How to make gluten-free sourdough starter from scratch using gluten-free flour. Making your own sourdough starter is easier than you’d think! And yes, it works with gluten-free flour!
Oh hey!
Want to dive into the lovely land of sourdough but don’t know where to begin??
This post has you covered!
It is true that regular sourdough bread is lighter in gluten than regular (non-sourdough) bread, but those who are sensitive may still react to it, and those who are allergic should most definitely steer clear.
Thankfully, we can make sourdough starter using a store-bought gluten-free flour blend. Yes, it really does work!
If you have been a long-time follower, you may know I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to fermentation. I published a cookbook in 2015 focusing entirely on fermented beverages, called Delicious Probiotic Drinks.
It had been many moons since I started a new fermentation experiment, so once I decided to make my own gluten-free sourdough starter, I felt childlike elation. 😀
This post can be used as a guide to make your own gluten-free sourdough starter, know when it is ready to use, how to use it, and how to store it. I hope you find it helpful!
First things first, let’s discuss everything you need to make sourdough starter.
What you Need to Make Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter
Large Bowl or Jar – Choose a vessel that will allow your starter to grow up to 3 or 4 times its volume. Note that after feeding your starter every day, it will always grow. Keep this in mind when choosing the vessel in which your starter will live.
Quart sized wide-mouth mason jars are a great option.
I started in a mixing bowl and am currently using a large glass measuring cup. If possible, stick with the same vessel so as not to disrupt the fermentation process.
Gluten-Free Flour Blend – I use Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour (not sponsored), but from what I have read, King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten-Free Flour works well too.
DO NOTE! The amount of water you use may vary depending upon the flour you use. This is the only tricky part about making your starter (keep reading!).
For consistent results, avoid switching flours while you’re making your starter. Stick with the same flour so you don’t disrupt the microbiome of the starter – it will be fragile at first!
Water – that’s it. Just water. I use filtered water from my Berkey filter, and I do recommend using filtered water if at all possible.
Kitchen Towel – Use a kitchen towel or cheesecloth to cover the vessel you’re using to make the starter. This keeps any bugs out and also protects the starter from too much light (a little light is fine, but you don’t want to cook it with UV rays, know what I mean?
How to Make Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter:
Day 1: Combine 1 cup of gluten-free flour blend with 1 cup of water and stir well until all the clumps are out. Cover with a kitchen towel, and leave untouched overnight (preferably 18 to 24 hours).
Day 2: Discard half of the starter (yes, throw it in the trash. Or if you don’t want to waste it, you can use it for a baking experiment). Add another 1 cup of flour and 1 cup water. If the starter is very thick like pizza dough, add more water until it is thinner.
You want it to be about the consistency of pancake batter. If it appears too thin, add more flour until that pancake batter-like consistency is reached.
Day 3 – 7 (and beyond): Each day, discard half of the starter and add a 1:1 flour to water ratio. This means you can continue adding 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water, or you can decrease the measurement to ½ cup flour and ½ cup water.
Keep noting the consistency of the starter and add more or less water to get it to that slightly thick pancake batter consistency.
Sourdough Water to Flour Ratio
When using regular all-purpose flour, a 1:1 ratio is recommended to start and then the ratios change over time as your starter matures.
Similar to making regular sourdough starter, I found that I needed a 1 to 1 ratio of gluten-free flour to water, as the flour blend I use has similar absorbency to regular all-purpose flour.
King Arthur’s recipe for gluten-free sourdough starter specifies 1 cup of flour to 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon of water to start out.
If you’re using King Arthur Measure for Measure Gluten-Free Flour, use that ratio and see where it lands you.
However, if you use Bob’s Red Mill’s 1-to-1 Baking Flour like me, you may need a larger ratio of water to flour.
Do note, humidity and elevation may play a role in your ratio!
Here in Reno, we are technically high elevation and it is dry AF here. It makes sense if you live in similar conditions you’ll need a higher ratio of water to flour than 1:1. If you live in a humid area and/or at sea level, 1:1 may be great!
