This rye sourdough starter can change your life. Seriously. It not only creates a traditional rye bread with all the flavor of classic bread but it yields health benefits as well when compared to commercially made wheat bread. Here’s how to make it.
Rye Sourdough Starter
Ingredients
- Day 1: Make the Rye Sourdough Starter
- Days 2 to 7: Refresh the Rye Sourdough Starter
- Days 8 and Beyond: Maintain the Rye Sourdough Starter
Directions
Start with equal amounts of organic rye flour and water by weight. Dump them in a nonreactive (glass, porcelain, stainless-steel, plastic) container, mix by hand into a stiff paste, cover, and let stand at room temperature (68 to 72°For 20 to 22°C) for 24 hours.
The next day, discard all but 70 grams of the culture and mix the remainder with the refresh ingredients, cover, and let stand. Repeat each day, discarding all but 70 grams of the preceding day’s culture.
In a perfect world—or in a working bakery—sourdough starters are refreshed daily. That said, daily feedings demand both a degree of dedication and abundant flour supplies that are impractical for all but the most committed home bakers. You can get by refreshing your starter every 36 hours or so.
Mix the rye flour, water, and rye sourdough starter by hand until incorporated. Cover and ferment at room temperature (68 to 72°F or 20 to 22°C) overnight or for 10 to 12 hours. The sponge will be very bubbly, have a clean sour smell, and will have tripled in volume. Store refrigerated in an airtight container and it will last indefinitely. Originally published January 21, 2017.
Recipe Testers' Reviews
The rye starter was easy to make and quick. It took about 5 minutes each of the 7 days. Mine smelled great and seemed consistent after the week of feedings. I switched to the refresh amounts after that and it stayed nice and healthy.
During the buildup, you end up tossing about 2/3 of it away. I definitely recommend a scale versus just using volume measurements.
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Hi! I live in Manila, Philippines so the normal room temp in our kitchen is about 26-28 C. I’m wondering if that will be an issue for my starter, or if it’s even possible to grow the starter given our kitchen temperature.
Nicole, you shouldn’t have trouble getting your starter going. Starters love warm temperatures, however, it will likely grow quickly and require feeding more often if you leave it at room temperature permanently.
Does that mean from Days 1 to 7 I shouldn’t wait for 24 hrs until the next feeding? Maybe I could feed it every 12 hours?
Nicole, start out following the instructions because you need that time to get it established. Feeding it too often at this stage won’t allow that necessary bacteria to establish itself. Once you’ve got it going (ie. it’s bubbly and happy and doubling after a feeding), if you find that it doubles very fast (ie. in 2 hours) then you’ll want to feed it more often, though if you’re not baking frequently with it, you may choose to just keep it in the fridge and feed once a week.
Under the ingredient list at the top, under “maintain” you list 0.25 ounces (7 grams) of the initial starter to be used each day. Under the actual instructions, you say to keep 70 grams and toss the rest. Which quantity is it?
Michael, the instruction where it indicates to keep 70 grams of the starter is in the refresh stage, for the first week or so until your starter is established. The maintain amount (7 g) is later, once you’ve got a healthy starter.
I’m on day 3 and so far it looks like things are progressing well. The one question I have is should I be removing/isolating the 70g each day and cleaning out the jar before putting everything back in or does it matter? Seems neater…
You have a couple options, Phil. You can try to scrape down the sides to keep everything as clean and tidy as possible, but it does get a little messy and will need to be cleaned eventually, but you don’t have to do it every time. Or you can have a second jar, which you transfer your new starter to for the refresh (this is also a little easier for weighing), then you can clean out the old jar and have it ready for the next refresh, and so on.
Why only 7 grams and not 70 grams of starter on day 8 and beyond?
At this point, you’re just maintaining it and not growing the starter, Michael, so you only need a small amount. Otherwise, you’d end up with more starter than you knew what to do with!
I am a tad confused about the amount of ingredients weighed. Starts with ounces but then says to discard all except 70 grams of the starter?
I can see how that would be confusing, Alexis. The recipe was written with metric units in mind, and although we do include the ounce ingredient weights under the US tab, if you toggle to the metric tab (above the ingredients) you’ll see all of the metric weights listed, which are in grams. If it’s helpful to you, 70 grams is equivalent to 2 1/2 ounces.