How to Make an Easy Sourdough Starter

My Sourdough Starter.
Named Stanley. :)

Twice during quarantine I ran out of bread. Since I was trying to minimize my visits to the store, I was able to use instant yeast to make some bread and hamburger rolls. But as I tried to purchase more yeast, I realized that the stores were completely out.

So, what does a Foodie do when confronted with this dilemma? The only obvious answer was to make my own sourdough starter, of course!

Here's the deal, a sourdough starter has a LOT natural yeast in it -- that's how you get the bread to rise. Fortunately, yeast is everywhere -- it's even in the flour we cook with and the air we breathe! But to get a starter going, you need to get all that yeast concentrated into one place. And to do that you'll need about a week (or more), and a lot of flour, which is the food for your yeast.

What you'll need:
Flour: Try for unbleached bread flour. If you can't find any, just get unbleached all-purpose flour. The unbleached flour options have more naturally occurring yeast.
Water: Cold/luke-warm tap-water will be fine. But chlorine free/pure water is best.
A container: I recommend a .75 liter glass container. You can purchase one, but I'm using one from a pasta sauce that I bought at the store.

A Name: My sourdough starter is named Stanley.

Continue for directions