The ONE thing that makes or breaks your sourdough! 

I’ve been on sourdough journey since 2020. This is the very first video explaining the levain and what strong starter looks like. Thank you so much!

Exactly what I needed to know!!! Terminology was a bit difficult at first just because I’m new but I fully understood what you explained, very clear & the only person that really took the time to show this distinction in all of the videos I’ve watched so far. Thank you!!!

Oh my gosh I am new to sourdough I've had so much trouble even after watching hundreds of RU-vid videos. I have thrown away so many failures. I need to tell you that you are the first person that has explained the whole process that I could completely understand. My starter always looked ready had bubbles it grew but it just didn't grow enough you turned on a light bulb in my head and I thank you so much. I am excited to keep going.

My starter is perfectly active and it is not stiff. It pours out and is slowly runny, it’s perfect. Lots of bubbles all over, very active and you can hear it when you move it around. There’s a lot of opinions out there and I watched countless videos and they all caused a lot of unnecessary frustration and confusion, actually pushed me away from wanting to try. Thankfully I did not give up and am finding with trail and error, experience and time you will find it. Every environment, home and geographical area is different. What works for one person may not work for another. Also everyone has different temps from different ovens. Just think what did people do a long time ago without all that we have now. They figured it out!

Oh my goodness. You answered SO many of my questions. THANK YOU

To summarize,: 1) feed your starter to 1:5:5 (levain, flower, water) 2) Use your starter at peak (or a little before peak), never after peak. If you use after peak, acidity developes and the starter becomes liquid. Suggestion for a follow up video: How much time does a 1:5:5 feed takes to develop ? (compared to a 1:2:2 or 1:1:1 often used in professional bakery) and the importance of a strong flour in your levain.

This was hands-down, the best video that I’ve seen explaining this! Now, I understand why my bread was flat. My starter was more like the runny one, so I probably wasn’t using enough flour. Thank you so much!

I’ve been making sourdough bread since 2016! One day I realized that I had tons of starter in my fridge. Couldn’t bring myself to through them all out. So I decided to share my bread baking techniques with friends and offered a sourdough class! I discovered that I love talking and sharing all the things I’ve learned over the years. It was a success and so I taught more.then a friend convinced me to sell my bread at our local amazing farmers market! Anyway, I say all that to tell you that this idea just happened to come up in my feed this morning! Nothing is by chance! After being so successful baking loaf after loaf, I’ve recently started having problems with my results! I’ve been experimenting with different flours, oven temp, etc. but I think your method of determining the viability of the starter is the key to what I’ve not been fastidious enough to pay attention too! And I’ve never weighed or measured my flour/water/starter ratio!! This could be key to my problem of not achieving a good slash and not getting that ‘eyeliner’ and crusty crust like I used too! Thank you so much! I’m going to link this video and your starter recipe video in my class notes if that’s okay with you! You would also get the credit and more followers! Thank you so much for sharing!! ❤❤

OMG, thank You so much for this video! I've been struggling with sourdough bread for a couple of weeks, results were always the same - sad, flat loafs... I had no idea that good levain is so crucial to the final effect, now I did all like You explained and BANG - perfect oven spring, beautiful loaf of bread! Thank You so very very very much!

This is so good thank you I want to begin my sourdough career and watching you is so great many thanks❤

Yes. Thanks for the demo. Just what I needed.

I’ve been trying to work out what am I doing wrong with my starter for two days now. Watching loads of videos on RU-vid with no real answers. This video was like a light bulb I know what I’m doing wrong now. Thank you. Subscribed ❤

I started sourdough in 2023. Lots of trial and error. Hour upon hours of studying and researching and I’ve tried dozens of different ratios. This is exactly what I needed! Thank you!

I've watched a lot of videos about sourdough starters and this is the first one I've seen that has gone into this much detail about the optimum starter state. Thank you!

ok this is confusing a bunch!! Levain = Pre-Ferment = Starter?? Can we please just agree on ONE term for this?!?

