Questions tagged [sourdough]

Questions regarding baking and working with wild yeasts and starters (also known as levains or chefs).

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1 vote
1 answer
88 views

How much sourdough (by weight) should I put in a 9x5 loaf pan?

How much sourdough (by weight) should I put in a 9x5 loaf pan? I would like it as fluffy as possible but still a "full" loaf. I'm using regular sourdough that just consists of culture, all ...
4 votes
1 answer
9k views

Sourdough Starter Crust forming

I am creating a sourdough starter and read to use a "non-airtight" container and store in a warm location for the first 24 hours before beginning the feeding schedule. My issue is that 12 hours in my ...
1 vote
1 answer
131 views

SOURDOUGH: Why not do the final shaping after proofing?

I have read an researched and found out that after each time that you handle your dough the dough/gluten will relax. So why not shape the dough before baking, right after the proofing stage. I know ...
7 votes
2 answers
3k views

I bought a sourdough starter from a bakery, fed it too much, and it overflowed the jar overnight. What should I do now?

I bought a starter from a bakery, and I think I overfed it overnight. It overflowed from its jar. What should I do now?
1 vote
2 answers
624 views

Glass pan for sourdough?

Can I successfully use a lidded round glass baking dish do to bake a sourdough bread? I have not made sourdough before. Just need to know if I really need to buy a cast iron dutch oven for this.
0 votes
2 answers
146 views

Can liquid sourdough dough be mixed with baking yeast to produce normal risen bread?

I have some sourdough starter that is liquid. If I try to make dough out of it and it turns out more liquid than solid, can it be mixed with baking yeast in order to produce a normal risen bread (like ...
2 votes
2 answers
5k views

Can't get rid of alcohol smell in my sourdough starter

I made my first sourdough starter around 3 weeks ago. I made it with spelt flour. It was nice and ready after a 7 or 10 days and had really nice yeast smell. I had to leave town for 4 days and let my ...
4 votes
2 answers
210 views

Baking sourdough in a breadmaker

I know this is kind of backwards, versus what you see a lot of people doing (rising dough and a bread maker and baking in a regular oven), but I teach middle school and another teacher has a bread ...
13 votes
5 answers
13k views

Sourdough in Bread Maker?

Are there any bread machines that would allow making a sourdough rye bread? If not, could a bread maker simplify the process of making a sourdough loaf?
1 vote
1 answer
457 views

Sagging flat-bread after proofing

I have been making sourdough bread for quite a long time (almost a year) and am starting to up the hydration percentage from 60-65% to like 70-75%. When I do this, I am fine with activating the gluten ...
5 votes
2 answers
2k views

How do I fix my flat sourdough loaf?

I have made sourdough bread several times using roughly the same technique that I use when I make artisan bread. I let it ferment several times folding between them. I have found that when the dough ...
10 votes
6 answers
6k views

Does 100% rye sourdough bread always have a sticky crumb? How do I make it stick to the knife less?

Every time I make a 100% rye sourdough, it sticks to the knife when I cut it even after letting it sit for a day before cutting. Is this normal? I have tried to vary the hydration ratio a bit, but it ...
5 votes
3 answers
470 views

Sour Dough Starter - proofing in less than 24 hours?

I recently started with making sour dough. I created a new starter yesterday. After feeding it one time in less than 24 hours it's already doubling it's size. I'm not using self-rising flour just ...
2 votes
1 answer
419 views

Can I add three times the flour & three times the water to my sourdough starter for 24 hours instead of the same amount of flour & water for 12 hours?

Under the usually followed guidelines for sourdough starter feeding, if one has 200 grams of sourdough starter (100 grams fermented flour + 100 grams water), they need to feed 100 grams of flour and ...
6 votes
4 answers
20k views

Could I use beer instead of/as well as water in my sourdough?

The sourdough recipe I use calls for 300ml of water to 500g of bread flour (along with the starter). Instead of this water, could I use beer - or a combination of beer and water? The reason I thought ...
2 votes
1 answer
279 views

Is it okay to feed milk powder to sourdough starter?

