Gluten Free Sourdough Starter Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How much should I feed my gluten-free sourdough starter? ›

Maintaining at Room Temperature: If you use your gluten-free sourdough starter a lot (3-4 times a week), I recommend keeping it at room temperature and feeding it once daily. I like to stay with the 1:1: 1 ratio but drop my overall numbers to 25 grams. You can go as little as 5 grams if you like.

To get started, first you'll need to learn How to Make a Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter! All it takes is gluten-free flour, water, and time. This process takes about one to two weeks, twice a day in the beginning, but only takes a few minutes for each feeding.

Sometime between days 5 and 10, you'll notice that within several hours after feeding the starter will have grown in size to between 2 1/4 and 2 3/4 cups. At this point it's ready to use in your recipe.

Most commonly, the issue here has to do with temperature (which is very important). If your sourdough starter is kept at a low temp, even 70°F (21°C), it will slow fermentation activity and appear to be sluggish, taking longer to rise and progress through the typical signs of fermentation. The solution: keep it warm.

Typical feeding ratios are 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 (old sourdough: fresh flour: water). However, even extreme ratios like 1:50:50 would still work. In that case, the freshly fed sourdough would just require more or much more time to grow and reach its peak, as judged by the maximum volume increase in the jar (at least doubled).

Your sourdough starter can be runny because:

You're not weighing your ingredients accurately or measuring by volume. It's too warm in your kitchen. The flour you're using needs less hydration. You're not feeding your starter regularly enough.

100% hydration starter is a little more complicated in gluten free sourdough than it is in regular. Gluten free flours are often incredibly thirsty, meaning they'll need a lot more water than regular flour. Your starter needs to be the consistency of a thick paste in order to ferment.

Without an active, happy starter, your bread will be dense and won't rise well when it hits the oven. I feed my starter with brown rice flour, but you can use sorghum, millet, or most other wholegrain flours for your starter.

The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour.

Feed starter with GF flour and water every 4 hours by using one of the following methods: If using a scale to measure ingredients, combine equal amounts by weight of starter, water, and GF flour. For instance, 50 grams of starter, 50 grams of water, 50 grams of GF flour.

Can you overproof gluten free sourdough? ›

PROOF: place the dough (still in the banneton) and inside a plastic bag. Rest at room temperature until it has risen, feels puffy, spongy and soft on the sides and in the centre. It is easy to overproof gluten free doughs.

If your bread comes out of the oven and its gummy and sticky inside that is usually the result of too short a bake time or the flour you used (see my troubleshooting guide for more info). Additionally, the bonds or network that xanthan gum makes are somewhat fragile.

For about two weeks, I recommend you feed your developing starter with brown rice flour only, and then after the starter reliably doubles, you'll switch to a 50:50 mix of brown rice flour and Breadtopia gluten free bread flour.

If you can let the gluten free bread dough rise overnight in a cool — not warm — place, the slower rise will provide a stronger cell structure and more of a sourdough flavor when baked the next day. A refrigerated overnight rise is a great way to get a longer proof without weakening the bread's structure.

SWITCHING TO A NEW TYPE OF SOURDOUGH STARTER

It is fairly easy to convert a starter between white, whole wheat, rye, spelt, or other gluten-containing flours. Switching to a gluten-free flour is a bit more tricky, as it tends to require more feedings to become vigorous and maintain its efficacy in baking.

Feed the starter 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 113g) water and a scant 1 cup (4 ounces, 113g) all-purpose flour twice a day, discarding all but 1/2 cup (4 ounces, 113g) of the starter before each feeding. It should soon become healthy, bubbly, and active.

Yes, you can overfeed your sourdough starter. Audrey explains: “Every time you add more flour and water, you are depleting the existing population of natural bacteria and yeast.” If you keep adding more and more, eventually you'll dilute the starter so much that you'll just have flour and water.

If you're feeding a sourdough starter by weight, the ratio of starter to water to flour is 1:1:1. So If you're using 50 grams of starter, add 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour. If you want to feed a sourdough starter by volume, the ratio of starter to flower to water is 1:1:1.75.

Discard a portion of the starter and feed it with fresh flour and water every 24 hours. Twice-Daily Feeding: In warmer environments or if you prefer a faster fermentation process, you can feed your starter twice a day, approximately every 12 hours. This helps maintain a more active and vigorous starter.