The Sourdough Experience

DISCLAIMER: if you are a sourdough person, read at your own risk. What I documented will probably stress you out and you will most likely judge me by the end of this post.😂 I realized some of the things I did wrong after the fact. This is the raw, unfiltered learning experience.

A few days ago, I sat here, unsure of what to write. I wanted to document my sourdough experience, but my starter really hadn't gone as planned...If you remember my 2025 goals post, you will remember that I planned to use Leila Lawler's "No discard" starter. I tried it but wasn't happy with the results.

Maybe if I would have waited for more activity, it would have been fine. However, I got discouraged after what seemed like many days of no bubbles. 

After doing more research and turning my YouTube algorithm into nothing but sourdough videos, I came across this video by The Farmhouse Mom and decided that maybe it wasn't as hard as I thought... Here is what happened:

first sourdough loaf💗to show there is a happy ending to this story

Day 1

I mixed half a cup of water with a little less than a cup of flour and let it sit in a warm spot in the kitchen.

 (This was one of the struggles I had with the Lawler starter early on. She said it had to be in a warm spot, so I tried a lot of different things; turning on the oven then turning it off and placing the starter on the stove, putting it in the oven on warm (this led to a cooked starter😐), in the microwave with the door cracked so the light remained on. Now I'm wondering how important that intentional warm spot actually is. Currently, on the countertop, next to the stove, is what has worked best...)

Day 2

Some bubbles, but nothing crazy. I repeated steps from day one.

Day 3

Again, some bubbles, repeated the steps from yesterday.

Day 4

In the morning, not much had changed. We were going to be gone all day, so I fed the starter as I did on days one and two. I left it in the opened microwave and when I came home that night, it had risen beautifully. I actually have a picture because this was during the hunting trip and I was so shocked when I came home, I had to send my husband a photo. It doubled in size!

Day 5

When I woke up the next morning, the starter was deflated and there was a liquid on top. Now, if you know anything about sourdough starter, you know that just means it's hungry. I was not aware of that at the time and so I just fed it as normal. I think it was over-hungry, and I added too much water. Because, after that day, the starter was watery, and the bubbles were mostly on the bottom. There was also a paint like smell, but Google assured me that was normal. I kept going, a little bit worried...

Day 6

Oh! I forgot to mention that during days four through seven I was supposed to feed the starter twice a day. Some days I did, others I didn't. (Day four, I did not. That's why I think it was just super hungry on that day) 

The starter's consistency was still watery on day six, although not as much liquid as the previous day. I added more flour and less water, then carried on with more discouragement in my heart.

Day 7

I repeated the same thing I've been doing. The discarding was feeling awfully wasteful at this point. If I did it again, I would pick a recipe that uses less so I don't have to discard as much. 

From this point on, I began discarding more and cutting back on my measurements of flour and water to have less waste. No exact measurements here- just making it more on the thick side to avoid another day four problem. All confidence is gone at this point.

Day 8 

I didn't do anything different on day eight, except I almost threw it all away. Then I remembered my husband saw my discard jar and I knew he'd be mad if I went and wasted all that flour. So, I held on to it for another day, continuing to pretend like I knew what I was doing...Because the measurement had become so little, I went back to the original schedule, feeding half a cup of water and a little less than a cup of flour, twice a day. (Wow, just writing this is stressing me out😂)

Day 9

On day nine, I caved and borrowed some starter from my sister-in-law. And then there were two starters. Mine still looked the same. Few bubbles on the bottom...not much rising...even hours after I fed it. I will say, the paint smell went away. 

When I brought the older starter home that night, I noticed mine rose a little more than it had been. I fed it for the second time that day, then let them sit on the counter all night.

Day 10 

Wouldn't you know my little starter, (after I decided to ask for help of course) started to look much better. Maybe it was also my consistent feedings that helped bring it back too. Or who knows, maybe all it needed was some company on the countertop! Not as good as the older starter, but there was a slower but higher rise, and the bubbles multiplied.

 I fed them both in the morning, doing a 1-1-1 ratio, based on how much starter I kept after discarding. I made dough with the good starter, which was encouraging after days of feeding with no results. The recipe is linked here.

Day 11 

It was on this day that I awoke, unsure of what to write. It had been over a week and still, I wasn't sure I could do anything with my starter. Was I just going to be feeding it forever? I almost gave up, thinking I would just bake with my sister-in-law's starter and forgo the documentation of my own. 

I baked the bread that had been sitting in the fridge all night and fed the starters in the morning. My heart was happy when the bread actually turned out well. (That is the picture you saw above) Not as impressive as using my own starter, but it was a good feeling that the bread actually turned out good! 

I went to bed a little more hopeful, as my starter rose a little bit more and looked much like the other one. I think it was helpful to have a visual of what it should look like and having a good starter was helpful to not forget feeding times and to keep measurements precise. 

Before bed, I fed the starters again.

Day 12

On day twelve, I'm proud to say, that despite all odds, my starter doubled in size by the morning!! Here is what it looked like:

Yay!

What I learned

After thirteen days of building up my starter, here are some things I learned and some things I would do differently if I was starting over again.

1. If I had to do it all over again, I would take a bit of someone else's starter first. Learn how it should look and how the process works. Then, when I felt confident enough in that, I would try making my own. I'll be honest- although I watched a ton of videos, it was still hard to tell if what I had done was correct. I couldn't tell if my starter had a "fruity" smell, and no one really makes tutorials about what should be done in every single circumstance. On top of that, everyone has a different environment, so it's going to look unique for each person anyway. As I mentioned before, having a real life visual that I could copy in consistency and feeding times, was super helpful. 

2. Being consistent is important. Pick instructions for a starter and do that consistently. No matter what. Don't go to bed without feeding the starter that has doubled in size. (seriously, I think that would have saved me a lot of grief) Looking back, I can see that when I was consistent, I got that beautiful starter on day four. It was when I skipped a feeding and changed measurements that I got wonky results. 

3. Actually, making the sourdough bread is not as intimidating as I once thought it was. It took one loaf for me to understand the baking process and all the different tools and terms. Now I find it addicting! All I have to do is feed my starter and in the next 8 hours I can try something new!! Next I want to try a discard recipe😍

I hope you got a little joy out of reading this sourdough experience experiment! And I hope it inspires you to make your own sourdough if you aren't already.  The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work. And it's such a cool part of homemaking. No more realizing you can't bake because you don't have any yeast packets left! Woohoo!

Last picture before I sign off: my first loaf with my own starter! My husband requested a cinnamon raisin bread, so I made it look like a giant cinnamon roll. 😁 Recipe linked here!

Happy homemaking!

Gina💕