First, if you wish to make your own starter, in your glass jar, combine the 60g of whole wheat flour with equal parts by weight (or about 1/4 cup) of warm water and mix with a fork until smooth.

This type of flour is used since it contains more nutrients and microorganisms than all-purpose flour, which will help kickstart the starter activity and fermentation process, especially for the first few days. But you can use all-purpose flour if you don’t want to buy a whole bag of extra flour; it’ll just take longer to establish an active starter.

But in either case, once your mixer is ready, cover it with some plastic wrap or a lid and let it rest in a warm area, about 70-75°F for 24 hours.

Then, for day 2, there might be some bubbles forming, but if you don’t see anything yet, it’s no issue. Just give the starter a stir to oxygenate the mixture, which will help the yeast to grow. Then, let the starter rest for another 24 hours.

Starting with Day 3, remove half (60g) of the starter from the glass jar and then add 60 g (1/2 cup) of the all-purpose flour and 60 g (1/4 cup) of warm water, mixing with a fork until smooth. Scrape down the sides with a small rubber spatula if needed. Then, once again, cover your starter and let it rest for another 24 hours.

Then, for the next 4-5 days, repeat this step each day by first discarding half of your starter and then adding in another 60 g (1/2 cup) of the all-purpose flour and 60 g (1/4 cup) of warm water each day. Mix it all together once again and cover your starter and let it rest for another 24 hours each time.

After a week or so, your starter should have bubbled up at some point and doubled in size. After about 4-8 hours after you feed your starter, you should see plenty of bubbles, both large and small and the texture should be spongy and fluffy, similar to melted marshmallows and it should smell pleasant and not stinky.

One way you can check if your starter is fully active is to do the float test by feeding your starter, waiting for it to double in size, and then drop a teaspoon of the bubbly starter into a cup of water and if it floats to the top, it’s ready to use.

If your starter isn’t quite ready yet, due to cold weather or other factors, you might just need more time to develop enough yeast and bacteria to establish your starter. So, just continue discarding and feeding your starter every day until it fully activates. It might be helpful to have a rubber band on your jar to track the levels of starter as it rises. If after another week or so, your starter still hasn’t bubbled up even once, I would just try to make the starter again and start over. But in either case, at this point, you might want to swap or clean your jar if it’s getting too crusty.

If you plan to bake often, I recommend storing your starter at room temperature, feeding it every day or so to keep it active. But if you plan to bake only once in a while, store it in the fridge to preserve its strength, feeding it once a week or so before putting it back into the fridge. Once your starter has been established, I like to switch to a more consistent size for the starter, so I recommend keeping about 100g or so of starter and then feeding that with equal weight of 100g of flour and 100g of water to get 300g of starter to use whenever I need it. But, you may adjust the amounts depending on how much you plan on using. Just obviously make sure to retain some of the starter so you can keep renewing it.

After long enough, the starter will be pretty resilient, so even if you forget to feed your starter for a few weeks, it should still be alive, so as long as you then continue to feed it afterwards, it should grow in strength once again. Also, if you ever see a smelly brown liquid develop, this is completely normal and is actually called “hooch”, which is a byproduct of the fermentation process. But, it is just an indication that your starter needs to be fed. So, any time you see this liquid, just remove it along with any discolored starter present before refeeding your starter. But in either case, once your starter is ready and active, we are finally ready to make the sourdough.

So for your sourdough, first, 4-8 hours before you plan on starting to make your sourdough, discard some of your starter and then feed it with flour and water as usual to activate it.

Then, once that’s all nice and bubbly, in a large bowl, add in the 100g of starter, 1 1/2 cups of warm water, and 1 tablespoon of oil and whisk this together.

Then, add in the 4 cups of bread flour and salt, mixing to combine, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to fully mix all of the dough, using a whisk or your hands. Then, cover this with a damp towel and let it rest for a couple of hours or so.

During this time, while not strictly necessary, I recommend every 30 minutes to stretch and fold the dough by grabbing a corner of the dough and pulling it up to the center until you’ve stretched all parts of the dough. This step will help to develop more gluten without overworking the dough, increasing the total volume and height of your bread when it bakes.

So, if you have the time, I recommend doing this four times, or every 30 minutes during this 2 hour period. Even if you can only do the stretching and folding once, your dough will still benefit from the extra gluten development.

So, after a couple of hours, once you’re ready to perform the Bulk Fermentation, cover the bowl with a towel and let it rise at room temperature, about 8 to 10 hours. The dough will be ready when it has about doubled in volume, which might be a bit sooner than 8 hours if you live in a warm, humid environment, so just keep an eye out to prevent it from over-proofing.

But, once the dough is ready, onto a lightly floured surface, scoop out your dough from the bowl, placing it bottom side up, and gently shape it into a round shape by folding the former top down to the center, turning the dough, and repeating this until you’ve folded the entire dough at least once. If you have a bench scraper, you can use this to push the dough underneath, pulling the dough to create tension, making a nice smooth surface across the entire dough.

Then, once your dough is shaped into a round, line a bowl or proofing basket with a towel and dust it with some flour to keep the dough from sticking to the towel. And then, place the dough into your lined bowl, seam side up and cover it with the excess towel and let it proof for a second time in the fridge for at least an hour up to 48 hours. The longer you let it rest, a more intense sour flavor will develop and larger holes will form in the dough, so I tend to rest it for about 24 hours, but adjust this to your preferences.

Once your dough is almost ready and you are ready to bake your bread, measure out a piece of parchment paper to fit your dutch oven pot and then place your dutch oven into your oven, and preheat it to 500°F. Then, grab your dough from the fridge and place your parchment paper over the dough and invert it using a plate.

Then, using a sharp knife, you may score the dough however you wish, either with a simple X or you may make a more fancy design, if desired as well. If your dough starts to droop after scoring, it’s a sign that you might’ve overproofed your dough, meaning that too much of the gluten had been broken down and you won’t get as much of a rise in the oven, but the bread will still taste great regardless.

But in either case, once your oven is done preheating, use the parchment paper to carefully transfer the dough into the preheated baking pot.

Once you’re ready to bake your bread, lower the oven temperature to 450ºF and using kitchen gloves, carefully cover the pot with the lid and then bake the dough for 30 minutes, covered. Then, remove the lid, lower the temperature to 400ºF and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until the crust is a nice golden color. Then, once the bread is done, remove it from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for an hour or so before slicing. And with that, your Sourdough Bread is finally ready to eat.