Making your own sourdough bread is a great way to be frugal. Basically, instead of adding commercial yeast to your dough you can save by adding sourdough starter, which will also cause it to rise. The starter is made of flour and water that has been fermented and is full of wild yeast and beneficial bacteria.

The easiest way to get the starter is to find a friend that already has some and to take a little from them. When that's not possible, as it wasn't in my case, you can make your own or you can buy some. Obviously making your own is cheaper but it takes a bit of work. Fortunately, you shouldn't need to need to make it again if you keep it healthy, because well maintained starter can last for years.

These instructions are imprecise so don't panic if you don't follow a step exactly. People have been making starter since the days of ancient Egypt, you can do it too.

1. Get a bowl or pot with a loose fitting lid (saran wrap will work if you're in a pinch). Mix together 3 cups of white flour with 2 cups of water. Leave this out on your counter for the entire time that you're fermenting it.
2. In the evening, add in those ingredients again. It works nicely to whisk in the water first and then add the flour.
3. The next morning, discard half of your batter. To the remaining batter, add the ingredients from step one again. Below I've made suggestions for how you can use the batter that you removed.
4. In the evening follow step three again.
5. Repeat step three and four again for the next few days.

You'll know when your starter is done when it doubles in volume within twelve hours, and becomes frothy and sour smelling. If you are in doubt continue another day. If the sourdough starts to smell like alcohol or changes colour and smells rancid then it has gone bad. The first time I tried to make starter it went bad. It smelled very gross and had a slight pink colour. Healthy starter smells sour, like the sour of strong sourdough bread. The links on the bottom of this page have some more details on making your own starter.

Note: Your starter will get healthier the more that you use it so don't be discouraged and throw it out if it doesn't rise the bread like you think it should the first few times. Some rising means it's not rotten. Just cook it 25° lower and enjoy the dense bread and remember that it will get better.

Once you have a healthy starter, you need to know how to use it and care for it. Ideally, you should attempt to make bread with your starter once a week. This provides a great opportunity to feed your starter. The night before you want to use your starter, take it out of the fridge, dump it in a large bowl with a lid, and whisk in 2 cups water. Then, mix in 4 cups of white flour. Make sure your bowl is large enough to hold three times the volume of what you have in the bowl at this point. Loosely cover, leave out, and go to bed. In the morning, put about 4 cups of starter in your bread bowl, and then put about 2 cups of the starter into a jar to go back in the fridge. Of course, if you're following a different recipe then the one below you'll need a different amount of sourdough in your bread bowl. If it's a lot less, consider feeding it less the night before. If you began the night before with about 2 cups (4 cups risen) of starter, then you should have just the right amount for the following recipe. If you have a lot left over try using the excess in the ways below.

If you are particularly busy and don't want to make bread one week, then take out your starter and whisk in 1 cup of water and stir in 2 cup of flour. Leave it out over night. In the morning, remove half of it and put it back in the fridge. You can leave it without feeding it for up to about a month.

If you know how to make bread by hand with commercial yeast then this should be easy to learn. If not, I suggest that you learn that first. For help with that please read "Bake Your Own Bread".

1. Add water to the starter and whisk it in. Add the oil, sugar or malt, and salt. Slowly add the flour. Mix in enough flour that you can start kneading it. Knead for about 10 mins or until it's tougher and elastic, adding flour as necessary to prevent excessive stickiness. Put some oil in your hand and cover the surface of your dough.
2. Put a damp tea-towel (this is necessary or it will dry out) over your bowl and let it rise for 3-5 hours or until double, whichever comes first. If your starter is young or not super healthy, then leave it longer. I've left it overnight before. The longer the dough rises the more sour it will get. This isn't necessarily bad, but at some point it can become overbearing.
3. Punch down and form into four loaves. Cover and rise again for 2-4 hours.
4. Dip a very sharp straight-edge knife in some water. Quickly slash each loaf being careful not to tear the loaves. Make the slashes about 1 cm deep and at either three 45° angles or one straight down the center of the bread. Bake in a 325° oven for about 40 minutes or until it is nice and golden on the bottom and sounds hollow when you tap on it.

You can add excess starter to biscuits, pancakes, muffins or anything else that you fancy. Here's a link to some biscuit recipes that use sourdough.