You can find endless methods for making sourdough starter. Some are quite technical and complicated. Here is my super simple method for making a sourdough starter for scratch that I have personally tested many times.
Use it for making sourdough bread, and for making tasty sourdough waffles and pancakes. Sourdough bread is far healthier than bread raised with commercial yeast, because the fermentation process removes most harmful anti-nutrients from the grain. The flavor is also incomparable.
Tools and Ingredients
2 glass 1-quart Mason jars
Coffee filters
Rubber band
1/2 cup measuring cup
All-purpose flour
Filtered or spring water
It will take 10-14 days for your starter to be ready, so please be patient.
I highly recommend using all-purpose flour for this, I find it works best and is the least messy.
Add 1/2 cup of flour and a bit less than 1/2 cup of water to the mason jar. Mix well with a spoon. Cover the jar with a coffee filter, secure the coffee filter in place with a rubber band. Leave the jar on your kitchen counter.
The next day, do the same thing. Add 1/2 cup flour and a bit less than 1/2 cup water to what is already in the jar, mix, cover.
Continue doing this every day until your jar is 3/4 full. When it is 3/4 full, dump out most of the starter until the jar is 1/3 full, and continue.
When your jar starts getting really crusted, move the starter to the clean jar and keep going there.
Continue doing this until your starter is ready. It is ready when it doubles in size a few hours after feeding. It gets very bubbly and puffy. This takes 10-14 days, depending on the temperature of your kitchen. Now it is ready to make delicious breads and pancakes!
Maintenance: use the exact same procedure to keep your starter alive, only don’t ever throw the starter away, use it to make pancakes or waffles. Once the starter is ready, you can feed it every 2 days instead of every 1 day if you would like. You can also put it in the fridge and feed it once a week.
Enjoy your sourdough journey!