About 24 hours after you have first made the batter for your sourdough started you will need to feed your starter. By this time you my see some changes your batter is going through. You may notice small air bubbles on the surface and throughout your batter, you batter will smell like beer. All of these sings indicate your sourdough starter progressing well.
Most of the recipes will tell you to discard half of your starter when feeding your sourdough starter. If you don’t, you will end up with several gallons of started in a few days- enough to bake bread for everyone on your block!
After you discard half your your starter (presuming you started with one cup of water and one cup of flour to begin with), add half a cup of each – warm water and flour. You may have to repeat this process of feeding your starter every 24 hours for several days in the road. You know your starter is ready to be used in baking is when you see the surface of your starter is bumbling and forming a froth and your starter has a strong beery smell. When you have all that, your starter can now be used for baking and stored in refrigerator – more about storing your starer in the upcoming posts.
It will all depend on the climate you live in. As I mentioned in my previous post, my starter is ready to use for baking in about 48 hours after I initially mixed the batter for the first time.
What to do with the hooch?
You are probably wondering if making sourdough starter resembles in anyway the process of brewing? It is exactly what we are dealing with when making sourdough bread starter – brewing, of course the ingredients are different ingredients than in beer or wine making.
In the process of brewing (including sourdough starter) alcohol is produced – hence hooch. If you keep your starter in the refrigerator, the hooch will accumulate on the top of the starter. If you keep your starter in the room temperature while feeding it daily, your hooch will be towards the bottom of your jar.
There is no need to worry about hooch in your sourdough starter, it will not hurt your starter at all. You can discard it or stir it right back into your starter – it does not make a difference, as far as I know. I used to discard the hooch from my starter if I thought the starter is getting too wet, and sir it right in if I thought the starter was getting too dry. I no longer discard the hooch, I just add less water in the feeding process if I think my starter is getting too wet.
Supposedly Alaskan miners use to drink the hooch from sourdough. I imagine when aged/or distilled it can be drinkable, just as any alcoholic beverage. It does not taste that good when taken right from your starter, so don’t drink it, take my word for it.
If you have questions about making the sourdough starter or would like to share your experience, please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments bellow.
In the next post, I will share how I make my sourdough bread once my starter is ready for action. Please join our newsletter if you do not want to miss the next post: