When it comes to creating a gluten-free starter from scratch, I see the strangest methods being used, both online and in cookbooks, with daily refreshments that have a fixed schedule or wrong feeding/discard proportions or even no refreshments at all, using lots of flour, subsequently lots of discard, using factory flour mixes with xanthan gum and starch…. it’s the Wild West out there! These methods and ingredients miss the mark completely.

I’ll give you a best practice. Effective, foolproof and easy. And the only way to do it correctly.

There are two main steps you need to take:

1. Wait for activity. Take a little glass jar, a preserving jar or glass measuring cup. Mix as little as 15 grams of teff flour with water until it has roughly the consistency of yoghurt, it doesn’t really matter. Other wholemeal flours will work, but probably not as effectively as teff. If you feel that working with 15 grams is too fiddly, you can of course add more flour (and water). Cover the jar loosely with a lid or tightly with cling film (never use a cloth, tea towel or anything similar) and leave to stand until you see activity, bubbles, a sign of life. At higher temperatures it could be well alive, at 18 degrees there will only be some tiny bubbles. But don’t assess the mixture visually only. Taste it. It should have a pleasant lemon-like tang. Smell it. It could have developed a funky scent on the way, but this will probably have decreased a bit by the end of the first fermentation. If not, ignore at this point. Bubbles and a sour taste indicate yeast formation and sufficient fermentation. In that sense it’s not much different than fermenting veggies.

Tell yourself temperature is everything. Temperature determines how fast this first fermentation will go. At 30 degrees it should be done in about 12 hours, at 18 degrees it will take 48 hours. Check your room temperature or set your incubator and you do the math. Don’t go below an average of 18 degrees, there’s a chance it will not or barely ferment. So, calculate the expected time, check for activity, smell and taste. Simple instruction, right? This first fermentation is crucial. After this you will be pretty safe.

If you have a pH meter, you can double check: the first, fermented mixture should have a pH of between 4,4 and 3,8 and that’s a very large time window. At an average of 18 degrees, the mixture hits 4,4 after 38 hours and 3,8 after 48 hours, so there’s 10 hours of leeway. After 38 hours there was no visible activity, but  at pH 3,8 there was. Both

Note: sometimes you will spot bubbles right after mixing, that’s a good sign, it’s a first enzymatic reaction. But of course that doesn’t mean it’s ready. Fermentation of a starter always needs time and a lovely temperature, preferably the same that you feel comfortable with as a human being, 21 to 26 degrees Celsius.

If there’s no activity over 48 hours AND it’s not pleasantly sour, start over again, using another flour, applying a higher temp or using bottled water to see if your tap water inhibits fermentation. If you do continue with the inactive version and refresh it with flour, it may come alive, but you will notice it’s sluggish and having more problems to evolve. So don’t. Just start again. This is also why regular schedules you see in cookbooks sometimes go wrong: adding flour after a certain, fixed amount of hours, even when the flour has not yet fermented properly is asking for trouble. Overfeeding is mistake number one when creating a starter. Simply wait. Wait, wait, wait before you feed it more flour. You can never wait too long.

2. Feed and ferment. Ten times. When you’re absolutely sure your mixture has fermented properly, take 15 grams and place it in a clean jar. Mix with double the amount of teff flour (30 g) and top up with water until it has a yoghurt-like consistency. Leave to stand until it peaks and forms a dome. Yes, that’s right, there’s already a little dome. How quickly this happens, again, depends on the temperature. Anywhere between 5 to 12 hours. As soon as the little dome has become flatter and the consistency is turning into a mousse and it’s detaching from the sides of the jar when you tilt it, you can start thinking about the next step. But take your time, you have hours and hours of leeway, so wait until you’re sure it’s well fermented. Now stir the mixture, take out 15 grams and put it in a new jar, add flour and water etc. Repeat this at least 5 times and you could use it in your gluten-free dough, because there will already be enough yeasts. Do this five more times and the bacteria will also be sufficiently developed to flavour the bread. With every ‘refreshment’, the time it takes to peak decreases and it will be easier to ‘read’ the fermentation. Once the starter with a 1:1 flour/starter ratio is peaking within 4 hours at around an average of 26 degrees Celcius, it has reached its strongest point. So be sure to check this.

When you have established a strong starter from scratch, it will be just as good as a centuries-old starter. Only posers mention the age of their sourdough culture. In fact, I encourage you to create a starter from scratch regularly, at least every half year. Compare it with your old starter and it might just perform better!

And while we’re on the subject of sourdough cultures, I’d like to debunk the persistent myth that your starter captures yeast and bacteria from the air. A starter also ferments in airtight conditions. Microorganisms in your flour are the drivers of fermentation! Therefore, use a recently ground, wholegrain flour in your starter.