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How to Make a Sourdough Starter from Scratch

ByChef Griffin

Making your own sourdough starter—what bakers call a levain—isn’t complicated. It just takes a week of daily feedings to capture wild yeast from the air and build a culture strong enough to leaven bread and pizza dough. This streamlined method uses less flour than traditional approaches and gets you baking sooner.

Once your levain is established, you’ll have enough to make pizza dough every week (or as much as you want). The result is distinctly your own—no two starters are exactly alike.

Chef Griffin

How to Make a Sourdough Starter from Scratch

Learn how to make a sourdough starter from scratch in just a week. With simple daily feedings, you’ll capture wild yeast and build a levain strong enough to raise bread and pizza dough naturally.
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Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Equipment
  • 1 quart-sized container with lid deli containers work perfectly
  • Kitchen scale essential for accuracy
  • Tape and marker to track empty container weight
Ingredients
  • Whole wheat flour for building the starter
  • All-purpose white flour for maintenance
  • Water at specific temperatures noted below
Time commitment
  • 7 days of daily feedings
  • 5-10 minutes per day
  • After established: weekly maintenance

Method
 

Understanding the Process
  1. Wild yeast is everywhere—in the air, on grain, on your hands. When you mix flour and water and leave it out, you’re creating an environment where wild yeast can multiply. The first few days, you’re capturing yeast from your environment. By day 7, you have a living culture capable of leavening dough.
  2. Important note: Your environment matters. If you live in wine country or near farms during harvest season, there’s more ambient yeast in the air and your culture will become active faster. In drier climates like Arizona, it may take more effort. Don’t get discouraged—it will work.
Day 1: Starting the Culture
  1. Any time of day:
  2. Weigh your empty quart container and write the weight on tape attached to the outside. You’ll need this reference later.
Mix by hand:
  1. 100g water (100°F/38°C)
  2. 100g whole wheat flour
  3. Combine in your container until fully integrated.
  4. Leave out at room temperature without the lid for 2 hours to capture wild yeast from the air.
  5. After 2 hours, put the lid on loosely.
  6. What’s happening: You’re creating the initial environment for wild yeast to colonize.
Day 2: First Real Feeding
  1. Evening (24-36 hours after Day 1):
  2. Add to your existing culture:
  3. 100g water (100°F/38°C)
  4. 100g whole wheat flour
  5. Mix by hand until integrated.
  6. Let sit out on the counter with the lid off for 2 hours to capture natural yeast floating in the air.
  7. After 2 hours, cover it.
  8. What’s happening: You’re feeding the developing yeast colony and continuing to capture ambient yeast.
Day 3: It’s Alive
  1. Evening (48 hours from start):
  2. By now your culture should be gassy—you’ll see bubbles. This is good! It means fermentation is happening.
  3. Remove about half of the mixture (easiest with a wet hand) and discard it.
  4. Add to the remainder:
  5. 100g water (100°F/38°C)
  6. 100g whole wheat flour
  7. Mix by hand until integrated.
  8. Leave out at room temperature, covered.
  9. What’s happening: Removing half prevents the culture from becoming too acidic. Fresh flour and water feed the growing yeast population.
Day 4: Building Strength
  1. Evening:
  2. Remove about three-quarters of the bubbly mixture and discard.
  3. Add to the remainder:
  4. 100g water (85-90°F/29-32°C) – slightly cooler now
  5. 100g whole wheat flour
  6. Mix until integrated.
  7. Leave out at room temperature, covered.
  8. What’s happening: The culture is developing. Cooler water slows fermentation slightly for better control.
Day 5: Transition to Mixed Flour
  1. Evening:
  2. Using the empty container weight for reference, remove and discard all but 50g of your culture.
  3. Add:
  4. 150g water (85°F/29°C)
  5. 75g whole wheat flour
  6. 75g all-purpose white flour
  7. Mix by hand until integrated.
  8. Leave out at room temperature, covered.
  9. What’s happening: You’re transitioning to a blend of flours. The culture is getting stronger and more predictable.
Day 6: Almost Ready
  1. Evening:
  2. Your wild yeast culture is almost ready to use.
  3. Remove and discard all but 50g of your culture.
  4. Add:
  5. 100g water (85°F/29°C)
  6. 100g all-purpose white flour
  7. Mix by hand until integrated.
  8. Let sit out overnight, covered.
  9. What’s happening: Now you’re using all white flour. The culture is nearly mature.
Day 7: Ready to Bake
  1. Morning:
  2. Your culture should feel gassy and goopy with a nice lactic, slightly alcoholic fragrance. This is what an active starter smells like.
  3. Pop it in the fridge. Tonight you can mix a pizza dough starter, and tomorrow morning make pizza dough for pizza tomorrow evening.
  4. What’s happening: Your levain is now mature and ready to leaven dough. Refrigeration slows activity until you’re ready to use it.
Maintaining Your Levain
  1. Once established, maintenance is simple:
  2. Weekly feeding schedule:
Once per week (to a week and a half), remove all but 25g of levain from the container and discard.
  1. Add:
  2. 100g all-purpose white flour
  3. 100g water (85°F/29°C)
  4. Mix by hand.
  5. Let sit out for 10-12 hours at room temperature.
  6. Put back in the fridge.
  7. This gives you enough active starter to make four batches of pizza dough. If you need more, double the feeding: 50g culture, 200g white flour, 200g water at 85°F.
Using Your Levain for Pizza
  1. The workflow:
  2. Evening: Remove about 50g of refrigerated master culture and use it to make a fresh starter/levain for your pizza dough (mix with 100g water at 100°F and 100g flour).
  3. Next morning: Mix the pizza dough using your overnight levain.
  4. 2 hours later: Shape into dough balls.
  5. That evening or next day: Make pizza.
  6. Once you learn the rhythm, you barely notice the time it takes. The result is pizza with complex flavor that’s distinctly yours.

