If it bubbles and smells nice…
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These sourdough making and bread baking tips aim to help you with your sourdough bread baking. Maybe you have your sourdough starter culture ready and active. If not, please check out our tutorial on how to make your own sourdough culture in easy steps.
- Time is your friend, time means taste. And compared to yeast based breads you will need much more of it for the dough to properly develop. So, do not make sourdough bread when you are in a hurry, it takes as long as it takes!
- Do not be discouraged if your first sourdough bake is not perfect. This is perfectly normal. Like with all baking you need to learn and get to understand your dough and its quirks in combination with your surroundings, your material and ingredients. Lots of factors that need to come together.
- Start with a good basic sourdough recipe like our Pain Naturel. When this goes well you can get creative. Make the recipe at least a few times as described before changing anything…get to know the recipe and get a feel for the dough.
- Every sourdough culture is a bit different, some take 2 hours to proof your bread, some take 4 hours. So bake a few times to get a feeling of your sourdough culture it may be different from ours.
- Even if your sourdough loaf is not perfect and maybe a bit flat, do not throw it away. Most of the time it will still be very edible!
- You will see a lot of different names for the same thing in recipes in books and on the internet; sourdough, culture, starter, barm, sauerteig, kultur, desem etc. It all means the same; a mixture of water and flour fully alive with wild yeast and good bacteria. Do not be confused, it all works the same! The biggest difference will be the amount of water and the type of flour.
Some basic tips to start with…
Taking care of your sourdough culture
A good sourdough bread can only be made with a sourdough culture that’s alive and kicking. So make absolutely sure:
- You take good care of your starter by refreshing it regularly. When a starter gets too sour the acid stops the yeast from growing and making bubbles. By refreshing you give your starter new food to eat and you dilute the acid environment so the yeast comes back to live again.
- When you do not use your starter for a few days or it is a hot day / week you can store it in the fridge for up to three weeks before it needs refreshing again.
- Your culture smells nice! Your starter should smell fresh and fruity, reminding you of things like blueberries (with rye) and yoghurt and citrus (with wheat). If this smell changes to something resembling nail polish it is definitely time to feed your starter. If the polish smell does not go away…we are sorry but we think it is time to start all over again!
- You stir your starter to help add oxygen to it. The ‘nail polish’ bacteria do not like oxygen but the yeast and the good bacteria like oxygen.
- You use the right flour to feed your culture. Organic whole grain wheat and rye and spelt will work best because these grains will have enough yeast spores to keep your culture going.
- You use the right water too. A sourdough culture does not like chlorine, so if your tap water has too much of it, use bottled water.
- Any signs of fluffy stuff and strange colors on your culture. Something moved in that does not belong. Throw it away and start again!
As long as your sourdough culture is not red, blue, green or black, doesn’t stink so foul you want to run away from it or is growing fluffy hair you can rest assured it is alive and well!
Why do we maintain such a small amount of starter?
We work with a two step system. When using a preferment (like a poolish or a biga) we use about 15-20 grams of sourdough for a sourdough loaf like our whole wheat levain and pain naturel. With this small amount of sourdough you create a fully active sourdough preferment overnight which you then use to build the final dough. This way you can keep a small starter and still have the full sourdough flavor. Big advantage for home and hobby bakers is you are wasting far less precious flour when refreshing your culture than you would maintaining a big one!
Example: You bake 2 loaves each week. With our method you only have to maintain about 50 grams of sourdough. If you decide to skip baking this week, using our method, refreshing means throwing away only about 30 grams of sourdough. With the other-big-starter-method refreshing means throwing away 200 to 400 grams of culture depending on the recipe! Plus with this method you always need to refresh your starter before baking because the gluten weaken and you would otherwise have all this flour in your dough. With our method, you add the small amount of culture to a fresh batch of flour and so you will not have this problem of weakened gluten in your culture.
More sour please!
There are two main acids produced in a sourdough culture ― lactic acid and acetic acid. Acetic acid, or vinegar, is the acid that gives sourdough much of its sour taste. The lactic acid gives more of a mild yoghurt type of sourness. Giving acetic acid-producing organisms optimal conditions to multiply will yield a culture with more sour notes. Here are some tips to get more sour in your sourdough:
- Maintain your starter at a lower hydration level (more thick paste like consistency). Lactic acid-producing organisms like a wet environment whereas acetic acid is produced more abundantly in a drier environment.
- Refrigerating the culture also slows down the yeast activity and lets the bacteria dominate and produce more sour acids.
- Working oxygen into the starter by mixing during feedings should also promote more acetic-acid sourness.
- Acid-producing bacteria like whole grain flours, so use more of them.
- Try to achieve a longer, slower rise. This may mean you’ll need to create a cooler rather than a warmer environment. You can let the dough rise in a cool place or use the fridge to further retard the dough rising process.