I'm still new to bread making and I was wondering if adding some milk powder when I feed my starter would have a negative impact since milk is slightly more acidic than flour.
0 votes
1 answer
3k views

My sourdough starter is thick with small bubbles but isn't rising [duplicate]

I started my sourdough starter on the 17th. I was doing 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup flour with one feeding a day, discarding half before each feeding. It rose with bubbles the first two days and then began ...
3 votes
0 answers
50 views

Pita Bread-Why is one side too thin? [duplicate]

Is there a way to avoid having one side (top or bottom) of the pita bread much thinner than the other side? The thin side is very prone to ripping if I try to fill it. I make whole wheat sourdough ...
1 vote
2 answers
4k views

For how long can you let dough sit there to rise without yeast?

I read that you can make a dough without yeast and have it sit at room temperature for 12 hours and it will rise due to bacteria found in the air. It didn't rise after 12 hrs, so I was wondering if I ...
2 votes
1 answer
545 views

Sourdough starter brown liquid (hooch) forming earlier than expected according to this recipe

I am following this recipe to make sourdough starter (Masa Madre = Mother Dough = sourdough starter?). According to the recipe, it takes around 5 total days (I won't put quantities, I will just use ...
4 votes
1 answer
707 views

Stiff vs Liquid Starter, what are the differences between hydration in a sourdough starter?

I stumbled on the concept of a stiff starter from Northwest Sourdough Baker and have kept a high hydration starter (100% hydration) since I started baking. Was wondering what notable differences do ...
3 votes
1 answer
515 views

Is my sourdough starter ready

I’ve been attempting to make sourdough starter for the first time over the last week. I’ve followed the recipe from this website: https://www.coles.com.au/recipes-inspiration/recipes/sourdough-starter ...
2 votes
2 answers
70 views

Do Recipes Typically Account for Starters/Preferments when Reporting Dough Hydration?

I know there have been a couple of questions here before about what "counts" toward computing dough hydration % (honey, milk, etc.) but I always thought it was a no-brainer that starters and ...
15 votes
3 answers
2k views

What proportion of the natural yeast in Sourdough comes from the flour?

Inspired by this question... when making a sourdough starter or similar, does the flour contribute a significant amount of yeast to the final product [either from the flour's origins in the fields, or ...
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

How to avoid black spots on bread baked in iron tin with baking paper inlay

I am trying to make a sourdough bread with least effort. My receipe is as follows: Add sourdough starter, rye flour, salt and water, mix. Put in a iron tin and wait for 24 Hours for the sourdough to ...
4 votes
1 answer
3k views

Mold or dry sourdough starter? (pic included)

I fed my starter and left it out for two days. See attached pic. It smells like beer (which as I understand it is good), the top is dried out a bit with a rubbery surface, underneath it seems nice ...
0 votes
3 answers
728 views

Why does this sourdough recipe call for 2 and 1/3 cups starter? Isn't that too much?

The recipe at this popular site says 2 and 1/3 cups of starter and 3 and 1/3 cups of flour, along with water (1 cup). Is there a printing error? Other recipes are about tablespoons, not cups. http://...
0 votes
0 answers
59 views

Levain Ratio x Sour

I always used the 1:2:2 ratio in preparing the dough, of course, it always gets sourer. I have doubts about some proportions that I have found in some books, but I cannot find the explanation of why. ...
3 votes
2 answers
198 views

What exactly happens during the sourdough ripening?

I am following a recipe from the well established Italian Baker Bonci, to make my liquid sourdough starter (with some success too). In his recipe he says to refresh the starter with a 1:1:1 ...
13 votes
2 answers
4k views

Some instant yeast went into my sourdough starter

This is how it all began, I have a 100% rye starter for about a year now. I used a spoon that had some other dough on it, that dough was from a bag of flour that had mentioned at the bottom of the ...
4 votes
1 answer
4k views

When stretching and folding dough and it gets tight, is that time to let it rest?

When I make my sourdough, a rested dough will stretch and fold 3-4 times before quite suddenly going tight. At this point it's likely to tear if I stretch much more. Should I put it down and rest it ...
7 votes
3 answers
947 views

Why would a fully-developed dough lose consistency (elasticity / extensibility)?

I've been experimenting with panettone and I've come across the issue time and time again of losing dough consistency while mixing the secondo impasto (i.e. the final panettone dough). What makes this ...
3 votes
2 answers
645 views

How does no-knead bread not overproof?

Most sourdough instructions warn not to overextend primary fermentation, as doing so will exhaust the yeast's food supply for proving after shaping. Standard sourdough recipes call for a 3-4 hour bulk ...
1 vote
2 answers
7k views

Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough!

