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How To Feed Sourdough Starter With Fresh Milled Flour. I get a lot of questions about how to feed and maintain a sourdough starter with Fresh Milled Flour. So, I am going to try to explain it and keep it as simple as possible.

mason jar of fresh milled flour sourdough starter showing the bubbles it is naturally creating — Meet “Bubbles,” My sourdough starter made with 100% Fresh Milled Flour, this is a few hours after a feeding.

How To Get Started Using Fresh Milled Flour To Feed Your Sourdough Starter

First, these steps are for an already established sourdough starter. I may make a post from start to finish in the future, if there are enough requests. But, for now, this is how to transition your sourdough starter over to fresh milled flour and maintain it. If you are looking for a beginner starter culture, HERE is one online, but you may be able to find a friend or someone local that would be willing to give you a little of their sourdough starter.

metal bowl half full of fresh milled flour with a black measuring cup in it

What You Need

Established Sourdough Starter
Filtered Water (not chlorinated water)
Fresh Milled Flour
Kitchen Scale

mason jar of Bubbles my sourdough starter made with fresh milled flour showing it doubled — Another picture of “Bubbles,” my sourdough starter, showing him more than double about 10 hours after his fresh milled flour feeding.

How You Do It

First, in a clean bowl, pour out an amount of sourdough starter. Weigh it in grams. (For an Example, let’s use 25 grams of starter)
In the same bowl, pour double the amount of filtered water and stir (For the same example, use 50 grams of water)
Next, Mill the same weight of flour as water. (For that example, mill 50 grams of wheat berries, which will yield 50 grams of flour)
Mix this all together so there is no dry flour showing.
Store in a container that is NOT airtight!
If storing on your counter, feed once per day around the same time of day.
If storing in the fridge, feed once per week.

Nutrimill Harvest Grain Mill milling flour

This is my Electric Stone Grain Mill I use to mill my flour to feed “Bubbles,” my sourdough starter. You can find it HERE

Tips For Feeding Fresh Milled Flour To Your Sourdough Starter

Don’t use bleached flour at any step in your sourdough journey, it would be better to skip a feeding than it would be to feed bleached flour.
You can slowly transition fresh milled flour a little bit in each feeding which will be a smoother transition. However, I just switched mine over “cold-turkey” style, and it was perfectly fine after a few feedings over a few days, it was ready to go.
Use filtered water, I use the water from my refrigerator which has filters before it even reached the fridge. You could use bottled spring water as well. You just don’t want chlorinated water.
If all you have available is chlorinated water, I have heard many have success if they let the water sit out the night before, then using it for feeding. But, I have not done this method myself.
I have used all sorts of wheat varieties in my feedings. Typically, I will keep any extra flour that I have milled in a freezer safe container, and use that for feeding. So, it is a mix of all different wheat varieties.
If I had to pick one wheat to use, I would choose hard white wheat. You can find that HERE
I like to keep my sourdough starter a little on the dough ball side, just because I find it need to be fed less often. When I make it loose and thin, then it sometimes needs fed twice a day. Over time, you will find what you prefer.
However, I do like to mix it thin if I am going to be making something like pancakes! You can watch us make Sourdough Pancakes HERE
If you are looking for a boost in feeding, try feeding some fresh milled Rye flour. Sourdough starter LOVES Rye flour! It will most likely more than double with this feeding. I have a post on Rye HERE
I have a little video short coming soon HERE

I made this Pumpkin Roll With My Sourdough Starter and some fresh milled flour. That recipe can be found HERE

Best Tip For Feeding Sourdough Starter

Lastly, I think the best tip for feeding your sourdough starter, is to try to plan ahead. I keep my sourdough starter small unless I know I am going to be using it. I will mix it with more flour and water if I know I want to use a lot of it. For example, If I know I am going to make Sourdough Cookies that take 120g of starter, and I want to make some Sourdough Cupcakes that also take 120g, I will make sure I have at least 240g total starter, plus a little for feeding. (Basically, I will use 60g of starter, add 100g water and 100g fresh milled flour to give me a total of 260g = 240g for 2 recipes, and 20g for feeding)

close up of a single sourdough cookie with a bite out of it showing the chocolate chips and m&m candies

This is our favorite Sourdough Cookie Recipe ever, HERE

Can I Make Sourdough From 100% Fresh Milled Flour?

Yes, it can be done with some tweaking. I have a great recipe that uses 100% fresh milled flour to make a sourdough bread loaf. There are some things you need to differently than you would have done with regular white flour, and I go over all of that in the Sourdough Bread Loaf Recipe post HERE.

I also have a Sourdough Bread Bowl Recipe along with a video you can watch me make HERE.

Also, If You Want To Learn More About Milling Your Own Flour, I have a Fresh Milled Flour 101 post. So, I Recommend Starting There!