- Sourness also comes with age. If your culture is still very young it may need to ripen a bit more to show its full potential.
Recipe suggestion for a sourdough with more sour tang:
San Francisco Sourdough Bread
No Knead Soft Sourdough Rolls
Less sour please!
Don’t want the acidity to hit you full in the face? Stick to these tips to aim for less sour in your sourdough loaf:
- Maintain your starter at a higher hydration level (more yoghurt consistency) and feed / refresh it (more) regularly. This helps to minimize the alcohol content which will help reduce the overall acidity of the sourdough.
- Acid-producing bacteria like whole grain flours, so use less of them and more (finer / white) bread flour.
- Keep your culture at room temperature. The best environment for the yeast and lactobacilli to prosper, but feed regularly!.
- Try to speed up proofing times. You can play with temperatures and amounts of culture added.
- We have found that the sourness depends on the ripeness of the preferment. This means that using an under-ripe poolish gives you the flavor advantages but not the added sourness.
- For a subtle hint of sour and wonderful crust and crumb and a speedier process, check out some of our hybrid bread recipes. They combine the best of sourdough and yeast. Our pain rustique recipe is a good example.
Recipe suggestion for a loaf with less sour tang:
Sourdough Pain Naturel
Sourdough Mini Boules
Starters are like children!
You cannot neglect them or leave them alone for too long plus they are unpredictable. They are all different with their own characteristics and quirky traits.
This is why, despite all the tips given, it can still be that your own culture is a mild and gentle type, never capable of producing a super sour loaf, or the other way around. If all else fails or you are not happy with your results, start a new or second culture and give it another go.
Play with these tips, try different cultures and flours (rye, wheat, spelt) and recipes and see what comes out. It’s all part of the wonderful journey to your ultimate sourdough bread!
Denise Brownell says
I’m going to try the smaller starter. I subdivided the starter this morning, feeding a small amount of rye flour for my new smaller starter. I started with rye flour at the beginning, but I’ve been feeding it a combination of unbleached, and heritage flour from the west coast. The rest I fed for today’s loaf, which if it turns out will go to the neighbors…….all this experimenting has resulted in a lot of bread. I still have more starter which I will probably keep in case the new feeding plan fails. And a friend also expressed interest in getting back into baking sour dough. I had to go away for a few days, and I was afraid the fridge was going to kill it, but it’s still fine 🙂
Weekend Bakers says
Great Denise,
Yes, the fridge is the right place in such cases. But we always check by looking and smelling, like we say in our tips, to make sure the culture is good to be used!
Wishing you many wonderful loaves and a flourishing and long life for your culture.
Greetings from Holland,
Marieke & Ed
brian hambleton says
I am looking for advice on where in the starter feed cycle I should be when I use my starter to bake bread?
I surmise that I should be several hours after a regular feed but cannot find any advice on optimum timing related to the starter feed cycle.
Your thoughts?
Thanks,
Brian H.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Brian,
In general we refresh our starter one day in advance and use it in a preferment the following day when it is active (plus we always check that it smells nice too).
We replenish what we took out of the jar, let this get active again at room temperature and put the jar in the fridge the next day.
The question about your optimum we can only answer with yes, it is several hours and somewhere between 12 and 24 hours should always be fine. But you have some room to maneuver, we did not find that using it after 13 hours is better than after 17 or so. We can even tell you we use starter straight from the fridge without feeding first if it has been there less than a week.
Also read the comment below about this.
Enjoy your baking!
Joseph Halloran says
I really like your two step process but I have a few questions about maintaining a rye starter:
How much starter do you keep in the jar? If only using 20gs or so how much is left in the jar at this point? When you take the 20g out to make the poolish do you just add 10g water + 10g four?
Can the a starter be used in a poolish straight from the fridge?
Should the starter be refreshed with an air tight lid or a cloth covering?
I very much appreciate all the help so far, but I would you mind commenting on my proposed schedule for a once a week baker(I have a starter at the moment which seems to be healthy enough). Most of the timings are from your ‘favourite whole wheat levain’ recipe:
Day 1:
– 7:30 AM: Get starter out the fridge, take 20gs out and mix with four and water for poolish. Add 10g of flour + water in to the starter and mix.
– 7:30 PM: use poolish for whole wheat loaf, mix in dough ingredients and knead in mixer. Put starter back in the fridge
– 8:30 & 9:30 – stretch and fold
– 9:30 – shape and put the dough in the fridge
Day 2:
– 6PM score + bake
I appreciate there is a lot of variables such as room temperature etc… and that given it spends a lot of time in the fridge I may need to reduce the time it is out in the evening of Day 1. I am just trying to find a schedule which works around being at work during large parts of the day.
Appreciate any advice!
Joseph Halloran says
ooo, and one more thing!
Does fridge temperature affect the sourdough starter?
