Simplifying Sourdough | My Basic Bread Process for Beginners
/Well if it isn’t another “never say never” moment – from “yeah I’ll never do that, that seems way too complicated” to “well, maybe it would be worth a try, it’s good for you and it would be a good challenge to figure out” to “oh my gosh, I’m loving this” – that about sums up my sourdough journey so far. I did not get the hype at first, and then was intimidated by it all, but now, baking sourdough is something I truly enjoy and look forward to every week. So if you’re on the fence about starting or just learning the basics, this blog is for you!
Is Making Sourdough Worth It?
Let’s be honest – sourdough is a process. It’s not difficult, but it requires patience and persistence. It takes TIME and practice to figure out all the factors at play and there’s no such thing as whipping up a quick loaf of sourdough, so it’s a commitment. But man, getting the hang of it, finally taking the lid off your dutch oven and seeing a beautiful loaf, the smell of sourdough filling your kitchen, and sharing some damn delicious bread with ones you love – yes, absolutely worth it. My husband and kids love having fresh bread, and I love that I know exactly what’s in it. I’m so grateful I took the plunge and taught myself this skill because it’s something I can teach my kids (and hopefully, their kids!) one day, too.
Basic Sourdough Terms
starter – a combo of flour and water. the microorganisms in the flour react with the water, creating gas bubbles which serves as the rising agent for your bread.
discard – extra starter. each time you feed your starter, you’ll get rid of some, otherwise your starter will double exponentially and quickly outgrow your jar. the “leftover” discard is usable - to start a new starter jar for someone else, or to use in other recipes like muffins, cookies, pizza dough and more!
banneton – a linen-lined bread basket. its shape helps your dough keep its shape before baking.
Simple Sourdough Schedule + Recipe
Whenever I get tempted by the rabbit hole of sourdough information on Instagram – try this, do that, don’t do this, alllll the tips and tricks – I remind myself that people having been making sourdough for centuries. It really doesn’t have to be that complicated. As I’ve found my rhythm with it, the minimalist in me has tried to simplify the process as much as possible while still getting good results. That said, sourdough is part science, part art, so it’s subjective. What works for some might not work for others and what some consider a great loaf, others might not. Tweak things until you find what works best for you, your home, your climate, your schedule, and what you like! There’s no right or wrong way. On a basic level, here’s my sourdough schedule.
Day 1: feed starter once or twice
Day 2, morning: feed starter again
Day 2, afternoon: make dough, do stretch and folds
Day 2, evening: shape dough, shape again, rest in fridge overnight
Day 3, morning: score and bake!
And the recipe I use (courtesy of my friend Melanie - this makes two loaves):
1000g bread flour
725g water
20g salt
150g starter
While I’m all about simplifying sourdough as much as possible, I know I had 1 billion questions as I was learning, so this blog will be thorough to try and answer as many of those same questions I had along the way. So let’s get into it in more detail!
Minimalist Sourdough Equipment List
Sourdough could not be more simple when it comes to ingredients (it’s literally flour, water, and salt), but having the right equipment helps a whole lot. At a minimum, I would recommend:
2 wide mouth mason jars - one for active starter, one for discard
2 large mixing bowls (not metal)
2 bannetons
1 skinny spatula
1 Dutch oven
-shower caps (I buy this pack of 15 for 98 cents) or tea towels to cover your bowls
-parchment paper or silicone bread sling
-kitchen scale
-dough scraper
-a good bread knife
You can shop these items via the widget below or by clicking HERE for my LTK post with all the links in one spot.
As for ingredients, I always have on hand:
starter
a big thing of salt
a jug of purified drinking water (don’t use tap water)
unbleached all purpose flour (cheaper option for feeding your starter)
bread flour (for baking – I like King Arthur brand)
My Sourdough Process
FEEDING THE STARTER
A quick note on starter – a strong, reliable starter is the number one factor in baking sourdough. It’s a must. I made 4 attempts at making my own starter and could never get it going strong enough to where it was rising consistently, which means my loaves weren’t rising consistently (or at all). Finally, I gave up trying to create my own starter (although many have great luck with it!) and got some more established starter from a friend – that made all the difference.
