Beginner Sourdough Questions

Happy Fall!! We get lots of questions about baking bread and sourdough, so we reached out to Katie McGinnis at Beautiful Bread Co to share her thoughts on getting started with sourdough baking:

 1. What basic equipment is needed, and what one item should I splurge on?

A few items are needed to begin your sourdough journey. You’re going to need a large bowl for mixing the bread, a food scale, Dutch oven, bench scraper, a banneton or (medium sized bowl with a tea towel works), a lame for scoring the dough, and of course a bread knife. A sharp lame makes all the difference when it comes to scoring your dough, so this is my go-to splurge item. My personal favorite is the Wire Monkey lame, but there are lots of options available online.

2. How do you choose your flour?

Bread flour or high protein flour is best for making sourdough. The high protein and gluten content allows the dough to build structure, and handle longer fermentation time. The high protein is also what allows the bread to have a good rise, creating that light chewy texture that is so loved in sourdough.

3. How big should I make my starter if I want two loaves a week?

Because sourdough is a naturally fermented bread, it takes much longer to make than bread with conventional yeast. I always recommend, if you’re going to make sourdough, always make two loaves. One to enjoy and one to freeze.

You don't need to keep a lot of starter on hand, in fact I recommend maintaining a small starter to save on flour use. A general sourdough starter feeding contains one part starter, one part flour, and one part water. For example: a starter feeding might look like 20g starter: 20g flour: 20g water (1:1:1 ratio). When you are ready to make bread, you can simply increase your flour and water by the same percentage, until you have the amount of starter needed for your recipe. For example: if you need 200g of starter to make 2 loaves of sourdough, use 20g starter: 100g flour: 100g water (1:5:5 ratio). The important part about feeding your starter is that you want your flour and water to always be the same amount.

4. How often do I feed my starter? When is it ready to use?

If you are making bread frequently, you can leave your starter at room temperature and feed it every 24 hours. If you are not making bread, you can store your starter in the refrigerator and go without feeding it for several weeks or even up to a month. A healthy starter is pretty resilient! If you forget to feed it one day, it is most likely still ok.

Your starter is ready to make bread when it is very bubbly and doubled in size. I prefer to feed my starter at night before I go to bed, and by morning time it is usually doubled in size and ready to be used for bread. Placing a rubber band around your starter jar is a great way to visually measure the beginning height of your starter. That way you know when it has doubled in size.

5. How do you know the proper amount of hydration?

Hydration amount really depends on the flour you are using. Whole wheat flour is considered thirstier and will require more water, whereas a typical bread flour can take less water. My recommendation is to start with 70-73% hydration. So, if you are using 500g flour, that means you would use 350-365g of water.

6. How long does fermentation take?

Most recipes call for an 18–24-hour fermentation. The first fermentation, bulk proof, takes place at room temperature, and the second fermentation, or cold proof, takes place in the refrigerator. During bulk proof, you are also developing the gluten and building structure through a series of folds. As a general rule, bulk proof can take anywhere from 4-10 hours. A warm house and warm dough (78F) may only take 4-5 hours, whereas if your house or dough is 68F it might take 10 plus hours. Remember you are working with a live culture. Warmer temps will make it more active, and colder temps will make it more dormant. You know your dough is ready to be shaped and go into the fridge when you see visible bubbles all throughout, it is no longer sticky, it is domed on top, pulls away from the sides of your bowl very easily, and is a marshmallow like texture.

7. When do I know it’s time to bake my loaves?

Your sourdough is ready to bake when it has doubled in size and when you poke it with your finger it leaves a brief indent. Fermentation time is often the hardest part to grasp when beginning your sourdough journey. Give yourself grace and know it might take a few times to get the hang of it. There’s a reason it’s called artisan bread, it takes practice.

Bread is art too!

Thanks to Katie for all her insights and wisdom into artisan baking!