Thanks!!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for your enthusiastic comment. We think most of your questions are answered in our posting about making our rye starter culture in easy steps:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…asy-steps/
Our general advice for the feeding and maintenance is this:
If you want to bake you can use what you need, add water and flour to restore what you took, wait 12 hours till it comes up again and then store it in the fridge. (These 12 hours are also not cut in stone, you can also take some more time if this fits your schedule. Anything between 12 and 24 hours should be fine, as long as your culture looks active before storing it in the fridge).
-If you want to bake within a week, you can take some straight from the fridge and then do the above.
If the culture has been in the fridge for over a week, you first refresh the day before you use it by throwing away 2/3, adding water and flour, let it get active at room temp and use it the next day.
The way we use it the fridge temperature does not affect the starter in any way negative for your baking result.
Hope this helps!
Al Murphy says
Well done Easy to understand and follow
Al
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Al, for visiting and for finding our tips helpful.
Enjoy your sourdough baking!
Linda says
Hoi, met jullie tips heb ik een mooi desem (starter) gemaakt met Rogge. Eerder probeerde ik een tarwe desem te maken maar die ging al snel naar ruiken en het lukte mij nooit hem echt aan de gang te krijgen. Nu vraag ik me af welke aanpassing ik moet maken als er in een recept i.p.v. een roggedesem een tarwe of volkoren desem (even uitgaande van 100% hydratatie) wordt gebruikt. Of is het gewoon een kwestie van vervangen?
Weekend Bakers says
Hallo Linda,
Fijn te lezen dat het goed is gelukt. Je hoeft geen enkele aanpassing te doen, je kunt gewoon je roggedesem gebruiken. Dat doen wij ook in al onze desem-recepten. Een klein schepje van je rogge-cultuur in een voordeeg van bijvoorbeeld tarwe of spelt, zal verder geen verschil maken voor de smaak van het brood, die hoeveelheid rogge proef je niet echt terug.
Esther says
If I start my sourdough with rye flour the next time I feed it can I use white or whole wheat flour or do I have to continue with the same flour I started my sourdough?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Esther,
You can change from rye to wheat, that is no problem. The only thing to consider is the maintaining of the culture. A wheat culture needs more regular feeding / refreshing and is prone to collecting hooch (naturally-occurring alcohol) on top. So you need to keep an eye on it and if you see this dark liquid, immediately feed your culture and make sure to keep it in a cool spot or the fridge.
Irene says
Hello,
Can I use my starter straight from the fridge or should it be refreshed (fed) first?
I like the convenience of using it straight from the fridge as it cuts out one step. Other than that I would feed my starter once every 2 weeks or so depending on how much I use. Does fed and unfed starter have any difference in the baked bread?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Irene,
Our advice and the method we use ourselves is:
Use it straight from the fridge in a preferment within a week of refreshing, if it has been in the fridge for longer than a week, refresh first then use. And yes, you at one point need to feed your starter and make it active again before use, if you wait too long the food will be gone, or something nasty can develop or it can become too acid. It is a way to check and be sure the culture is alive and well before use.
Irene says
thanks very much for this information!
Weekend Bakers says
Glad you find it useful 🙂
Ann Smith says
I am still slightly confused as some recipes state 25g of sourdough starter and some 320g using the same amount of flour and water. Why do the quantities of sourdough starter in recipes vary so much ?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Ann,
Sorry for the late reply, your question somehow escaped our attention.
Very simply put: You can either build a bigger starter with a small amount overnight and use that in the final dough (for example like we do with a lot of recipes, making a ‘poolish’ or other preferment/starter with a small amount of sourdough and using it the next day). Or you can maintain a much bigger starter culture and use this in your final dough. You on the one hand avoid the extra overnight step, on the other hand, you have to maintain this very big starter culture and refresh it which means you are left with lots of precious culture you must throw away or use in something or other.
Read more in the above article on the subject!
Jay says
Thank you for the post, super helpful and encouraging!
I have recently started making my own starter. The starter was rising more than double during the first 2 days but somehow have stopped rising after 3rd day. The air pockets are also significantly reduced.
Should I start over again? What might be the cause?
Thanks a lot!!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Jay,
If your starter ‘kind of stagnates’ but the smell is OK (no nail polish but more yogurty or fruity) you should not stop and think it is not working. You should try and refresh it and feed it anyway. By refreshing you give your starter new food to eat and you dilute the acid environment so the yeast come back to live again. I advice at this point to throw away 3/4 of your starter and add flour and lukewarm water (around 28-30 Celsius). Also keep the starter a bit wetter, so it is still easy to stir without being sloppy. This removes the acid and gives a nice warm wet environment for the organisms to grow in.
Just give it a few tries, and only start over if after several days of feeding and refreshing absolutely nothing is happening.
Good luck with it!
Andrew says
What great information here…..thanks for sharing. The tips for more vs less acid is particularly helpful. Excited to try the different recipes listed.