I keep my starter in the fridge when I’m not actively baking with it to “pause” it and save flour, because if it’s out on the counter at room temperature, it’ll need to be fed daily. I work backwards from the day I want to have fresh bread and count back 2 days to get started - so if I want fresh bread on Saturday, I’ll start on Thursday by getting my starter out of the fridge, letting it come to room temperature, and feeding it once or twice that day. Friday morning, I’ll feed it one more time before it’s time to make dough Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, we bake!
The recipe I use calls for 150g of starter, so I’ll make sure my last feed before making dough has at least 50g each of starter, flour and warm water (50x3 = 150). Usually I’ll do around 60/60/60 to ensure there’s a little leftover to keep my starter going. The feed(s) prior to the last feed don’t have to use that much though – I’ll typically do 30/30/30 so I’m not drowning in discard. Those first feeds are just to wake up your starter and strengthen it!
I feed my starter around 8am and by 1pm, it’ll have doubled, sometimes tripled, and be at its peak (very bubbly and domed on top), which is the ideal time to incorporate it into your dough. Don’t stress if you don’t catch it right at peak though. If it passes the float test (drop a tablespoon or so of starter in a cup of water) – if it floats, it’s probably going to work just fine.
MAKING THE DOUGH
Around 1pm/early afternoon, I’ll make my dough. This is where people get crazy complicated with things and I say, it doesn’t have to be this way! Pour 1000g of bread flour into your biggest bowl. Pour 20g of salt on your flour. Stir it up nicely. In your second bowl, pour 725g of lukewarm purified water (I warm it up in a glass pyrex in the microwave). Then use your spatula to pour 150g of your bubbly starter into the water. It should float right on top. Use your spatula to stir that together until you don’t see any more chunks of starter. Pour the milky mixture into your flour/salt mixture. With your spatula again, stir everything up WELL until you don’t see any more dry flour. It’s an arm workout! At this point, your dough should be shaggy and choppy. You’re going to let it sit for one hour so the flour can really soak up all the liquid.
TIMING TIP: if you want to catch your starter at its peak but you don’t have a good chunk of time to make dough/do stretch and folds until later on in the day, feed your starter a higher ratio! The more food it has to “eat”, the longer it’ll take to rise. I’d do 50/75/75 starter/flour/water or even 50/100/100. This will buy you more time!
STRETCH AND FOLDS
At 2pm, it’s time for stretch and folds. This is where you’re essentially giving the dough some workouts to strengthen its gluten strands so it can rise up nicely when baking. I do stretch and folds by the kitchen sink so I can easily wet my fingers to help keep the dough from sticking to my hands. I start by pulling the dough away from the bowl, stretching it up and giving it a few flaps back and forth (gently; you don’t want the dough to tear), folding it back over on itself, then turning the bowl a quarter turn and repeating this 3 more times until you’ve stretched and folded 4 times, once in each direction. This process should take all of one minute. THIS video is a good, quick visual.
You’ll do 3 more sets of stretch and folds over the next 2 hours, letting the dough rest, covered, for 20-30 minutes in between each time.
BULK FERMENT or PROOFING
Once you’ve finished your stretch and folds, you’ll let your dough rest, covered (I like to use a shower cap – keeps it nice and humid and bonus for being see-through), in a warm spot for it to bulk ferment, or proof. This is when the starter works its magic on your dough. It should double in size, and when it’s done proofing, your dough should have a glossy sheen to the surface, be pulling away from the bowl, slightly domed, and with bubbles throughout (you’ll see some on the surface).
A warm (not hot) resting environment is key for your dough to be able to rise well. In warmer months, I set my dough bowl in a closet that doesn’t have an air vent. In colder months, I’ll keep it near the dryer in the laundry room.
Knowing when your dough is ready to shape is probably the trickiest part of learning sourdough. It’s one of those things you’ll truly get a feel for as you practice, but patience is key. It’s really easy to underferment your dough (move on to shaping too quickly). It’s much harder to overferment your dough. On average, if I try and let my dough rise for 4, even 5 hours after finishing my stretch and folds. This means I’ll start shaping at 8pm or 9pm.
DOUBLE SHAPING
This is the fun and messy part! I sprinkle AP flour on my bannetons to get them ready to go, sprinkle my counter with flour, and use my dough scraper to help dump my dough on the floured counter. I’ll split it in half with the dough scraper, and then stretch out each half to make a rectangle of dough. To shape, you’ll fold each corner/side of the rectangle in towards the middle until you have a circular/ball shape, then turn it over and use your dough scraper in your dominant hand and the palm of your other free hand to turn that ball again and again on the counter, gently, until you have a nice, tight, round dough ball. You’ll repeat this for the other rectangle of dough and then cover both with a tea towel for about 15 minutes.
