Gluten Free Sourdough Starter Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What flour is best for gluten-free sourdough starter? ›

What gluten-free flours can I use for sourdough? There are various gluten-free flours that can be used for sourdough baking. Popular options include brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, sorghum flour, millet flour, and tapioca flour. Each flour adds its unique flavor and texture to the final bread.

Gluten free sourdough starter recipes often need more hydration than regular ones. This is because gluten free flours generally absorb more water than wheat flour.

Make sure you refresh your gluten free sourdough starter once a week even if you're not planning to bake. Take your starter out of the refrigerator and let the jar come to room temperature. Discard down to 25 grams and feed with 25 grams of gluten free flour mix and 25 grams of water.

FAQ about Gluten-Free Sourdough Starters

If a starter has not been fed for a while, it will start to collect a liquid on top of your starter. It is called "Hooch". You can stir it back into your starter while you feed it or discard it. It can cause the sourdough starter to taste sourer.

This usually means 1 or both of 2 things: 1) you aren't feeding the starter often enough; and/or 2) you haven't been feeding it enough food and water. Go back and follow the directions in the Sourdough Starter post (there is new info there as of 6/2020).

Longer cold fermentation (proofing) will give the bacteria more time to break down the gluten. Ideally, keep your sourdough in the cold fermentation process for at least 24 hours. Substituting some whole wheat or rye flour for some of the bread flour in your sourdough will give your loaf an overall lower gluten levels.

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.

As for using almond flour, it's possible to use it to create a starter but it's a much more expensive flour to experiment with.

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.

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.

Is King Arthur gluten free bread flour really gluten-free? ›

Gluten-Free Bread Flour

It contains gluten-free wheat starch, which helps mimic the flavor of conventional flours and acts as a thickener. While the starch undergoes rigorous testing to ensure it's gluten-free, it's not wheat-free, so if you have a wheat allergy, this flour is not suitable for you.

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.

The simple reason is that gluten free bread takes much longer than a regular loaf to bake and therefore a sticky crumb is generally the result of under baking (there could be other reasons but this is the first place to start troubleshooting).

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

If you plan on baking gluten free sourdough often, just keep your starter on the counter and feed it at least once a day. If you don't plan on baking as often, you can store your starter in the refrigerator and feed it once a week.

You will know it's ready if it has lots of bubbles, and doubles in size after a few hours when fed. ​Unfortunately, gluten free starter doesn't pass the float test like a regular wheat active starter would. So determining if it is ready will be based on appearance and if it is bubbly and doubling in size.

Yes! You can make a sourdough starter from scratch or adjust your regular starter to gluten-free flour feedings. Note that changing a starter fed with gluten-containing flour works well, but it won't be safe for people with celiac disease.

Even a healthy sourdough starter can grow mold if you keep it at high humidity. Also, any heat above 140˚F will most likely kill the wild yeast in your starter which will happen in a hot oven. If you keep your sourdough starter in the oven with the light on, be sure to take it out before your turn on the oven.

Sourdough starter (wild yeast) is the leavening agent prepared with gluten-free flour, water and the bacteria that float around in the air, in your kitchen, and even on your skin. That cultured yeast is what will help your baked goods rise.

If your gluten free bread turned out dense, you didn't have enough liquid in the dough.

Why is my gluten free sourdough starter not bubbling? ›

Don't worry – that's normal, and your starter is just gaining strength. Keep feeding twice a day until you start seeing good bubbles. Once you're seeing good bubbling and rise, you can switch to once-a-day feeds.

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.

Sourdough is not gluten free, but we know that many people with IBS, gluten intolerance, or gluten sensitivity can tolerate sourdough bread. This is because the methods used to make sourdough break down some of the gluten in the flour so it is easier to digest. Think of sourdough as low-gluten rather than gluten-free.

Using a percentage of whole-grain rye flour helps kickstart the starter creation progress. The additional nutrients in rye flour, combined with keeping the mixture warm and highly hydrated, have increased the reliability of creating a new starter.

Since it is minimally processed when you compare it with white wheat flours, whole wheat flour is said to be packed with nutrients and potential microbes, providing faster fermentation for a starter.

Bread flour (or baker's flour) is a high protein, white flour that is milled specifically for baking bread and sourdough. What is this? You'll get the best results for your sourdough bread from using bread flour. The most popular bread flour in the US is King Arthur Bread Flour.