I am making my sourdough starter from 100% barley flour and will be using a mix of barley flour and bread (wheat) flour to make the bread – probably 2:1 ratio of barley:bread flour, with some extra wheat gluten added. Do you see any issues with this? I see most people using wheat, spelt or rye, but haven’t seen anyone else using barley……
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Andrew,
You are right, you see a lot less recipes with barley and we must confess we do not bake with barley ourselves (maybe also something to do with availability). But we do not see any objections to your plan. We have seen recipes with rye and up to 10% added gluten powder with great results. It is still on our wish list to give it a try too.
Let us know how it goes!
Mojtaba Talaian says
Hi, Be careful with barley. The reason it is not very common is that barley has almost no Gluten and produces a peace brick. I am Iranian and I know from old literature that barely was common and cheap, so it was the bread for the poor. Perhaps you have checked that barley is very healthy, if of course you can make a desirable bread with it. I have tried once. It didn’t make me interested to make a second one. i think a ratio of 3 wheat flour and a1 barley flour is a good start point. Good luck
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you Mojtaba, your ratio suggestion would be something we would adopt for a first attempt.
Mary paley.. says
Brilliant. Cannot wait to get started.
Weekend Bakers says
Let us know how it goes with the sourdough baking and check out our recipes!
Anoop says
Hello,
I making a sourdough starter using 100% whole wheat flour. I have 2 doubts;
1. I see so much activity happening in just the second day of the starter, the method i follow says to feed every 24 hours. So what should i do? should i wait for 24 hours or 12 hours?
2. So as i am making the sourdough starter using whole wheat flour, should i use the same for baking the bread as well or can i use strong white flour? or a mix of both strong white flour and whole wheat flour??
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Anoop,
1. We would advice to stick to the schedule for now. There are different yeasts and bacteria at work and some that are very enthusiastic in the beginning, might not ‘survive’ later in the process as the environment changes, which can be a good thing for your culture.
2.You can combine your starter culture with different flour no problem. We also use the rye starter with wheat flour / bread flour and whole wheat and spelt flour.
Good luck with it!
Anna says
Hi Ed and Marieke!
I am so thankful for your site. I used your rye starter instructions to start my own starter over a year ago and have been enjoying making my own sourdough.
Question: In my absent mindedness today (from having an infant/lack of sleep), I fed my starter with spelt instead of my rye flour! I think I may have done it last time too. What do I do? What does this mean?
Which leads me to another question: Can one change the starter by feeding it a new flour each time to eventually it becomes predominantly that flour? I am thinking of whole grain einkorn flour.
Thank you!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Anna,
Yes, no problem to gradually change to a different flour or to switch back to the rye. Hopefully you have found that out. You can use the rye and it will become all rye again after a while. Making it all spelt is possible too of course, but it behaves differently than rye and can be a little bit more tricky to maintain. We do not have personal experience with einkorn but it will work the same and we are sure you can find more info on the web about it.
Good luck with it and happy sourdough baking!
Sangita says
Does the active starter also adds in the Hyderation because my dough is always not firm and even bubbles are not formed after the 4 stretch
Dough flatten up when I remove from the proofing basket
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Sangita,
What recipe and what flour do you use and more precisely how much protein does your flour contain? We think it would rather be a problem of not enough gluten (development) than the hydration. In our recipes we use a very small amount of initial starter and it would not make a real difference in the end result if you added it in the hydration or not.
It is normal for dough to slightly flatten out of the basket but it should be able to get a good oven spring once it goes into the hot oven or on the hot stones and also gets enough steam to help it expand during the first face of baking.
Ronda says
My rye starter never passes the float test although it appears active. Should it? Or is this a property of rye starter?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Ronda,
We are not big fans nor regular ‘practitioners’ of the floating test. If your starter has a low(er) hydration or was recently stirred for example, it could not pass the test while it is healthy and active. So we judge by looking at bubbles, air pockets, quickness of growth in the jar after feeding and the smell.
Joseph Falcone says
Your website is Awesome…I’ve learned so much from your site. Every time I make Bread I learn something new. What a group of Talented Bakers.
Keep up your Fantastic Bread Making Adventures.
God Bless all of you.
Joseph Falcone
California, USA
Weekend Bakers says
Dear Joseph,
Thank you very much for your kind and generous comment.
Wishing you health, happiness and many enjoyable baking moments from the low countries,
Marieke & Ed
Anthony Parkins says
Why do some sourdough loaves (not poolish) take 4 hours or so to prove and get the dough ready for baking, when Bertinet’s book suggest leaving it for 16-19 hours in the bannetton?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Anthony,
There are many ways that lead to a good loaf, we see many different versions of a sourdough bread and as long as quantities, methods and proofing times correspond, the result will be good (although most recipes need some tweaking to get it right for your own conditions). We do not know the recipe you are referring to, but 4 hours proofing without a preferment seems short. But we would have to see the recipe and explanation to know what is what.
