The Definitive Guide to Sourdough . . . according to me.

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We've been enjoying lots of seasonal recipes straight out of the garden, lately, and are packing up our pantries and feeding our sourdough(s) in readiness for autumn.
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I’ve been working on this post for a while.  Months really.  Started and stopped.  Thought about it.  Documented.  Researched.  Went back over notes from my baking escapades using sourdough over the past few years.

And wanted to share.

And that, “According to me” part?  That’s my disclaimer. Who am I?  A home baker.  A mama -  of two boys and a jar (okay, two) of sourdough starter.  A sourdough mama who likes to read professional cookbooks and better baker blogs than me, and then tries to relate them to real life and real kitchens who use cups and Tablespoons and not grams and ounces (though I did just get a nice kitchen scale for Christmas . . . ). I don’t grind my own grain, but I am particular about my flour.  I don’t have Diastatic Malt in my cupboards, nor Excel spreadsheets for hydration on my computer, but do have honey and eggs and leftover oatmeal.  I’m a home baker who happens to have good luck with sourdough. I’m not a professional baker.  I don’t use it everyday.  But I do use it.  I love it.  I learn from it.  And I want to share some of my successes, tips, tricks and favorite sourdough bloggers for inspiration.

If you’re a new reader of this blog please note: I’m a pretty relaxed Mama.  Both in terms of my boys, and my sourdough.  You will not find “rules” here.  I hope this encourages you that you too can use sourdough.  Good luck!

• First, don’t forget to feed your starter. How do you make a sourdough starter?  Better blog posts have focused on this.  This is the method I used, (and here’s a link back to some of my journey) , here’s another tutorial, and Heavenly Homemakers recently did a a pictorial of how she did hers, but you can just as easily set out a bowl of equal parts flour and water, feeding it little bits of equal parts flour and water for a few days until you start to see some bubbles. Once you have a good one you’re happy with, you hopefully won’t have to make another one.
• How often do you feed your sourdough starter? It depends on how often you bake.  If you bake once a week, I’d probably feed it twice a week, including a hearty feeding the day before you plan to use your starter.  If you bake/use your starter (for pancakes, crackers, etc.) a few times a week I’d probably just keep it on the counter and feed it daily.  For me?  I’m not baking once a week any more and I have been known to keep my starter inert for weeks (weeks!) in the fridge with no food.  Poor sourdough baby.  But when I know I’m going to bake again, I take it out and feed it and coddle it for a few days to nurse it back to hearty health.
• I feed mine a 1:1 ratio of flour to water, by volume, not weight. Which means, in layman terms, I take whatever measuring cup I’m using (a dry measuring cup – even worse to those weight-mongers!) and fill it with flour, add it to my starter, then fill it with water, add it to my starter, and stir until well combined.  That’s my strategy and it works.
• Always make sure that you try to find the recipe you’re going to use a day or two before you’re going to bake. Why?  Because many all-sourdough recipes (i.e. ones that do not use any commercial yeast to help in the baking) call for a large quantity of starter.  I’ve had much better luck with the recipes that call for more starter than less.  If you need 2-3 cups of starter just to begin baking, you’re going to need to know this a day or two in advance to make sure you feed it enough to ensure that you have enough starter to both make the bread and leave some for later to feed and keep.  Plus, many recipes call for making a sponge the night before, which, in effect, creates the quantity of starter you’ll need for your recipe, but sometimes you can find a recipe that you can make in a few hours without a sponge and it’ll be important to have enough starter from the get-go.  (Phew!  That was a long explanation, wasn’t it?!)
• Don’t worry about stirring your sourdough starter with metal. I know some of the original sourdough purists say to not use a metal spoon or knife to stir your starter, but I believe that was originally from a time when many metallic kitchen instruments were made out of tin, or copper.  Sourdough is acidic.  It can dissolve some metals.  I wouldn’t use a tin spoon to stir it, or store it in metal (I prefer glass or ceramic as it is inert) but don’t worry yourself about stirring it with a stainless steel spoon or allowing your dough to rise in a stainless steel bowl for a few hours.
• Don’t buy special water to feed your starter. I just use the kind out of my tap and it has always worked fine.  If your water smells highly chlorinated, I probably wouldn’t use it, or would pour it through a water filter pitcher first, but otherwise, don’t worry about it.  If you don’t feed your children or your dog special water, don’t feed your starter special water.
• Do toss the greyish liquid that puddles on top after sitting for a few days. I know, I know, some (a lot) of people say to stir it back in. But here’s my thought process. Sourdough is a living organism. I fed it flour and water. Living organisms eat, and then expel what they’ve digested. I figure that, it will take in what it wants to take in. And, if after several days and this stuff is still on top? The sourdough doesn’t want it. Get rid of it, move on and add more food and water.

