If You're Making a Sourdough Starter For the First Time, Here's a Daily Guide in Pictures

First, let's get this out of the way. There are as many sourdough starter recipes as there are humans making sourdough starter. Trust me, I've read (almost) all of them. This is both good and bad. It's good because there's a lot of wiggle room, and if you need to adjust the ratios of ingredients along the way, that's totally OK; you can make a successful sourdough starter without following some magic formula. It's bad because there is no magic formula. It's not like simply following the step-by-step instructions for a cake recipe. Your success depends on a number of factors like the type of flour you use and the temperature of your house, and it requires constant monitoring and adjusting and going with your gut. What does it smell like? What's the texture like? How much is it growing throughout the day? Where is it at its peak? What color is it?

For my starter, I started off using this simple recipe from Food 52, but eventually (after some recommendations from other bread-making friends), I switched to this recipe from The Perfect Loaf. If your photos and experience vary wildly from mine, that's totally OK — every starter is different!

It's helpful to put a rubber band on the jar to mark where the sourdough starter is so you can see how much it rises and falls throughout the day. Here are some other notes on tools and ingredients:

The second day is when I got cocky and learned a valuable lesson. Using 100-percent all-purpose flour (which was the only kind I had on hand) was a mistake. It encouraged "bad bacteria" that made the starter look like it was an overachiever, getting bubbly and active and even doubling in size by the afternoon (which usually doesn't happen for multiple days). Warning: this is a false start that actually prolonged my starter growth in the long run.

By the afternoon of the second day, the sourdough starter started smelling really bad, like moldy-death-garbage-vomit-bad. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I had to hold my nose to feed it for the next few days — it was terrible. I should have started using rye or whole wheat at this point, but I didn't because I was worried about switching flours. Don't make the same mistake I did!

Instead, I started stirring it throughout the day (something I read would help with the smell), and feeding it twice a day (every 8-12 hours). I would also thoroughly clean the jar before every feeding.

As you can see, the sourdough starter was more than doubled in size on day three, with "hooch" on the bottom. It also still smelled terrible. Hooch is a clear-to-dark-colored liquid that can collect at the top or the bottom of your starter when it's hungry and needs a feeding. It's normal and not a sign it's gone bad or moldy. However, watch out for a pink or orange tint or streak, as this is actually a sign that your sourdough starter has gone bad and should be tossed (it's unlikely to happen unless you've left it out for weeks without feeding).

This is what the top looked like in the morning of day three before it was fed. When you stir a starter that has risen up like this, it'll deflate and have a light, airy "honeycomb" texture. (But just remember, this isn't a strong starter yet, it still has the smelly bacteria making it look like this.)

What you're aiming for, eventually, is a predictable rise and fall every eight to 12 hours. You want to feed it "at the top," or just when you see streaks that show it's starting to fall. That's when you know you're on the right track.

As you can see, this is what the hooch looks like on on the top of the starter. This was at night on the third day before I fed it. One thing I learned through this process is that you don't necessarily need to stick to an exact schedule. You should follow the signs the starter is giving you for when it's hungry, and then adjust as needed to speed up or slow down the starter to fit your schedule. Visible hooch, a sweet apple/pear smell, or a nail polish remover smell are all signs it should be fed.

On the fourth day, activity was starting to die down and the starter was thickening up. The smell, unfortunately, was still awful.

Since the (still smelly) starter had slowed way down in terms of activity, I only fed it every 24 hours starting on the fifth day. I also tweaked my measurements slightly based on yet another sourdough starter recipe.

By the sixth day, the smell was still bad, but not as strong.

By the seventh day, the sourdough starter pretty much looked like it had regressed back to day 1. I decided to try switching to white-wheat flour (not whole wheat yet, since I had a hard time finding it at the store).

On the eighth day, it had a slight crust on the top before being fed, and this was the first day (finally) that it started to smell sour and bread-y! Huzzah! Honestly, I can't even tell you how relieved I was for the horrific smell to be gone.

Let's talk about sourdough starter discard! So around the time the sourdough starter began smelling like something edible, I decided to start saving the discard in a sealed container I kept in the fridge. I've since been on a roll using this discard in a number of recipes, including pancakes, flatbread, cheese crackers, and even chocolate chip cookies. I highly recommend this supereasy sourdough discard cracker recipe to start. It's especially great because it doesn't require any additional flour, just discard.

After several days of minimal activity, day 10 was when the sourdough starter finally started coming back to life with bubbles and rise.

The smell also totally changed to sweet apples and pears — a welcome change from its early stinky days. According to the internet, this means it's hungry, but it has kept this smell pretty much consistently ever since.

Finally seeing more consistent rise, with a thinner, more honeycomb-like texture.

Good rise and a hint of a sour edge to the sweet apples and pears scent.

Didn't get as much height on day 13, but I adjusted its placement in the house and started covering it with an extra towel to keep it dark and warm. A couple of my bread-making friends suggested I should keep it out of direct sunlight. Another suggestion that I found helpful was to have a lid or plate on top of your jar, not just a tea towel. I put a heavier plate on my jar on day 8 that may have helped, but with unpredictable house temperatures, it's hard to know for sure.

After two weeks, we were finally in business. By the afternoon, the starter had more than doubled (almost at the top of the jar) and was bubbly and smelling more yeast-y.

Since my sourdough starter was rising and falling more predictably, actively bubbly, and smelling good, I decided to prep it for making a focaccia recipe the next day. I simply adjusted the ratios to create a "levain" (aka "leaven") that would be big enough to use in my recipe.

This was also the day I finally started using a kitchen scale (so measurements are in grams from now on) and the day I finally started using whole-wheat flour to give the starter a boost ahead of bread making.

It wasn't quite ready to be used in my focaccia recipe on the morning of day 15, so I gave my levain another feeding.

In the afternoon of day 15, the sourdough starter had more than doubled in size and was active enough to use for focaccia. I also tested it out by dropping a piece of it into a cup of water to see if it would float (it did!). This is how you can test if your sourdough starter is mature enough to use in a recipe.

(In case you were wondering, the focaccia was a complete and utter disaster unrelated to my trusty sourdough starter. But I'm not giving up.)

It was quite a roller coaster, but by day 16, my sourdough starter was healthy, active, and rising and falling predictably. Now my next challenge will be actually making a loaf of sourdough bread! Wish me luck!

Some final notes:

Once your sourdough starter is strong and healthy, you can pare it down so that you're not using as much flour (and discarding as much). I'm currently using the ratios from this recipe for a smaller sourdough starter, which is 5 grams sourdough starter, 25 grams flour, and 25 grams water.

Another option is to put it in the refrigerator and then you only need to feed it once a week. You will want to take it out a few days before you plan to bake with it and feed it two-three times at room temperature.

Hope this was helpful, it's the yeast I could do.