The other recipe by Bertinet probably makes use of the fridge or a cool place when proofing we guess.
Gillian says
Hi, do you make panini’s if so which bread recipe would you use?
Thanks for your website I refer to it often, all information given has always worked for me
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Gillian,
If with panini’s you mean a type of grilled sandwiches then yes we do very often. And we use all types of bread for this, depending on what we fancy or have at hand and also the filling. We use pita bread, ciabatta, white sandwich bread, baguette and also our pain rustique or sourdough bread. We have a ‘panini maker’ that fits all shapes and sizes of bread so the options you have are almost endless.
Hope this is the answer you were looking for…
Happy panini making!
PS: Some ideas for great toasty / panini fillings: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…sty-ideas/
Kees says
Goede morgen,
In de eerste plaats: dank voor jullie mooie en informatieve website.
Hebben jullie nog tips voor een zuurdesembrood van 100% steengemalen volkorenmeel? Dus geen bloem en andere toevoegingen. Alleen meel, desem water en zout.
Alvast bedankt,
Kees
Kees says
Just noticed that most comments are in English so I’ll tranlate it her.
Good morning,
Many thanks for your beatiful and informative website.
Do you guys have any tips for 100% stoneground wholemeal sourdough bread? I.e. without flour and other additives. Only stoneground wholemeal, sourdough, water and salt.
Many thanks,
Kees
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Kees,
We have experimented with different versions of 100% whole wheat sourdough bread but find it very difficult to get a result that is really to our liking or that we feel is worth sharing. We found that we get the best result when using around 50% wholewheat and 50% wheat / bread flour. Like with our wholewheat levain which is indeed just flour, sourdough, salt and water: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…esembrood/
You could take this recipe as a starting point and see how you like it and work your way up to a 100% wholemeal version. Lots of tips come with this recipe. Because of the amount of fiber and less gluten this bread will always be more compact and ‘heavy’ of course, but if you like this type of bread that should not be a problem of course.
Hope you will give it a try. Good luck with the project and happy baking!
Ed & Marieke
Jeremy says
Me again,
I do bake the loaves on a pizza stone (not in bread pans) as that gives me a better loaf and relatively high in the oven with a pan of water underneath.
When proofing, I cover the pans with adamp dish towel. I bake one loaf at a time. When baking tbe first loaf, I put the other 2 loaves in the fridge to stop yeast activity as right now I know I cannot go past 6 hours for proofing.
Thank you
Jeremy says
I have been experimenting with a fairly simple sourdough recipe. I have been recently looking at proofing times as I am still not satisfied with the rise on the final loaves.
The recipe I am using is a 3 day process (fermentations on day one and 2 and the final dough making on day 3). The starter I am using is healthy (I take it out late the night before I start a batch) and on the morning of day 3 there is good yeast activity and a good yeast aroma. For the fermentations I am using a temperature of about 22C (just above RT). I have read that the optimum fermentation temperature for yeast in baking bread is actually 25C. I am not going that high but could if necessary.
I have been checking out proofing times and for the recipe I am using the optimum proofing time is 6 hours. The interesting thing, and what I do not understand and I want to try and solve is that after an 8 hour proof with this recipe the resulting baked loaf does not rise and is dense. It does have some air pockets. Two friends of mine who make/made a lot of sourdough said that the yeast likely ran out of gluten. I do not understand why as some recipes recommend proofing from 6 to 24 hours. At 6 hours proofing I am getting some rise but it is not huge; the loaves are still good and everyone enjoys it. There are a number of big airpockets and lots of smaller ones. I am baking at 410 for 40 mins (I have read several other recipes that bake at 450 for less time; I will try this). I have also switched my starter only to Kamut flour (recommended by a friend) (not putting it in the fermentations). Kamut I have read has a high gluten content which the starter loves. I am making 3 smallish loaves from the recipe.
A friend also recommended I use the French kneading method (slap and fold method) which she says gives her a lighter loaf (I have not tried it yet but intend to).
You see pictures of sourdough loaves on the internet that are well risen, are full of airpockets and look light. Without having to switch entirely to a new recipe, I am wondering if I can achieve this by modifying the recipe I have?
My biggest question is why is the yeast running out of gluten after 8 hours at 22C and how do I avoid this? Should I be using a lower proofing temperature? If you have any comments and other suggestions I would be very interested. My background is in microbiology and I am enjoying the kitchen science:)
I would be very grateful if you could reply
Your website is great:)
Weekend Bakers says
We are sorry Jeremy, we really like to help everybody but it is really hard for us to advice you based on a recipe we do not know ourselves. We can advice you to check out the tips we give on the subject of the workings of yeast: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…e-in-size/
What might also help you is to understand the working of gluten and the type and quality of flour you use for each bake:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ut-gluten/
Proofing times corespondent with amounts and temperature, so if you want to change one variable, you also have to change the other(s).
