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I was suppose to ferment the sourdough starter for at least 8 hrs. Instead, I added the flour and water to the starter only after an hour. Can I save this dough?

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  • It's not a big deal. The major issue if you lack experience is that you don't know what to look for, perhaps. It will come out bread (of some sort.)
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Oct 4 at 21:47

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Probably! The culture will happily do its thing even in the full dough. The dough will take longer to develop, of course. The gluten structure may be adversely affected, leading to a slacker loaf. If it's lower hydration (70% or below) it probably won't be a big deal. If it's higher than that, you might want to play it safe and bake in a loaf pan rather than free-form.

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  • Thanks. How long should I let the dough develop?
    – Mary Ann Turner
    Commented Sep 29 at 19:24
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    Honestly, it depends on the recipe and the culture and a million other things. A few extra hours, perhaps. If the recipe includes instructions on what to look for in the dough, then you should continue to follow them as though nothing had changed.
    – Sneftel
    Commented Sep 29 at 20:43
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Generally, sourdough works with all kinds of ratios and at most sane temperatures.

In your case, you will have to let your mixture stand and develop, and occasionally check on it.

The main things you want to see:

  • It should rise significantly (easily to double the original height).
  • If you dive into it with a spoon, you want to see little bubbles.
  • You may smell for the typical sour smell.
  • You can taste it, it should taste sour.

When all this has happened, then you have, well, a sourdough.

Thankfully you did not add the salt in yet. So, when you feel like it has risen aplenty, and smells and tastes as strong as you like it, you can finally add the salt and continue baking. (Do take off the portion you need for your next starter before adding salt, if you have no starter left.)

As Sneftel mentioned, you will have to expect that the behaviour during baking changes, and without a lot of experience and access to your kitchen this is impossible to predict. You could play it safe and bake rolls instead of a big loaf of bread - this way you can bake only 1 or 2 and see what happens (whether you need to bake longer or shorter) and then go on from there.

Take it as a happy accident, sourdough is very forgiving, and you'll probably learn something.

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