You will need to keep track of the days/times during this process, so keep notes or set reminders. Best practice is to change out the dough roughly the same time each day.

Use a kitchen scale to weigh flour for accurate amounts of whole wheat flour and filtered water and add them to a jar. Stir together until mixed–it will be sticky, just try to get all the flour incorporated into the water. Cover loosely and place in a warm, draft free area and let sit for 48 hours.

(2nd day doesn’t require any action)

On day 3, remove roughly half of the starter and discard it. There should only be roughly 100 grams left in the jar.

Add 100 grams of fresh, filtered water and 100 grams of all purpose flour and stir well. Cover the jar loosely and let it sit for another 24 hours.

On day 4, discard roughly half of the starter. Add another 100 grams of fresh, filtered water and 100 grams of all purpose flour and stir well. Cover the jar loosely and let it sit for another 24 hours.

Day 5-7, repeat the same process. This process may take up to 2 weeks, so on day 7 test your starter by dropping a teaspoon of the starter into a glass of water. If it floats, the starter is ready, if not, continue the discarding and feeding process each day until the teaspoon of starter floats.

It should visually be obvious as the starter should be double or triple in size and very bubbly in appearance.

Once the starter floats in water it’s now ready to make bread. Be sure to start with a recently fed starter so it’s nice and bubbly.