We can understand you want to stick to your recipe, but it could be it is not a well balanced recipe and maybe you would profit from trying something else. We also give a lot of extra information with our recipes to help you understand the process. So why not try our pain naturel for instance and see how you like the result:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…n-naturel/
One last tip: Never change something in a recipe without understanding why you change it (its effect) and do not change more than one thing at a time.
Good luck with the baking in the New Year!
Todd says
Hi there,
I just wanted to thank you for your very informative website, great instructions, photos and videos. I’ve been baking bread “Tartine” style for a couple years now with great results. I found that method to be my favorite and most enjoyable all around experience and results. However, I’ve not yet been able to create a true “San Francisco” Sourdough bread which are very popular here in California.
I tried your SF Sourdough recipe last week and the resulting bread did not have a sour flavor. I must note that for the final rise in the fridge, I pulled it out about 3 hours early because I didn’t calculate my schedule correctly from the beginning and didn’t want to be baking bread in the middle of the night!
I am going to keep experimenting, but I wanted to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.
Do you think the commercial bakers are using real long fermentation process to get their sour flavor, or do you think they use “sour salt” (I’ve read that this ingredient can be added to any bread to increase the sour flavor).
If I follow your schedule for SF Sourdough bread and want to develop a more sour flavor, can I extend the preferment and/or bulk fermentation and proofing beyond the schedule you came up with? I don’t want to run out of gluten or have a bread with no final rise.
Thanks again and I look forward to your comments.
-Todd
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Todd,
Thanks for your comment. We find it really hard to answer your question about bakers in general. because there are artisanal bakers who take their time and bake traditional and there are (many) bakers who will take short cuts or use work arounds to get to a certain result. In Holland they sell sourdough bread with commercial yeast and just 0.2% ‘sourdough’ so they can label the loaf a sourdough loaf and get more money for it.
You should indeed take the full time this SF loaf needs, because the sour is created later, lactic acid bacteria are later to the party. If you want more sour in your loaf there are other things you can do too. You can extent the bulk fermentation and add one or two extra S&F and also extend the fridge time a bit (you need to experiment because indeed there are limits to this because of the eventual damage to the gluten). Also see the tips under ‘more sour please’ in the posting above. Next to this it could be the case your culture itself isn’t producing the desired sourness and you could try and start up a second one that might behave different.
Good luck with it and happy sourdough baking!
Ed & Marieke
Carey says
I plan to use a recipe for 100% rye bread that calls for a cup of sourdough starter for each recipe to make a “sponge.” (I’m assuming this is the same as a preferment.) This produces two loaves, which is perfect for me. If using the starter at that rate, can I simply add more to my starter—say 60 g—and maintain the same way you do?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Carey,
Yes, that’s no problem. And yes, a sponge is a type of (or term for) preferment like you say.
Pasha Kristensen says
I’ve successfully made your rye sourdough starter! Hooray! Question: the recipe I use for Danish sourdough requires 500 grams of starter – how do I feed up and then maintain the starter? I only bake every couple of weeks because the recipe makes two – 2.5 pound loaves. Thank you!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Pasha,
We cannot really help you here, unless we know the recipe. We would not advice to keep a starter for 500 grams if you bake only every couple of weeks. You can make 500 grams of starter the day before you will use it in the final dough. How much culture you must add and what hydration it should be, should be clear from the recipe you are using.
Sri Muljani says
Hi,
I have made SD starter using 80 gr raisin yeast water, 25 gr rye flour + 55 gr bread flour; then everyday I just added 80 gr water and 80 gr bread flour.
It’s been working perfectly.
now, I want to make sd soft bread using 80 gr of the starter.
My questions are:
how long should I mix the dough?
should I do stretch and fold, or should I mix in KA mixer? for how long?
how long is the proofing time? in RT or in the fridge?
I tried to make small rolls before using the above SD, but the bread was dense, squat, and heavy.
Why is that?
How can I make it tall, light, airy, shreddable, and soft for SD bread?
Appreciate all the info I can get.
Thank you,
Sri
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Sri,
We cannot properly answer your questions, without knowing which recipe you want to make. Because you can do all the things you describe or not and end up with a good loaf, it is all valid, depending on the recipe. We would advice you to take a recipe close to what you want to make and get some experience and take it from there.
For a loaf we can suggest our pain naturel as a very good starting point: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…n-naturel/
If you want soft bread take a look at this recipe and make rolls or make a loaf with this recipe: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ugh-rolls/
To get your bread well proofed you need to especially look at the temperature of your dough. Read our tips here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…mperature/
Happy SD baking
Sandra Lai says
Hi! Thank you for all the tips! I have been baking sourdough bread for 2 months now and it seemed fine from the stretch and fold, proofing and the final shaping, but the bread hasnt been getting much over spring and tend to spread out instead:( Any particular reasons for causing that and how can I improve? Thank you so much!