That was the most clear explanation of the starter I have seen for several months of learning. Thanks!

Great explanation. Thank you for this good teaching.

very informative and great teacher! Thanks!

OMG!!!!..this is so hard..I guess Ill keep buying it...

Your starter tutorial has changed my sourdough bread! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! I have been trying to make sourdough bread for 2 years with very frustrating results. You have truly blessed my baking!!!

Let’s go!! I’m finally starting to understand this levin game. You rock!!

This is so darn helpful. I started off strong with some great loaves, but the last few were...not so great. Now I know why. Thank you so much for making this video!

Very nice. I've had great results using miniscule amounts of crummy watery old fridge starter in large flour/water quantities, say 1:20:20 - You are adding adequate microbes and yeasties without a large amount of watery acidic waste. The levain takes longer, usually overnight, but with such a huge food supply, it blows up nicely and will not peak and withdraw too quickly like a levain made with a larger proportion of starter. So, prep in the evening, by morning it'll be close to peak and ready to go... all temperature dependent of course!

Thank you! This is the most useful information I’ve found so far. You explained it so thoroughly. 👍🏾

LOVE your videos! Please continue posting!!!!! ❤❤❤❤

This video is exactly what I needed!!! Thank you so very much!!!

Thank you! This has been the best video and I’ve watched A TON!

Love this! Can’t wait to commit this all to memory. Thank you.

Splendid - thank you for taking the time to

This answered so many questions for me! Great video thank you!

Thank you so very much for solving my starter mystery!!

I live in Florida and the humidity is just absolutely awful! Unfortunately I do not measure the water or flour. I try to eyeball it some days it’s more water and some days it’s more flour. I have tried to do equal parts and other methods but messed my starter up at least 5 times. This last time I told myself not to measure it and I have kept it alive now for 1 months 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 but haven’t tried to make a sourdough bread yet. So this video was very very helpful for me and I am going to attempt your method to see how it comes out

Thank you for this information!! I think this is exactly what I have been struggling with ❤

This is extremely helpful. And I LOVE your spoonholder!

Great content! Thank you, Ash. This was extremely helpful!

This was very insightful! You're an excellent teacher.

Beginner bread maker here. OMG, been frustrated with my starter for over a month now thinking it wasn't ready when in actuality it was. Just needed to go to the next step of making the leaven in order to have enough for an actual recipe. Been waiting on my starter to magically grow enough to do it not even understanding....You gave me that Ah ha moment. thank you sooo much.

Thank you for taking the time to help all of us ❤

Wow what a great video. You really broke it down for us, I appreciate it.

Always such great tips… you used perfect examples to show us exactly what to look for! Thanks Ashley, love learning from you! ♥️

WOW! Excellent information!!! Thank you!

Thank you ❤ for this! This is the first video that truly helped me figure out my problem😊

Thank you for showing what they look like!!

This is so helpful! Thank you! It was nice seeing the comparisons

Very helpful. Clear explanations on how to improve your bread. Easy to understand

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Excited to fix my starter!

Thank you this was really helpfull! I thought my dough was overfermented but i’ll take a look at my starter instead!❤

Thank you so much for this honest and great video!

This is extremely helpful to me! Thank you!

VERY helpful! Love the examples. Thank you so much!

Excellent video! This has been very helpful!

fantastic information thank you so much

Thank you Ashley! You gave a great explanation of how to make a strong sourdough leaven. ❤

Fantastic video!! Very helpful.

Great tutorial and explanation! Thank you!

This helps a LOT. Thank you!

I’m so excited to see you! I took an online course from you and then I left social media and missed a few of my favorite places. I was hoping you would find your way to YT!! Thank you! I need more help with my sourdough. Can’t wait to go and watch your other videos!

This explanation was exactly what I needed. I’m excited to try another loaf with this information in my arsenal. Thank you!

Awesome explanations!! Super helpful.

This is very helpful. Thank you!

Exactly what I needed! Thank you!!

Thank you SO much for showing and explaining what a strong, healthy leaven looks like! That helped me tremendously 😊

Great video. Thanks for the help!

