No Discard Sourdough Starter (Gluten-free Option)
A lot of my customers have asked me for advice on how to create a sourdough starter.
Many have the preconception that it is difficult and requires a lot of maintenance and waste.
They might ask, “Don’t you have to feed it every day?” or “How much do you discard?”
I’ve even gotten the “I tried, and it didn’t work!” alongside a picture of a flat, sad looking loaf or a moldy concoction of what is presumably flour mixed with water.
Honestly, I was there too. Before creating my own sourdough starter, I was apprehensive because all the online guides suggested discarding half of the starter before every feed. This meant that I would be ostensibly either throwing out cups and cups of flour per week or scrambling to find recipes to use up all that sourdough starter!
Well, I’m here to say with a little patience, water, and flour, you can make a sourdough starter without wasting and, once your starter is active, with very little maintenance.
My secret weapon: rye flour.
Rye flour contains more nutrients that the natural yeasties in sourdough starter LOVE to eat. Plus, rye creates a stiffer starter, which means it’s less likely to run out of food in between feedings.
After a week or two of feeding your starter with equal parts water and rye flour, you can switch to feeding with another type of flour (bread flour, all-purpose, even whole wheat), but first make sure that your starter is active.
You’ll know your starter is active if it looks like the picture above (on the left, we have Tim, a rye starter, and on the right, Esther, a stiff bread flour starter).
The best part is, using this system, you only really need to discard if your starter is becoming so large that it’s spilling out of the jar! This means if you feed your starter only when you need it for baking, you could get away with never discarding! (Of course, there may be times where you want to discard to create some sourdough discard goodies, but that’s for another post).
To make a gluten-free sourdough starter, follow the same instructions but use buckwheat or teff flour instead of rye flour. After two weeks, you will see little bubbles after feeding, but the bubbles will not be as pronounced as the rye-based starter.
Supplies:
32 oz Jar (or equivalent container) with Lid
Kitchen Scale
Rye Flour
Water (Tap Water is Fine)
Stirring utensil (fork or spoon is fine)
Instructions:
Always ensure that your jar, utensils, and hands are clean before feeding your starter.
Mix 25 grams water with 25 grams of rye flour in a jar with a lid. Secure the lid in between feedings to keep the bugs away (flies love sourdough).
After 12 hours, add 25 grams of water and rye flour to the same jar and mix again.
Continue to feed your starter every 12 hours for at least one week, but it could take up to two weeks depending on your climate.
You will notice bubbles start to form after a few days. That’s a good sign that things are working, but your starter is not ready yet. As step number four states, please wait at least one week before using. You will know your starter is ready because it will nearly double in size in between feedings (rye starters do not inflate as much or as quickly as starters made with white flour, so don’t worry if it doesn’t double fully) and develop many air bubbles.
Once your sourdough starter is active, you can use it for any sourdough recipe! You should use your starter as close as you can to its peak rise, that is, before your starter starts to deflate. For this rye starter, you can feed it before bed and use it the morning after without issues.
I’d recommend storing in the fridge in between uses. This puts your starter to sleep. If left at room temperature without food for too long, your starter will die! However, you can leave your starter in the fridge for several months without feeding it and it will still be alive.
If your starter is left in your fridge for a week or less, you can take your starter out the day before you want to use it and feed it once or twice.
If you need to store your starter for longer than one week, you can still store it in the fridge! The longer it’s been stored, though, the longer it will take for the starter to wake up. If my starter has been in the fridge for two weeks or longer, I would take it out a few days before I was planning on using it and feed it twice a day until it started to nearly double in between uses.
Once your starter is active you can feed it different flours, as I have done with the sourdough starter pictured on the right (Esther was made by taking some of Tim and feeding it 1:2 ratio of water and bread flour). Just note that once you start feeding it with a different flour, your starter may behave differently.
When using your sourdough starter, always leave some of it in the jar! Never use all of it or you will have to start from scratch. Once you have an established starter, as long as you take proper care of it, it will last indefinitely.
Notes
*To make a gluten-free starter, use buckwheat or teff flour instead of the rye flour and follow the same process. The bubbles will not be as pronounced, but they will still be noticeable.