Again, so long as your starter is the consistency of thick pancake batter, you’re good.
When is the Starter Ready to Use?
You can use your starter as soon as you witness signs of life – this means the starter will have grown 2 to 4 times its original volume and will have lots and lots of bubbles/air pockets.
These air pockets are a signal you have active, living bacteria and yeast and they’re literally breathing and reproducing!
You will also smell a pretty pronounced sour scent! It will smell like bread dough as you walk by your starter – this is another sign it is working!
My sourdough starter was ready to use on Day 4, but I let it go an additional day before putting it to use, just to be sure.
I had read sourdough starters sometimes become very active at the beginning and then seem to die off by day 3. If this is the case for you, don’t fret. Keep proceeding as normal to see if the starter bounces back.
How Fermentation Works:
Across the board, the concept of fermentation is the same, but the inputs vary.
You need bacteria and/or yeast, liquid, and something to feed the bacteria and yeast.
For instance, when making yogurt, the lactose in the milk feeds the Lactobacillus bacteria strains, and the milk also serves as the liquid environment in which the bacteria live and reproduce.
In the case of sourdough starter, the bacteria and yeast are naturally occurring in the air (you may have heard the term, “native yeast.”).
We continuously feed the native yeast flour, which is jam packed with carbohydrate, and give it a nice moist warm environment to thrive.
The reason we continuously feed the culture is to ensure there is plenty of yeast for leavening our sourdough projects.
As long as you’re able to get a starter going, it becomes forgiving in terms of the amount and timing of feedings.
You can also allow the starter to go dormant by transferring it to a sealable container and refrigerating (I’d recommend using a jar with an airtight lid).
Best Household Temperature for Sourdough Starter.
70 to 80 degrees. Yeast love temps in this range, so if your house stays warm, making a successful sourdough starter will be easy peasy.
Mine has been between 74 and 77, and my starter only took 2 days to show signs of life. By day 4, it was ready to use. If you keep your house cooler, no worries! It could still work, it just may take 5 to 7 days to show signs of life.
When in Doubt, Throw it Out:
If you see any mold at all – pink, white, green, brown, black, throw it out and start over.
There is absolutely no reason to risk it. Note that if you live in a humid area, you may need to keep a very watchful eye over the starter and begin keeping it in the refrigerator after a few days to avoid mold.
How to Use Sourdough Starter:
So you made a starter! Yaaay, congrats! Now what do you do? You have options:
- Use the daily discard in recipes, and continue feeding the starter
- Give some of the starter to family or friends, use starter for sourdough things, continue feeding starter
- Use starter for a while, get sick of sourdough, stick the starter in the refrigerator and allow it to go dormant,
Gluten-Free Sourdough Recipes:
Here are some magnificent recipes using gluten-free sourdough starter!
- Gluten-Free Blueberry Sourdough Muffins
- Fluffy Gluten-Free Sourdough Pancakes
- Gluten-Free Sourdough Chocolate Cake
- Chocolate Chip Sourdough Waffles
- Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread Boule
- Gluten-Free Sourdough Bagels
- Sourdough Almond Flour Waffles
- Vegan Sourdough Banana Bread
How to Store Sourdough Starter:
If you’re continuing to use and feed the starter, just keep it in its original vessel.
When or if you decide it is time to take a hiatus, transfer it to a sealable glass jar and refrigerate until you are ready to start back up. If you’re keeping your starter in the refrigerator, be sure you allow it to come to room temperature before using it in a recipe.
Troubleshooting:
This is above my knowledge and experience, so if you’re having issues, go to A Beautiful Plate’s Sourdough Bread Troubleshooting Guide and FAQ .
But do feel free to drop me questions in the comments section! I’m new to sourdough, but old to fermentation, and am keeping my starter going, so don’t hesitate to ask!
More Fermentation Experiments:
Love fermenting things as much as I do? Check out my recipes for some additional fun!
- Instant Pot Coconut Milk Yogurt
- Homemade Sauerkraut
- How to Brew Kombucha
- How to Make Probiotic Ginger Beer
That’s all for now, folks! I hope you enjoy the process of making sourdough starter as much as I have. Reach out if you have any questions!
