Image: Lucy Thomson
Starting a Starter
The easiest way to begin is to ask a neighbour or baker for a splinter of their starter and feed it from there. However, you can also start from scratch and get your starter up and running in just seven days.
Before you begin, ensure you are equipped with kitchen scales (measurements.are.everything), a glass jar, flour and a tap. Bear in mind that the ratio of water to flour needs to be 1:1; we’ve gone with 50ml, but if you decide to up the amount of flour to 100g, be sure to do so for the water too! Set? Let’s go.
Day 1: Thoroughly clean out a big glass jar. Boil water and leave to cool until lukewarm to touch – a filtered water also works. To the jar, add 50ml water and 50g wholemeal bread flour. Mix well and keep at room temperature.
Day 2: Add 50ml of water and 50g of wholemeal bread flour, and mix well.
Day 3: Remove half of the starter and discard, then repeat adding 50ml water, 50g flour.
Days 4, 5 and 6: Repeat day 3’s instructions.
Day 7: You should notice that the starter changes in volume and forms plenty of bubbles. A top tip to see how much your starter grows is using elastic bands stretched round the outside of the jar to mark its lowest and highest peak. Your starter is ready, set, good-to-GO! Use at its most ‘active’, when it’s at its peak volume.
Then, until your love of bread making subsides or you decide to open a bakery, continue feeding your starter as above. Once it’s developed, store the starter in the fridge and feed once a week.
Photographer Lucy Thomson, among other plea-for-help-respondents, has found that despite widespread advice that sticking to one type of flour is best, switching between grains doesn’t seem to have too detrimental an effect. “I started with wholemeal, switched to spelt, then went on to white!” she says. The possibilities, it seems, are endless – and in the interest of making the most of your store cupboard leftovers, we’d encourage being as resourceful and open-minded as possible!