parts water
which means we're going to keep 25 grams of starter and add 75 grams of flour and
75 grams of water so we're still keeping that same ratio of the same amount of
flour and water but we're changing the ratio slightly of how much starter we're
keeping compared to how much we are adding to it so I'm going to go ahead
and discard all the 25 grams of my old starter and then I'm going to go ahead
and add fresh flour and fresh water again warmed up just slightly with our
water and the reason we are changing this ratio just slightly is because our
starter is getting more active and we want to give it a little bit more food
so that when we go to feed it in 24 hours it hopefully will have had enough
food over that 24 hours that it's not getting too hungry by the time we
go to feed it okay I'm going to tare my scale and add the 75 grams of whole
wheat flour and then 75 grams of my water okay and just like every other day
we're going to stir that up really well make sure everything is completely
hydrated make sure the sides are scraped down now you are going to do this same
feeding every day for the next few days until your starter is starting to look
active enough to move on to the maintenance phase now I'm going to show
you in this video keep watching when my starter is ready to move on to the
maintenance phase so you're gonna do this feeding today tomorrow day six day
seven until it is ready okay I'm just going to cover this with my lid that
isn't airtight and let this sit at room temperature until tomorrow I will feed
the same thing on day 5 and day 6 I will come back and show you what the starter
should look like for you to be able to tell that you're ready to move on to the
next video which is our maintenance phase. hey guys it's Bettie and it is
actually about 8 months since I filmed that first part of this video I decided
to go ahead and re-film the second half of the video because I'm getting a lot
of the same questions and I want to clarify a few things so that you are the
most successful you can be in getting your sourdough starter going now as we
talked about in the first part of the video starting on day 4 you're going to
start with the 1-3-3 feeding now even if you haven't seen a lot of activity in
your starter you're going to move on to this feeding because giving the starter
a little more food is going to attract more yeast and bacteria into it so go
ahead and start on that feeding and you're going to continue that feeding
every day until it is ready to bake with now how do we know when it's ready to
bake with well the best way to tell if your starter is strong enough to start
leavening bread is after you feed it it doubles in size by about the 4 or 5 hour
mark that's a good indication that you have a really strong culture
and that it's going to be strong enough to leaven bread
so I actually was teaching a sourdough class online this week so I started a
few different starters a few days apart and I wanted to use this to demonstrate
to you kind of what we're looking for so this starter is on day four and I fed
all of these about four hours ago so my day four starter is not really changed
much you can see by the rubber band on it that I'm not really seeing any growth
in it yet by about the 24-hour mark when I come
back to feed this one tomorrow I'll probably see some bubbles in it but it's
not very strong yet now this one is two days older this one is on day six and
you can see I do have some growth that's at four hour mark there's some nice
bubbles in it but it still hasn't doubled in size it probably will double
in size in the 24 hour mark but that doesn't mean it's strong enough yet to
bake with this one is on day eight and you can actually see that this one has
almost doubled in size it maybe is double in size now so I might say this
one's strong enough but I would probably go ahead and continue feeding it a few
more days to just get it a little stronger so that I have a successful
first bake now this one is on day ten and you can see that it has definitely
doubled in size it's actually more than doubled in size now I want to stress
here if your starter is not following this as quickly as mine has do not
stress do not think that you have to start over or that your starter is dead
everybody starter is individual based on your environment and the yeast and
bacteria available in your environment and in the flour you're using so I often
get comments from people saying it's day five and I have no bubbles or day six
and it's still not doubling you have to be patient with starters they can be a
little bit finicky at the beginning to get going but I promise it will get
going now a few things to keep in mind to help yours move along a little better
if you aren't using 100% whole wheat flour in your starter that's really
going to help it get going the fastest whole grains are going to ferment much
faster than white flour so whole wheat flour works really well if you can get
your hands on rye flour a lot of people like to use that but I always instruct
using wheat flour because I know it's much easier for people to find now you
also want to make sure that your starter is not getting too cold I keep mine at
room temperature which in my apartment is about 72 degrees Fahrenheit if your
starter is being a little bit finicky to get going you might even want to find a
warmer spot than that some people like to keep theirs in the oven with the oven
light on because that keeps the oven a little bit warmer and that can help the
fermentation of your starter make sure you put a note on your oven so you don't
accidentally turn it on and that can be a great place to just give it a little
more warmth and keep it going make sure you're really vigorously stirring it
when you stir it because that's gonna help capture some yeast and bacteria
from the air and then just be patient now another thing I will note really
quickly is it's also really common to see a surge of activity in the first two
or three days and then for it to die down for a few days before it springs
back to life this is super common some people call it a false start and it's
actually because there are some undesirable bacteria in your starter
that the culture is trying to kind of sort through and stabilize so if that
happens to you if you get a surge and then it dies down it doesn't mean that
your starter is dead it's just that the culture is trying to stabilize and keep
going with it and it will get going now if you are at this point your starter
has at least doubles in size in about 4 or 5 hours you can go ahead and move on
to the maintenance video now in that video I'm going to show you how to
maintain your starter once it's active and how to get it ready for bread baking
I'll also let you know how you can store your starter in the refrigerator so that
you aren't having to feed it every single day if you're not baking really
often with it now if you are still struggling with getting your sourdough
starter going I am going to add a to this playlist that's all about
troubleshooting new starters so if you're still struggling a little bit go
ahead and look out for that video and that should help work through most of
the common problems I hope you are enjoying getting your sourdough starter
going and I will see you all in the next video bye