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Chances are, your mother or grandmother kept things on her counter that required daily attention, be it house plants, a cookie jar she refilled constantly, or a pie cooling just in case a neighbor dropped by. A sourdough starter fits right into that tradition, and thanks to a pandemic boom and celebrities like Taylor Swift jumping on the bandwagon, bread baking is on the rise (pun intended).
Erik Fabian, founder of Sourhouse in Asheville, started his first sourdough starter in a cold New York apartment. It took him much trial and error to get it right, and it wasn’t until temperatures began warming up outside that things started working.
Then, when COVID hit in March 2020, Erik was in Florida with family, transitioning from marketing consultant to stay-at-home dad balancing homeschooling and newborn duties. He sketched out an idea for a warming device based on that first frustrating experience, shared it with his friend Jenny, and eventually launched a Kickstarter for what became Goldie—Sourhouse’s flagship sourdough starter warmer.
“Sourdough was a big comfort to people during that period,” Erik says. “The practice of sourdough is generosity. You end up sharing your starter, sharing your bread. You become the most popular person in your neighborhood once you become a good baker.”
It doesn’t get more Southern than that, folks. So whether you’ve already jumped in and are looking to troubleshoot a roadblock, or you’ve found yourself staring at some flour having not a clue where to go from here, Erik is kicking off our Southern Home Ec series with everything you need to know about how to start a sourdough starter.
What You Need
Good news—sourdough doesn’t require specialized equipment or fancy ingredients. You need a jar, clean utensils (a wood or silicone spoon, chopstick, or spatula), a way to mark your jar (a rubber band or silicone band works), a kitchen scale, a towel for spills, and some good flour and water.
For flour, Erik recommends keeping it simple: unbleached, unbromated all-purpose or bread flour. Organic is optional.
“Use simple ingredients,” he says. “You can get more experimental later, but when you’re starting out, don’t overcomplicate it.”
Water should be anything you’re willing to drink—filtered, bottled, distilled. Warm it slightly, but keep it less than your body temperature. You’re aiming for what Sourhouse calls the “Goldilocks Zone”: 75-82°F for your starter. Different temperatures create different flavors—hotter temps lean more lactic and yogurt-like, colder temps get more acidic and vinegary—but the Goldilocks Zone is your sweet spot for consistency.
“As you become a more advanced baker, you may wish to get outside that zone,” Erik explains. “But we present this as a good middle ground.”
Day One: The Initial Mix
Roll up your sleeves and get ready to launch into your new favorite hobby! Here’s the step-by-step process for your initial sourdough mix:
- Turn on your scale.
- Add 20 grams of flour to your jar.
- Add 20 grams of water.
- Stir well (everything must be incorporated).
- Cover your jar.
- Put your silicone band at the height where the mixture sits now so you can track growth.
- Place it somewhere warm.
How do you measure success on day one? You’re looking for bubbles to pop up after a few minutes to a few hours to show signs of life.
Days Two Through Seven: The Feeding Routine
Feeding your starter is the next step in the process. The yeast and bacteria need fresh flour and water to thrive, so you’ll need to get into a daily routine of giving your new tabletop friend some daily attention.
You’re going for a 1:1 ratio. Now that you have 40 grams of starter in your jar, add 40 grams of flour and 40 grams of water. Stir well and move your band to mark the new height. Now, your jar will have 160 grams of starter in it, and eventually, you won’t be able to maintain the 1:1 ratio without discarding some of your existing starter first. While that may feel wasteful, read on for some fun ways you can use your discard.
Now, we’ve all been taught that patience is a virtue, and it’s important to put it into practice here. Things might look sluggish, smell off, or seem like they’re not progressing for a few days, but this is completely normal. Don’t throw in the towel on your new hobby just yet! Activity usually picks up around day six or seven, and you’ll know you’re getting close when the bubbles become more consistent and the smell shifts from funky to pleasantly tangy.
Once your starter can double in size within six hours of feeding, you’re ready to bake your first loaf. Remember, your silicone band is key for marking progress!
Troubleshooting Tips
As with men and most things in life, there are red flags and false flags involved in sourdough starters. Here’s how to tell the difference:
Red flags (toss it and start over):
- Pink or orange discoloration anywhere in your starter
- Fuzzy mold of any color
False flags (totally fine, keep going):
- Smells like alcohol (it’s just hungry—feed it)
- Looks sluggish or separated (stir and feed)
- Smells funky or off (normal during the first week)
How Often to Feed
Where you keep your starter determines how often you need to feed it. If your starter lives on the counter, you’ll need to feed it daily like a hungry teenager. If it’s in the fridge, once a week or once every two weeks will do. It can technically last longer between feedings, but Erik notes that a starter fed regularly and as often as possible is the healthiest and produces the best bread.
“A bakery is feeding their starter twice a day so it won’t get too acidic,” he says. “If you keep it in the fridge most of the time, pull it out for a day or so before you want to bake.”
Erik recommends keeping your starter on the counter, at least while you’re getting the hang of things.
“By watching the rise and fall, you learn more about it, and it makes you a better baker. That’s a practice of slowing down—getting in the rhythm of your starter. In many ways, we’re becoming our grandmothers again. Hobbies and skills that were well-known in the past—we have all these distractions now, but having a thing that you have to tend to daily is grounding.”
Don’t Dis Your Discard
Once your starter is mature enough to bake with, you can finally put that discard to work instead of tossing it down the drain. Erik’s made apple fritters and sourdough donuts with his. He’s also used it as a thickener for soups and stews.
“Amy Bakes recommends using discard as a roux base for biscuits and gravy,” Erik says. “That’s really cool because it adds complexity.”
Beyond Bread
Erik’s taken his sourdough well past the standard loaf. He’s made pizzas, bagels, Chinese steamed buns, and roti Chennai—a laminated flatbread typically dipped in curry, usually unleavened but turning out beautifully when you give it the sourdough treatment.
“You can do a lot with this,” he says. “Once you get comfortable with the basics, the applications open up.”
Translation: once you’ve nailed the basics, you can get weird with it. And you should, you’re keeping an edible thing alive on your counter, after all.
How to Have Fun With It
Erik notes that there’s a lot of mystery and romance around old starters—lineages passed down through generations, stories about starters that survived wars and cross-country moves. Some people get really into it, naming their starters like pets and tracking their history like a family tree. I once interviewed an award-winning pastry chef at a swanky Italian restaurant whose starter was an “island girl” she had acquired from the Caribbean.
Others approach it more scientifically, focused on ratios and fermentation times and microbe populations.
“A lot of people name their starters like a pet and have fun with that. There are more scientifically minded folks who don’t do that. But does it matter for us who are just baking bread? It’s fun to tell a story.”
Here’s what does matter scientifically: starters change based on what flour you feed them, but they also adapt to their environment—the microbes on your hands, the air in your kitchen, the humidity in your region. Studies have found higher percentages of beneficial microbes on bakers’ hands, which means every time you mix your starter, you’re literally putting a bit of yourself into it.
“It’s symbiotic,” Erik says. “We’ve coevolved together. These are all creatures that have evolved with humans.”
Erik’s based in Asheville now, a city he calls “the sourdough capital of the South.” The region has a thriving community of bakeries, millers, and farmers, and Southern Appalachia’s melting pot of cultures extends right into bread-making innovation. Asheville even hosts a bread festival every other year, drawing bakers from across the region to compare notes and swap starters.
Sourhouse has everything you need to start your journey with ease, from Goldie, the warmer that started it all, to flour, knives, Dutch ovens, and more.
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