What will you do with your sourdough starter??
Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter
Ingredients
- 1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour + more for growing
- 1 cup water + more for growing
Instructions
- Combine 1 cup of gluten-free flour blend with 1 ¼ cups water and stir well until all the clumps are out. Cover with a kitchen towel, and leave untouched overnight (preferably 18 to 24 hours).
- On the second day, discard half of the starter. Add another 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water. If the starter is very thick like pizza dough, add more water until it is thinner. You want it to be about the consistency of pancake batter. If it is too thin, add more flour (start with 1/4 cup and work up from there).
- Each day, for the next 2 to 5 days, discard half of the starter and add a 1:1 flour to water ratio. This means you can continue adding 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water, or you can decrease the measurement to ½ cup flour and ½ cup water.
- Keep noting the consistency of the starter and adjust amounts of flour and water as necessary.
- Once your starter shows signs of life (smells like sourdough bread, increases in volume two to fourfold after each feeding and is very bubbly), you can use it in sourdough recipes!
Nutrition
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Tried to make this starter and it wouldn’t double for me. Tried for twelve days and nothing. Very disappointing!! So I threw it out.
Hi there! How warm is your home typically? During the cold months of the year, fermentation can be a bit tricky unless you’re able to keep the fermentation project in a fairly warm spot (ideally 68 to 80 degrees F). Let me know, and I can help troubleshoot from there!
Hi! Can I make my sourdough starter with a pure GF flour, for example rice flour, rather than a blend? Thanks!
Hi Sarah! I haven’t tried it, but I think it could work! Let me know if you give it a go and how your sourdough goodies turn out. 🙂
I am making my starter with gf all purpose flour. Can I use it with bread flour? I want to make the gf sourdough bagels.
My starter exploded yesterday, lol. It’s working great after only 3 days
Yaaay, congrats!! Yes, you can use the starter with bread flour for bagels 🙂 Happy baking!!
Do you have a recipe for how to make sourdough bread? I love this starter recipe, just need to know what to do with my starter.
Hi Nichole! I don’t have a recipe for regular sourdough bread, but I’ve seen a ton floating around the internet! Happy baking!
What effect does feeding twice a day vs once have in the early stages of gluten free starter? I’m on day 7 and mine looks so dif from regular starter and don’t know how to encourage its growth. Ty!
Hi Rachel! How warm is your house? The temperature can have a big impact on how quickly a starter grows. If your house is somewhat cool, try storing the starter in a warm area like a cabinet or cupboard that doesn’t get a lot of airflow from AC. Hope this helps!
Hi! I am new to making a starter…
When you discard half of it, how do you measure half?
Also, when the starter looks ready, but if I don’t have time to use it, how can I store it? Feed daily, or just store inthe fridge w/o feeding?
Thank you!
Hi there! Welcome to the wonderful world of fermentation! Some people keep a piece of twine/string tied around the jar to indicate the level of the starter. This helps show how much it grows and can also help you determine how much to discard. When you discard starter, you don’t need to be precise, so a guestimate works great.
I would make the starter when you know you have time to use it. While you can store sourdough starter in the refrigerator and revitalize it after it is already mature, a young starter won’t take to refrigeration as well. In this sense, wait until you know you have 2-3 weeks to allow the starter to mature before you jump in. Hope this helps!
With all the pop ups, I’m having trouble finding the recipe to actually bake this.
Hi Melinda! Have you tried clicking the ‘Jump To Recipe’ button at the top of the page?
My starter started to grow with bubbles the second day and it smells like wine. I’ve been discarding/feeding every 12-24 hours.
Is it normal for the bob’s red mill GF flour to have specs of pink? This is my second time doing this starter and there’s pink specs. The first time I threw it out to start over because I was skeptical but it happened again after day one.
