Sour Dough Starter Recipe

This sour dough starter recipe is by far the best I have ever used! It is good for every sour dough bread recipe and never leaves bread plain, or turns it bitter.

Sour Dough Starter Ingredients

Sour Dough Starter Ingredients

This recipe calls for:

1 Cup Fat Free Skim Milk

3 Tablespoons Plain Yogurt

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour

Sour Dough Starter Equipment

Sour Dough Starter Equipments

For this recipe you will need:

Glass Container With Plastic Lid that Seals Tightly and has a Capacity of 32 fluid ounces (4 Cups). Do not use a canning jar with a two piece lid, they do not always seal tight enough. Mine container, pictured here, is an old Lipton Tea Mix jar that I am recycling for this purpose.

Measuring Spoons

Measuring Cups

Candy Thermometer

Sauce Pan

Wooden Spoon, and or Rubber Spatula

Sour Dough Starter Container

First Step: Container

Fill the glass container with 4 cups hot, but not boiling water. This will prepare the container for the starter and keep it warm. 

Mixing

Second Step: Dairy Products

Clip the candy thermometer on the inside of the sauce pan. Than heat 1 Cup of Fat Free Skim Milk to 95F. Immediately Remove the sauce pan from the burner and mix in 3 Tablespoons Plain Yogurt.  

Souring Starter

Third Step: Let it Sour

Making haste so that the dairy mixture dose not cool; poor the hot water out of the (warm, but not hot) glass container, dry it thoroughly, then pour the starter into the glass jar and tightly fasten the lid.

Set this in a warm place (80-90F) and let it curd for 24 hours.

Soured Starter

Curd

After 24 hours your starter should resemble a goopy, watered out yogurt with a curd on top. If there is any clear yellow liquid stir this back into the starter.

However, if this liquid has a pink tinge, throw out the starter and start over, the milk has separated. Never, Ever Use A Weird Colored Starter! You may want to get a new candy thermometer, or try a different jar, warm spot, or maybe even let your starter sit for 18 hours instead of 24. Sometimes these things just happen.

Sour Dough Starter Flour

Fourth Step: Adding Flour

Now that the curd has formed stir in 1 Cup All Purposed Flour until evenly distributed. 

Sour Dough Starter

Fifth Step: Letting it Grow

Screw the lid on tightly and place the starter back into its warm spot (80-90F). After 3 to 5 days bubbles will begin to appear in the starter. Once your starter resembles the pictures to the left, it is ready! You will want to store this in the refrigerator.

Sour Dough Starter Replenishing

Sixth Step: Replenishing Sour Dough Starter

After using your sour dough starter you can replenish it by adding more flour and warm skim milk. Make sure that you do this at least once a month if you don't use the starter often. If your container does not have room for the new products, poor just enough of the olds starter out.

Heat in a sauce pan 1 Cup Skim Milk (95F) and then mix this into your starter with 1 Cup Flour. Let this sit in a warm spot for 8 hours, or until new bubbles appear.

If you find that the sour dough starter does not create a sour taste the first time you use it in a recipe, it probably could use a little more souring time. First replenish it, then let it sit seven days in the refrigerator. If this does not work, let your skim milk go a day or two over its expiration date, replenish it again using the old milk (at least 4 days after the last time you replenished it), and "Bang! Pauw!" You'll have the greatest batch of sour dough starter ever!

Click Here For: Sour Dough Bread Recipe