Sourdough basics

So you are looking for help with sourdough, hopefully this introduction will get you started. Sourdough baking is easy to start but will take some practice to master. You probably have all the tools you need already in your kitchen. Here is my list.

• A crock/jar of sourdough starter.
• A good digital scale which can measure grams.
• Bowl or dough bucket, nice to have something with a lid but you can use plastic wrap with a towel over a bowl.
• Spoon, dough whisk and/or your hands for mixing.
• Proofing bin  or a bowl for resting the dough.
• Bread flour, I like using King Arthur Sir Lancelot. Sometimes I will used whole wheat, rye, etc with the bread flour.
• Crock or large jar with a lid to store you starter in the refrigerator
• Baking/proofing dish for loaf; cast iron pan, proofing basking, dutch oven, etc. I like to line the dish with parchment paper.
• Stand mixer with dough hook is nice to have but optional.
• References I use are King Aurthur, Breatopia and Nancy Silverton’s La Brea Bakery cookbook

Sourdough starters can be made from flours (rye), juices and fruits. A good starter has a mix of wild yeasts and bacteria. If properly refreshed, a starter can last for years. A few years ago, I applied Nancy Silverton’s technique for creating a starter from wine grapes. Grapes, when ripe, are covered in yeasts and bacteria. The key is make sure the grapes have not been sprayed with any herbicide or pesticide and are unwashed so not to remove any of the good yeasts and bacteria. It will take about 7 – 10 days to get a starter created and ready for baking.

If you want to skip making a starter, find a sourdough friend. I have shared my started with many people. Do make sure to keep the gift going so you don’t have to go back to your friend.

Feeding the starter

Your starter is complete and resting in the refrigerator. I like refreshing my starter every 7 – 10 days. You can go long but if you start to notice liquid collecting on top of the starter, it might take more effort to get your start back.

To refresh, remove your starter from refrigerator and allow it to come to room temp for a few hours.  Once warmed up and ready, these are steps I use to feed the starter to refresh it

1. Wet your hand and pull a good hand full of starter and put it in a medium bowl or dough bucket.  The amount does not have to be exact.  I like to mix up the starter some before pulling the portion so to no just get what’s on top.   The remaining starter will be tossed out but can use some to make a batch of waffles/pancakes, chocolate sourdough cake or share some with a friend.   
2. Add cool water to your starter container/crock and use a spoon or dough whisk to mix it up really good. Poor this mixture into your bowl to almost cover the handful you grabbed. You can let this sit for a bit. Use a dough whisk or spoon to break up the starter in the water.    The amount of water to use will depend on how much of a starter you normally keep.   I keep a decent amount to allow pulling parts off a portion without refreshing the whole batch.
3. Add enough water so that you make a rough shaggy dough. I like my starter to be a bit thicker than others. It should be like a sticky biscuit dough. You can add less or more flour depending on if you like a thinner or thicker starter   Mix the flour in to break up as many lumps, cover and let the mixture sit for a few hours.  
4. After the wait, make sure the mixture is showing signs of activity.   Best is the starter mixture has doubled, if not let it sit longer. When ready, move a majority of your starter to your storage container (jar, crock…) but save a good handful to be used for baking.  Put your container back in the refrigerator for the next time.

Making bread

With your portion of fed starter you save, it is time to make bread.   I usually take two days to make bread which requires maybe a total of 1 hour of work with a lot of rest time.   My basic bread recipe is based on a ratio of flour to water.    Here are the ratios I use with flour g (grams) = water g * factor for various styles of bread. For more recipes, check out the references I gave above or you can always convert a yeast recipe to use sourdough – just replace the yeast with a good handful of sourdough.

• Focaccia 1.15 to 1.3 flour to water.  This will create a wet, sticky dough which require extra stretching or mixing to produce the gluten.   The bread will be light and airy.  A great dough to make a unique pizza.
• Ciabatta 1.3 to 1.4 flour to water.   Produces the classic ciabatta loaf. 
• Baguettes 1.5 to 1.7 flour to water.   For a denser baguette use the larger number.  
• Country loaf 1.8 to 2.2 flour to water.   Produces a rustic country loaf.  The larger number is great for making bagels.

Select the bread style / ratio to make your bread.   

Day 1  

• Add your saved starter portion to your bowl or dough bucket.  I like using more starter than most recipes, a good handful.
• Measure in your cool water, I usually use 200 g of water. Mix the starter into the water or you can let the starter sit in the water for a few hours before mixing. 
• Using your ratio, calculate the amount of flour you need.   Measure your flour into the bowl.  Sometimes I’ll use whole wheat or rye as 1/4 to 1/4 of the total flour.  Mix the flour in well to break up clumps and gather all flour.   Don’t worry if it’s not completely mix with no lumps, the sourdough will do the work. 
• Cover the mixture.  Let sit on the counter for a few hours then into the refrig to rest overnight.  The more time out of the refrig will produce more sour flavor.

Day 2

Next day, let the dough from Day 1 come to room temperature.   When ready, follow these instructions which are partly a duplicate of Day 1.   I commonly move the dough to the mixing bowl of my stand mixer for knead.   This is helpful when making a softer, wetter dough like Focaccia.   Other times, I use the same container to follow a no knead approach.

• Measure the same amount of water from Day 1 into your container with the dough.  
• Measure the same amount of flour from Day 1 into the same container.   Mix the flour into the dough with your stand mixer or hands.    For making a Focaccia with the stand mixer, I like using the paddle attachment on medium speed until the dough pulls away from side of the bowl and the gluten has developed. 
• When dough is mixed well, add the dough to your proof container of choice.
• Sprinkle on salt (~2 g) over the dough.   Don’t mix it, yet.  Cover the dough and let sit for ~30 to 60 mins.  
• After the rest, pull, stretch and fold the dough a few time to start building gluten and mix in the salt.   This first stretching of the dough will be a bit stiff.  No worries, the gluten will build and sourdough will begin the fermentation so next stretch will be better.   Cover and let rest again ~30 to 60 mins, often I forget how much time has past but longer wait won’t hurt.
• After the rest, repeat the pull, stretch and fold with more rest between.   Repeat the process for a couple times. When the dough is showing a nice skin when formed, it is ready to shape into a loaf.
• After the last stretch, it is time to form/shape the loaves for the final proof then baking.   Forming a the loaf depends on the style you are making.   Focaccia might be a simple stretch+pull to a rectangle / circular shape.  Dough with more flour would be shaped into the loaf style you wish.  For most loaves, I following the common shaping technique to fold the dough side to side then end to end.  Here is a good description for shaping dough.  
• Gather the baking dish you want to use for your loaf.  This might be a cast iron skillet, ceramic pan, baguette pan, etc.   I like lining my dish with parchment paper.    Add the shaped dough and cover for final proofing. 
• After proofing, pre-heat the oven to your desired temp to bake usually 350 to 400 F.  Bake the loaves until inside temp is 180F which usually about 20 mins.   Often I like pulling the dough from the container using the parchment paper then place the parchment and dough in the oven.  I have a large, rectangular pizza stone which is always in my oven.