Hi Sophie! I would be suspicious that the pink specs too, but it’s hard to know without seeing the starter myself. I’ve never seen pink specs in mine, and I use Bob’s GF 1-to-1 flour too. Nevertheless, it sounds like your starter is ready to use after two days. If it smells like wine, it might be particularly active, as mine typically just smells like bread dough. If it smelled foul (like rotten food or vomit), I wouldn’t use it, but as long as it just smells fermented, you’re probably fine 🙂
As you are discarding from the new starter, can you turn the discard into new starters? I sure hope that makes sense? And can you start using the discard for recipes or do you have to wait for the starter to become active?
I’m on a new gluten free, well pretty much everything free, journey and it’s so expensive so I’m trying be less wasteful.
Thank you!
Melissa
Hi Melissa!
You can turn the discard into new starters!
I recommend waiting a few cycles to start using the discard (let’s say 3-4 days) for the best results. While the initial discards will work, they won’t provide as stellar of results because the bacteria and yeast won’t be super active in the beginning stages. Nevertheless you can definitely experiment with the first few discards if you’re okay with mixed results. Happy fermenting! xo
Hi, could I use King Arther Paleo All purpose blend for this?
Hi there! Yes! Any gluten-free all-purpose flour blend will work as long as it contains some form of starch (tapioca flour, potato flour, rice flour, etc). The only difference is you may need to adjust the amount of water slightly. The goal is to get a consistency similar to very thick pancake batter (not too runny, not too thick). In this sense, depending on how absorbent the flour is and the humidity of your area, the water may need to be increased or decreased slightly.
Hi I’m very new at sourdough. So do you continue to feed it every day like non stop? Also do you always leave it on the counter when you use it? Or can it go in the fridge once it’s growing then just pull it out and let it come to room temperature before use? What about when you don’t use it for like a week or two do you just start re feeding it when you are ready to use it again
Hi Cheria! I briefly covered some of these questions in the blog post, but the information may have been easy to miss. You can feed the sourdough starter daily as long as you’re using it. So long as you’re feeding the starter and using the discard, store it on the counter at room temperature. If you decide to take a break, you can store it in a jar in the refrigerator. The majority of the time, sourdough starter will come back to life after it has been siting in the refrigerator for a few months but after a certain point it can be difficult to revive. In this sense, I don’t recommend storing the starter in the refrigerator and taking it out here and there to use it because it will need 2 to 4 days to come back to life, depending on how long it has been refrigerated. Let me know if you have any other questions!
I started this today. I’m so excited. But, for my first discard, I’m giving it to a friend. Do they have to use GF flour to feed it or can they use regular?
Hi Raquel! Your friend can use regular flour, but I would give them the cautionary note that doing so may shock the starter, so it might not be quite as active starting out. Because the culture is accustomed to feeding off of a specific flour, changing the flour will change the culture, but it should recover just fine 🙂
What can you use the discard for? I’m a newby at bread.
What do you make with what you discard?
Hi Kate! I included links to my favorite sourdough recipes in the post, but my sourdough blueberry muffins (https://www.theroastedroot.net/gluten-free-blueberry-sourdough-muffins/) and sourdough pancakes (https://www.theroastedroot.net/fluffy-gluten-free-sourdough-pancakes/) are my two favorites 🙂 Enjoy!
This is a first for me. Our house is set at 65 degrees. At day 6 I turned the oven light on and keep the starter there since it gets warm. Every morning the starter is thicker like a mousse but when I stir it, it goes right back to pancake batter consistency. No bubbles yet but I’m up to 4 cups each morning. It has a yeast-like sourdough smell. Should I continue putting in warmer environment and wait for bubbles? Do I need to add more water? Doing a 1:1 one cup ratio now.
Hi Tina! If possible, I’d recommend putting it in a warmer environment to keep for the health of the starter. However, it does sound like your starter is ready to use since it smells like sourdough – that’s a sign fermentation is occurring, so yippy!! If it were me, I would put the starter in a warmer area and continue feeding it for another day or two to see if I can get more activity. It’s possible that the starter is ready to use but I’d let it go a little longer to ensure it provides plenty of leavening in anything you make with it. Let me know if you have any other questions! xo