Making your own gluten free starter can be intimidating! As all gluten free recipes, there just isn’t as much information available and if it were to, not workout, then you would have wasted so much flour and time. I have tried this recipe a few times now and it seems to work great!

The Fermentation Process

If you’re not familiar with the fermentation process for sourdough starter it all begins with flour and water. Natural occurring lactobacilli and yeast are then fed and and set out on the counter to grow. This wild yeast feeds on the sugars in the flour making lactic acid and alcoholic fermentation occur. This is why you must feed the starter so it can grow and stay alive.

The temperature in your house causes the fermentation process to happen faster or slower. Warmer temperatures cause the fermentation to happen faster and cooler temperature causes it to happen slower. The faster it happens the less sour the dough will be and the slower the fermentation happens the more sour it will be.

You can add cold water while feeding the starter if it is in the warmer months of the year to slow the fermentation process down a little. I have also read that you can put the starter in the fridge between feedings. I have not gotten that far yet so I don’t personally know that much about doing that.

Because the fermentation process can vary remember that anywhere form day three on you can start using your starter or at least the starter that you take out to dump. Most recipes only call for a half cup so you can continue to feed the starter and bake with it each day! Using the starter as early as day three means it will not be really sour it will be a little sweeter. I have used it on day three and it was still somewhat sour and resulted in delicious sourdough bread just not as sour as when I used it in day six.

Experimenting With Different Recipes

I experimented with a recipe from King Arthurs website for gluten free sourdough starter. I had read a couple other recipes before I started as well.

I decided to give King Arthurs recipe a try. On day one I thought it seemed a little thick. On day two I thought I could smell it fermenting, but not sure. By day three I just new better, I knew that I needed to go off of texture. So I added more water then flour on the third day of feeding. This thinned it out and on day four I could tell that bye the bubbles in the starter and the smell that it was fermenting better.

This was the King Arthur recipe. You can see that it was too thick.

I continued to feed the starter until day seven. I was feeding it 1/2 cup flour and 3/4 water. I went ahead and continued with the fermentation process a little longer because of my slow start. I made sourdough pretzels and they were fantastic! I continued to feed the starter and made a loaf of sourdough bread the next day and it was so delicious! It was more sour then the gluten free sourdough bread I bought from my local natural food store.

Here are some gluten free flours from Amazon if you need to buy more!

The Recipe

To begin you will want a large jar about 16oz or bigger or even a large glass. You will need a clean towel or cotton napkin to place over the jar. You want it to be able to breathe yet stay covered.

You will want to start your starter with 1/4 cup gluten free all purpose flour blend such as, King Arthur or Bob’s Redmill, and 1/4 cup rice flour and 1/2 cup water.

Day one you will mix the 1/2 cup flour mix and 1/2 cup water in a glass jar. cover with a towel or napkin and set on counter until the next day.

Day two you will scoop out half of the starter and throw it away. Next stir in another half cup of water and half cup of flour.

You will continue to do this each day. The average day of peek fermentation is on day 6 or seven. While fermenting things you have to use your own judgment. There is know exact recipe for this because temperatures and flours make things vary along with the growing wild yeast you are feeding!

You want this to be the texture of cake batter. If you think you need to add more flour one day than water, go ahead and try. This is somewhat flexible.

On day three you can look at your starter that you are dumping out and if it is full of bubbles you can use it in a recipe!

Here you can see by the rubber band that it doubled nicely and has bubbles.

Is It Ready?

How to know if it is ready? Bubbles will start to form around day three. It will also start to smell somewhat sour. It will double in size. If these three clues are showing then it is ready to use! Take out what you need for a recipe and continue to feed the starter.

Good luck with making your gluten free starter! Please leave a comment or question if you have any! I will be happy to help if I can!

If you enjoyed this recipe then follow my Sourdough board on Pinterest!