Help! I added three times the amount of salt needed for my sourdough bread recipe (1/4 c. versus 1 T.) Can I save it?
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

Sourdough hasn’t risen overnight

I mixed 400gr of flour with 200 of starter, plus 280 ml of water and a bit of salt. I worked it with the slap and fold method and left it overnight. Sadly this morning I woke up to find it only about ...
1 vote
2 answers
624 views

What is this on sourdough starter?

I have a sourdough starter which I feed roughly once every 2-3 days (throw away 95% of it, refill with water and flour). Sometimes I forget and wait 5 days between feedings, and by that time it often ...
6 votes
5 answers
39k views

How frequently should I feed my sourdough starter?

I am growing my first sourdough starter. It is a week old, but it isn't very active. My concern is that I might be feeding it too frequently or too infrequently. I could see it going either way. The ...
8 votes
5 answers
2k views

One time sourdough starter

Is there a way to make sourdough bread without the long term commitment of feeding a starter? My kids and I love sourdough bread, but I also work 2 jobs, so making bread is, sadly, a once in a blue ...
0 votes
1 answer
853 views

3 day old sourdough starter splits after feeding

My starter consists out of 150gr All purpose, 60 grams of whole wheat and 210 grams of water. On day 2 it bubbled nicely, but I fed it only with half a feeding fearing it would otherwise not stay ...
7 votes
3 answers
5k views

Can I use a rectangular ceramic pan instead of enameled cast iron to bake bread without losing the nice crust?

My wife has been baking sourdough bread in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven and has been getting a very nice crust. She preheats the pan and oven to 500 °F (260 °C), then puts the dough in the pan, ...
2 votes
1 answer
470 views

What to do with wet sourdough mix which was left to proof 10h?

I followed this recipe and did the stretch and fold three times according to the timings, just that my dough wasn't round enough at the end of the third time. I then left the dough at room temperature ...
1 vote
1 answer
288 views

Wild Sourdough Starter Never gets more than 1/3 bigger - Am I doing something wrong?

I made a wild sourdough starter back in July of last year. Did some baking with it, but it has never doubled in size the way that I see described in articles online. I initially started it with all-...
4 votes
3 answers
558 views

Sourdough pizza crust for wood-fired oven

I can consistently make a nice, well-blistered, chewy pizza crust in my wood-fired oven. My recipe is Caputo flour (the red bag), 60% hydration, 2.5% salt, 0.25% instant yeast; knead until smooth; ...
2 votes
1 answer
83 views

How do I modify my sourdough rising/proofing time to account for not using enough starter?

This is my first time trying to bake sourdough bread after feeding a mature AP/wheat starter I got from a friend. I fed the starter a 1:1:1 mixture with AP flour and let it rise in a very warm room(~...
8 votes
12 answers
10k views

Can I make sourdough starter with raw potatoes?

Looking at different websites I found sourdough starters using potatoes instead of wheat or rye. They all used cooked mashed potatoes. I wonder if it is possible to just grate raw potatoes or other ...
2 votes
3 answers
57k views

Adding sugar and honey to sourdough culture

I am interested in this site's members' opinions on how adding two spoons of sugar and two spoons of honey would affect a sourdough culture. I am wondering if adding sugar and honey to the starter ...
2 votes
0 answers
327 views

Effect of ethanol concentration on bread flavor

What is the effect of ethanol concentration on bread flavor? According to this stackexchange post the majority of the ethanol produced by yeast evaporates during baking, so in theory the ethanol ...
5 votes
4 answers
26k views

Milk instead of water for sourdough?

I have a nice, healthy Type 110 wheat-based sourdough starter that I use to make bread and pancakes. I've recently discovered that it may be possible to feed the starter with milk instead of water. ...
7 votes
3 answers
18k views

How do I make my sourdough bread dough stretchy and not have it tear?

I've been trying to make chewy sourdough bread and it's not going as planned. I read somewhere that if you mix and knead the bread a lot and avoid adding a lot of sugar and use a lot of water that ...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

Should I stir my sourdough starter before measuring? [duplicate]

I'm new to using sourdough starter and some directions aren't very clear. I'm not sure if it needs to be stirred down before I measure for cooking and for feeding it. I've been stirring down the ...

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