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Sandra,
We can name so many factors to answer your question, from flour to oven. We put them all together here for you to check:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…king-tips/
The main things to focus on first are the right strong bread flour, the right oven temp and the use of enough steam in your oven. Try different flours, use good quality, because it can make a big difference in the end result.
Good luck with it!
Greg says
Our oven won’t go above 180 degrees c. Is there a way to bake sourdough at this temperature. I’ve had some success with traditional breads at this temperature, wasn’t sure if this would be possible with sour dough?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Greg,
With sourdough, only the process of making the dough and the proofing is different (mainly longer) the baking is pretty much the same. So, baking at a lower temperature should work, like it worked with your other breads. But of course, as you might have seen, the lower temperature will have an impact on the result (less oven spring, color, crust). Still, we can imagine the bread you make this way, with good and above all less ingredients and lots of time to develop, can be very good and tasty of course.
Happy sourdough baking!
Greg says
Thanks for the advise
Dermot says
Can you confirm the signs when :
. Bulk Fermentation has been completed properly
Final Proofing is okay with the finger test
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Dermot,
With your finger gently poke in your dough. If you have a high hydration dough you can first dip your finger in a little bit of flour to prevent sticking.
If the hole disappears completely: under-proofed
If the hole dent pops half way back out: proofing is just right
If the hole stays entirely dented in: over-proofed
It is hard to explain the difference completely. The best way is to learn from experience. Poke as many proofing loaves as possible, and you will figure out what you are looking for.
We do not have the same rules for the bulk fermentation, we know how it should look. But you will also develop an eye for what to look for at this stage. The dough should look plumb and aerated. (use the same bowl all the time so you can also judge how it looks in the bowl after you had a very good result. Make sure that you start with the right dough temperature to match the time given in the recipe you use.
More info here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…e-in-size/
Happy proofing and baking!
rez says
how long should I keep a culture for to produce a very very sour dough?
Weekend Bakers says
See our previous answer too for this. Sourness also comes with age. If your culture is still very young it may need to ripen a bit more to show its full potential.
You can also try to start a second culture next to your current one. Because they all act differently, this second one could be different and even lead to more sourness.
Maybe you can also take a look at this recipe where we use buttermilk in combination with sourdough – this can give also give you the sour you are looking for:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ugh-rolls/
rez says
should I place starter in fridge straight after feeding it as I want a very sour sour dough?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Rez,
Placing it in the fridge is a good idea because it slows down the yeast activity and lets the bacteria dominate and produce more sour acids. But you need to let it get active first before you store it in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours so it can develop and double or triple in size – you need this activity for your proofing. For your loaf to get (extra) sour you need foremost to stretch the bulk fermentation and the final proof. So the small amount of sourdough you add at the beginning of the recipe (at least with our method) is only a small part of the answer to more sourness.
Ai Ling says
How often do you clean the container that you store the starter?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Ai Ling,
Probably once a month we store the culture in another jar, clean the first one out well with boiling water and then return the culture to its clean jar.
Majella Fergus says
I’ve been setting up my first ever sourdough starter. I began with white flour but moved to feeding with rye and this week it kicked off really well. I made my first sourdough loaf over the past couple of days and baked it earlier this evening.
It looks great, a bit flatter after it was knocked back and proved than I would like, but the biggest issue is that it tastes too beery. I don’t know if I did the second prove too quick (2.5 hours), too warm (in dining room with central heating on) or both or something else …. I just don’t know and would be so grateful for any suggestions/advice at his beginning stage.
Weekend Bakers says
What recipe did you make Majella? Did you make a type of preferment?
Brian says
I’ve been using white flour to feed my cultures and am looking to increase the starter’s sour flavor. You seem to indicate that I can use WW flour instead for the feedings. Would that impact the starter’s activity when using the culture in white flour breads.
PS – I keep the culture at 70% hydration.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Brian,
Yes you can use WW, we use whole rye flour ourselves. We do not think there will be an impact on the activity. As you can read in the above article we maintain a small amount of culture and only use an amount of around 15 grams of culture per loaf for our recipes, so a very small amount of rye compared to the whole of the recipe, so the way we go about it you will not even notice the rye in the final recipe if we were to make a white loaf for instance. With our method and having used different cultures in the past, we have never really noticed a difference that we could tie to what you mention exactly.
Each culture can behave slightly different, but then each bake can be different depending on the recipe, temp, new bag of flour and many more things, so with sourdough you take as much time as it takes to make a good loaf.
Good luck with it and happy baking
Brian says
Thanks for the response. After I posted the Q a few days ago I went ahead and starting feeding my current starter with WW exclusively. I used the starter in your San Francisco style sourdough bread recipe with outstanding results.
I’ll use it in some other recipes I’ve worked on and see what happens. Will the WW make any difference in longer-term storage? I have 4 strains in the fridge, so each one usually get revived/refreshed every two months.