Thank you for this video. This is so helpful!

Thank you for sharing this information. This and better doing the right shaping helped me get great oven spring and beautiful loaves!

Thank you for explaining the starter. This morning my starter rose out of the jar. So glad I listened.

I really needed this. Thank you!

This is like a level 2 video. I’m very much level 1 right now haha

This was so informative. I will make note of this!

OMG! GBU for making this video. I learn so much just in this alone!!! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Thanks for the great video!! I am really getting the hang of managing a great starter.

This is the best video I’ve watch yet that explains how to get a good strong starter. Thank you so much. Finally!❤

This is the sourdough video the world needed. Thanks. I’m going to search for the bread video im sure you have. Thanks for this.

This is very helpful. Thanks!

Thank you this helped tremendously!

OMG !!! I can't believe how infornative your video has been for me, thank you for just being you or in my case like a sister explaining something to her brother without any nonsense or goofyness etc. I can't believe how many people comment that the language (new terms and meanings) is seemingly your fault i.e., that you're making this too difficult because they don't understand this sourdough business yet. If it was easy it would be boring, not challenging and far from a rewarding experience!. A pilot of a 747 does not master his craft without a lot of trial and error so ... to all you whiners out there...stop blaming the airplane, crash and burn a few times then start applying your own self to the ART of sourdough making that it is. Put your own energy into this endeavor and be thankful that we have such knowledable and experienced coaches available to us all for FREE. Start your google engine and research the terms on your own and let this presenter focus on intelligent topics at an intelligent level so that everyone can grow and move forward in this sourdough learning curve. This is not sourdough 101 (if you even get that !) so maybe you're in the wrong class. Your whining only displays your ignorance and laziness. Grow your own mind!!!

My starter started making big bubbles this morning, and im so proud of myself😊

I finally get it! Thank You so much! 😊

Very useful info, thank you 😊

Thank you for explaining it so well I was always confused and trying to figure it out from other videos how to start, you made it simple and in order now I think I’m ready to use my starter and should have a great lavein 🙌

Thank you this is so helpful, I've been trying for a year to make a good loaf and no one has explained this

Phenomenal video!!! Soo helpful.

Love this! You are right on!!

New to this. I’m trying what you’re suggesting tomorrow :)

So glad I found your video, after several bad attempts, I think I have found my answer.

To me starter and levain are basically the same thing. If the recipe calls for 300g of levain/starter, I would do 135g of flour, 135g water and 30g of my original starter. In your example, would you not be using 30g more levain/starter than the recipe calls for…using the 30g starter, 150g,water,150g flour? You did an absolutely great explanation and example of what the levin/starter should look like when it’s ready to use.

New to sourdough and was getting information overload on levain, thanks for clearing this up in a simple video.

So glad I found this video! My boules have been a bit flat and this helped me understand how to read my starter/levain. 😊 thanks!

What a great video. Thanks for all the great information and demonstration.

I really learned a lot from your video. I am sort of new to sourdough making . I am getting better at it but I think with this video I will have even better bread ! Thank you for sharing!!!!

Thankyou sooo very much. From a beginner

Thanks, I just made my first sourdough starter and I couldn't tell if it was ready.

This is amazing!! I’ve been trying endlessly to have a successful loaf of bread. This has answered all of my questions and solved everything! Thank you so much!

thank youuuuu you answered so many questions i have had!

Oh my gosh, I've been struggling with gummy flat sourdough bread. Thanks for making this video!

Your kitchen is beautiful! ⭐️

Very cool and very well explained. One note for viewers from Germany where rye starters are also very common: 8:33 does not work with rye starters according to the missing gluten 😁

Very helpful! Thank you so much!

This was by far the best video I have watched for what to do with my runny sourdough starter! I am so excited because abuse today I had the perfect starter! I had almost given up after watching so many other videos. Thank you!

This makes so much sense - I was having the sticky dough problem and I felt my starter was not spongy enough. Thank you.