Notes

Troubleshooting

My culture isn’t bubbling:
  • Room too cold? Try a warmer spot (70-75°F is ideal)
  • Not enough time? Give it another day
  • Chlorinated water? Try filtered or bottled water
It smells bad (not sour, but rotten):
  • This is rare but means contamination
  • Start over with clean equipment
It separated (liquid on top):
  • This is “hooch” – just alcohol from fermentation
  • Either stir it back in or pour it off
  • Feed your starter more frequently
It’s too liquid/too thick:
  • Adjust flour/water ratio slightly in next feeding
  • Consistency should be like thick pancake batter
Mold on top:
  • Throw it out and start over
  • Make sure your container and hands are clean

 

Why This Method Works

 
This approach uses whole wheat flour initially because it contains more wild yeast than white flour—it’s less processed and retains more of the grain’s natural ecosystem. Once the culture is established, you transition to white flour for a milder flavor and more predictable performance.
The gradual feeding schedule builds yeast population slowly and steadily. By day 7, you have billions of yeast cells ready to ferment dough.

 

What Makes Your Starter Unique

 
Every levain culture is unique to its environment. The specific mix of wild yeast and bacteria in your starter comes from:
  • Your local air
  • Your flour
  • Your water
  • Your kitchen environment
  • Even your hands
This is why San Francisco sourdough tastes different from New York sourdough. Your levain will have its own character—its own flavor profile that develops over time.

Final Thoughts

 
Building a sourdough starter from scratch connects you to thousands of years of bread-making tradition. Before commercial yeast, this was how all bread was leavened. You’re not just making a leavening agent—you’re cultivating a living culture that, with proper care, can last for decades.
Some bakers maintain starters that are 50, 100, even 150 years old, passed down through generations. Your starter begins its life today, but with weekly feedings, it could outlive you.
That’s pretty special.

Next Steps

 
Once your levain is established:
  1. Try making your first sourdough pizza dough
  2. Experiment with sourdough bread
  3. Share some of your starter with friends (they can skip the 7-day build and just maintain yours)
  4. Name your starter (yes, bakers do this)
The hardest part is the first week. After that, it’s just a few minutes of maintenance every 7-10 days, and you have the foundation for exceptional pizza and bread whenever you want it.

Comforting flavors, artful technique.

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