Thanks for a great website! Easy to understand, nice clear recipes.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Brian,
Sounds excellent and thank you so much! As for your WW starter, we would refresh it more often than every two months, at least ones a month or even every three weeks when not in use. But it could be it is not a problem to do this. Always take a good look if nothing fuzzy grows and smell the stuff! If anything sharp and nailpolishy comes up, it should at least smell fresh and fruity again after refreshing.
Have fun with the feeding and the baking!
Lin says
Hello, I have a sourdough starter. After feeding the starter with equal amounts of flour and water, the starter bubbles and create this clear/ pale yellow color liquid.
What do I do with this clear liquid – do I stir it back in or do I remove it?
In addition, I find that using the sourdough in the recipes, the bread is more softer and does not have that yeasty smell if I use active dry yeast. Does the sourdough change the texture?
Thanks.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Lin,
This liquid is also called ‘hooch’ and is a form of alcohol that forms on top of your culture, indicating that it is feeding time. You need to pour it off before feeding.
Sourdough bread is also made with yeast, only a version that occurs more naturally than the added yeast that is made in a factory and bought in a store. That is why this type of yeast is slower and making sourdough bread takes more time, and because of this process the taste and texture also differ from yeast based bread (but how this works out also highly depends on the recipe and methods you use).
Ray Arout says
ex. I want to make bread on the weekend so I start the feeding process say on Thursday. Is there a general amount of times I should feed the starter(stored in the frig) before I use it in the recipe? I know it should pass the float test, but sometimes it seems to take quite a few feedings. How can I make a stronger starter quicker? Also, my starter always has the water floating on top even when I change it to a more thicker or thinner one. Why? I get, have read different opinions on the ratios when feeding the starter too. Is my starter good if it smells like turpentine, as I call it? Thank you.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Ray,
Important: Your culture should smell nice! Your starter should smell fresh and fruity, reminding you of things like blueberries (with rye) and yogurt and citrus (with wheat). If this smell changes to something resembling nail polish it is definitely time to feed your starter. If the polish smell does not go away…we are sorry but we think it is time to start all over again!
We also mention something about how thick or thin your starter should be and what that means in the above article.
We would suggest trying a different flour (we use organic rye) to see if this makes a difference also with the water on top.
For information on how we make and maintain our starter culture see: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…asy-steps/
We bake (almost) every weekend so our starter is being refreshed at least each week. We keep about 120g of starter of which we use about 60g up to 100g each week. So after taking out the amount for baking, we just add water and rye flour and stir, so we have about 120g of starter again. We keep our starter quite stiff, almost like a thick paste. The reason for this is that it will develop a lot slower with less water, so it matures during the week and is ready for baking the next weekend.
After feeding we keep the starter on the kitchen table at room temperature (usually around 21C) for about 12 hours so it can develop and double or triple in size. When it has developed, we store it in the refrigerator until the next baking session. Always wait for your starter to at least double in size before storing it in the fridge, a starter should be fully developed before it can survive in the cold.
Good luck with your starter and lots of loaves.
SergeyAU says
Hello and thank you for wealth of information.
I started following your regime with whole rye starter in the fridge.
I take the required amount of rye starter from the fridge and add wheat/wholewheat flower as per recipe. After about 8-10 hours it peaks and collapses a bit – good time to use. But it does not smell very pleasant. Its is something in between fruity and semi-old sock.
When I feed my rye started for another week of baking, it smells nice after 10-12 hours. But when I mix it with whole wheat/wheat flour for baking bread, it just does not smell as nice as I want it to be. What can that be? I want to avoid double feeding it with wheat, as it extends the bake time by another 12 hours
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Sergey,
We have some advice for you. The smell you describe, we think, has to do with the fact that your remark about the slightly collapsed /over-ripe preferment. We would suggest using it a few hours sooner or keeping it in a cooler place. But the fact that it smells different and a little musty and less fruity at this stage is recognizable and normal, so you should not worry about that but just try if it makes a difference giving it less time.
Joy says
Hi, thank you so much for your website and all the information it entails. It was mentioned that it should double in size before it is refrigerated, did you stir it down again and feed it just before you placed it in the fridge and then feed it again, let it double just before you add your other ingredients in your recipe?
Thank you,
Joy
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Joy,
You do not stir and feed it again, you just put it in the fridge after the double in size. If you want to use it in a recipe, you first refresh it the day before you use it by throwing away 2/3, adding water and flour, let it get active (double) at room temp and add it to your poolish / preferment the next day. If you bake regularly and the sourdough culture has only been in the fridge for some days, you can even take it straight from the fridge and add it to your poolish / preferment. With our method, we take use it straight from the fridge if it has been in there even for a week and it still works fine. But it never hurts to use the first refresh and then use method of course, just to be sure you use an active culture.
Good luck with it!