Plus I’ve found that the sourdough gets a bit too sour when you stir that liquid back in. I like the natural sour flavor that develops over a few days after actual dough preparation (such as using a sponge, starting it the night before, keeping the dough in the fridge for two or three days before baking, etc.) but I don’t really like the flavor of the bread when using a too sour sourdough starter. I hope that makes sense in terms of the differentiation . . .

• If it’s been a while since you’ve used your starter, get it healthy again by nursing it back to health with regular small “meals” several times a day for a few days.  Two Tablespoons of flour with equal amounts of water, three times a day for a few days and you ought to be back to strong starter.  (This is great technique I credit to Nancy Silverton.)

• Don’t expect sourdough bread to take the same amount of time to rise as commercial yeast bread. It will take a LOT longer, normally 4 to 6 hours for the first rise, longer if your starter isn’t too strong, or if the room is cool, or if the starter to flour ratio is small, or if you didn’t use a sponge . . . sourdough is ALIVE. it can be tempermental. A little bit of patience when making bread is in order and even after you’ve been making it successfully for a while, a rare batch of dough will sink you every once in a while. (those are best for croutons or bread crumbs!)
• Don’t feel guilty about using a white, unbleached All-Purpose flour fed starter. I’ve made and kept both a whole wheat starter and a white-fed starter for the past few years.  The Whole Wheat starter (or, say, a rye-based starter) is DIFFICULT to deal with.  It takes a lot longer to get bubbly and happy after feeding (hours/days longer.)  It takes a lot longer to rise a batch of bread (hours/days longer.)  It doesn’t rise as much nor produce as tender of crumb as a “white flour” fed starter.  You can use a white flour fed starter in an otherwise whole grain bread (with whole wheat flour, etc.) and still get an almost completely whole grain bread.  And that whole wheat/grain starter dies faster.  In the fridge.  Because you get tired of using this finicky starter and just want to make tasty bread so use the white starter to make whole wheat bread.  Like I said, don’t feel guilty about it.  It works.  It’s well-soaked.  You’ll be fine.
• Don’t be afraid to try different flours! I prefer organic and stone ground, but use what I can find, what’s on sale and works with my grocery budget that week.  I’ve used King Arthur, Bob’s Red Mill, Hodgson’s Mill as well as grocery-store Gold.  I just discovered bread flour this year.  (I know, I know, it was kind of a “duh!” moment)  I’ve been baking bread for a while, but using either whole wheat or unbleached All Purpose.  When I finally picked up  and tried a bag of bread flour for baking bread, WOW!  I haven’t looked back.   If I count,  I think I have seven varieties of flour in my home (Unbleached All Purpose, Bread Flour, White Whole Wheat, Stoneground Whole Wheat, Pastry, Buckwheat and Cornmeal).  Shhhh . . . don’t tell my husband!  I still have room for rye, sprouted wheats, spelt and semolina . . . if I can only find the time!
• Oh, and one more thing about flour – don’t add too much when you’re kneading! I’ve found that a wetter dough is better, it creates a softer bread and a better rise.  This has been a difficult habit to break for me, so I’m passing on my hard-won knowledge to you!
• The fridge can be your friend. Not only will it keep your sourdough inert for weeks (weeks!) at a time, but a properly made sourdough bread can become BETTER by a day or two or three in the fridge.  I had my first successful sourdough boule with gorgeous holey crumb from stashing it in the fridge for a day or two before immediately tossing it into a hot, hot oven and getting amazing oven rise.  The fridge will also make for a longer “soaking” period which will not only make the bread more healthy to eat, but will make it more tender.