After about 15 minutes, you’ll shape again! Double-shaping isn’t a totally necessary step but one I think makes a difference in the outcome. To re-shape, you’ll take your dough ball (aka “boule”) which has now spread out some, turn it over so the “bottom” is facing up, fold in the corners again, and shape it into another tight ball before placing bottom/seam side up in your banneton. The key here is gentle tension – you want a tight ball so that it’ll POP in the hot oven (known as oven spring – this gives height to your loaf), but you don’t want the ball to be so tight that you pop all the bubbles within it. Those bubbles are what gives your sourdough the holey, fluffy texture it’s known for!
While you can use a parchment-lined bowl or one sprayed with cooking spray, I do think it’s worth having 2 bannetons – the linen liners of the bannetons are similar to cast iron in that they become “seasoned” with flour (no need to wash them) and make a nice, round, non-stick place for your dough to rest and finish proofing overnight. You don’t have to mess with sticky sprays or not having the right size bowl for your dough to keep its shape - just get the bannetons. I like an 8 or 8.5 inch size!
OVERNIGHT PROOF
Once your dough is shaped into two boules, each in its own banneton, you’ll cover them and place in the fridge overnight. The dough will continue to slowly ferment a bit overnight and will be ready to go after about 12 hours!
SCORE AND BAKE
Finally, you’re ready to score and bake. To prep for baking, you’ll want to preheat your oven to 475 WITH your dutch oven inside. A hot dutch oven helps so much with oven spring (making for a taller, more spherical loaf, rather than a flatter disc shape). My oven heats up pretty quickly but I try to preheat my dutch oven for 30+ minutes to make sure it’s nice and HOT. Right before baking, I’ll take my boule out of the fridge, gently dump it out on a piece of parchment paper (so now the seam is on the bottom), and score it. This is how the steam escapes your dough and where you can get creative with designs. You can use a small, very sharp knife for this, but a lame (special razor made for dough) works so well. It’ll cut smoother if you turn it at an angle rather than going straight down. Don’t be afraid to go deep with your main score (I typically do one main line down the center or a simple cross, about a half inch deep) and use a lighter hand for extra design elements.
Then, gently (a keyword here, but you don’t want to deflate your dough) place your parchment paper with the dough down into your dutch oven. I like to add 3 ice cubes between the paper and edge of the dutch oven for extra steam. You’ll bake for 25 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid, turn the heat down to 450 so your dough doesn’t burn, and bake for 15 more minutes. When that loaf is finished, turn your oven back up to 475 again and repeat with the second loaf!
SLICING YOUR SOURDOUGH
Now the really hard part – waiting to cut into your loaves. Waiting 1-2 hours until they’ve completely cooled ensures the steam within your loaf can dissipate and help it to rise even more while it rests. If you slice it too soon, your texture may be on the gummy side.
SLICING TIP - I like to make my main cut down the middle, then turn each half of the loaf face down and slice. It makes the perfect size slice for sandwiches and individual servings, and makes it so much easier to control my knife.
Troubleshooting + storing Sourdough Loaves
Before you venture into sourdough, know that failure is a rite of passage. You will most likely have a few (or several) ugly loaves before you achieve your ideal loaf. It’s just part of the process, but it’s a good thing, because you can learn so much from your loaves! A gummy, dense texture, flat disc shape, and big, unevenly spaced holes most likely one of two things – either your starter wasn’t strong enough, or you didn’t let your dough ferment long enough and shaped it too soon.
With each loaf, you can tweak something (don’t tweak too many things at once or you won’t know what’s helping), and hopefully improve a little bit each time.
I like to store my loaves either wrapped in a tea towel on the counter (good for 2-3 days, keeps the crust nice and crunchy) or in one of these extra large bread bags – keeps it fresh for a week or more and looks nice for gifting! Sourdough also freezes and thaws nicely.
I have grown to love the process of sourdough so much – it’s both relaxing and exciting for me, and the outcome is worth it every time. Please feel free to reach out if you have questions or need help troubleshooting. Happy baking, friends!