• Moving from the fridge to the oven – ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS preheat the oven. For a good long while.  And if you’re using a baking stone (highly recommended, by the way), for a bit longer.  Throw in a few potatoes for dinner while it’s preheating.  Make up a batch of muffins first, if you don’t want to waste the energy, but always make sure that you use a hot, hot oven to bake.
• Note that sourdough won’t always react like a commercial yeast bread. In other words, it will rarely double in size when rising, specifically when making a whole grain bread.  Look for a 1.5x rise to be successful.  Nor will it rise in a prescribed amount of time.  Depending on the strength of your starter, the density of your recipe (all whole grain?  No “softening” agents like egg or honey?  Might take longer) and the temperature of your kitchen, it might take hours longer to rise.  Just be patient.  If you have to go to bed, just put a cover on your bowl, put it in your fridge and restart it again in the morning.  It’ll be fine.
• And speaking of commercial yeast, you don’t ALWAYS have to be a sourdough purist.  I admit, I have a certain amount of pride that occurs when I successfully make an amazing batch of bread only using my sourdough starter as the rising agent.  But I have made amazing bread with using a little bit of commercial yeast mixed in.  Peter Reinhart does this a lot (and I HAVE been known to add more starter to NOT use commercial yeast when using some of his recipes.  Just to be a purist, aka obnoxious/making it harder on myself for no apparent reason) Most of the recipes on my blog are starter only.  But my newest favorite bread recipe?  A mix of both.  And I love it like any of my other successful recipes.
• Don’t throw away your starter. I know some people take some of their starter out and toss it when they feed it.  I don’t.  I feel it’s wasteful and kind of sad, frankly, since I’ve been nurturing it along all this time.  Instead, I either keep it inert in the fridge and feed it up to the quantity that I need for a big bread recipe, or I use it in smaller quantities for little, easy recipes, like pancakes or waffles, crackers or biscuits.   I’ve even heard it can be used for a snail deterrant if it’s summertime and you’re a gardener.  Just don’t toss it.  It’s sad.
• Finally, don’t give up. Sourdough starter takes a while to mature into a strong starter that will rise bread efficiently and effectively.  Most of us aren’t that experienced with it nor grew up in a household where it was used regularly.  Don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t expect your first loaf to be perfect.  And if it is, lucky you, watch out for your second or third.   If you have a dud, just chalk it up to experience and make croutons or bread crumbs.

Some basic baking tips (that relate to both sourdough and commercial-yeast based bread recipes)

• The more ingredients with fat or sugar, the softer the bread will be.  If your bread recipe calls for egg, honey, butter, oil, milk . . . these will be a softer bread than ones that only have starter, flour, salt and water.
• It is best to add salt in after the first knead and a little bit of a rest (about twenty to thirty minutes.)  In bread making speak this is called the “autolyse.” Salt kills yeast so if you give your yeast or starter a little bit of a chance to start eating and growing from the sugars naturally present in the dough, it will have a much better chance of growing and rising better than if you added the salt in at the beginning.
• The wetter/slacker the dough, the bigger the holes will be in the baked bread.  You don’t always want big holes in bread (like if you’re going to use it to make a sandwich.  Holes don’t hold in sandwich fillings) but if you’re looking for a great, holey sourdough boule, make sure that you use a wet counter and wet hands to knead it rather than flour-covered counter and flour-covered hands.  Some of my holiest bread you almost have to pour into pans, it’s so wet.  Just a touch more than a thick batter.
• An egg-white wash makes the shiniest crust I’ve made.  Beats out a whole egg, milk-based or ice water wash any day of the week.

Some of my favorite Sourdough cookbooks include:

and find great inspiration from these bloggers: