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Asourdough starter is a culture containing a stable blend of wild yeasts and suitable lactic acid bacteria. The culture is maintained indefinitely, fed with fresh flour and water (also called refreshing) consistently. A sourdough starter is used to seed fermentation in new dough when baking bread and is responsible for leavening (making rise) and flavoring a loaf of sourdough bread.

I like to feed mine twice daily because it gives me two opportunities to make a levain for baking. If you prefer, you can feed only once daily to reduce the flour used for these feedings. To do so, leave less ripe starter in the jar to lengthen the time between feedings. Keep reducing the amount of ripe starter left until the starter ripens right when you want to feed it consistently daily.

Yes, you can maintain a smaller starter to reduce waste. I prefer to keep around 200g of ripe sourdough starter on hand for baking, but you can certainly reduce the quantity of flour, water, and ripe starter to keep a smaller starter.

A mature sourdough starter consistently shows the same signs of fermentation each day. Maturity refers to a stable mix of lactic acid bacteria and wild yeasts that coexist in symbiosis, indicating the culture is steady and able to leaven and flavor sourdough bread properly.

I keep a container in my kitchen fridge that holds sourdough starter discard for up to 2 weeks. This sourdough starter discard cache, as I like to call it, is a great way to avoid throwing starter away and can be used in any of the starter discard recipes below.

Every sourdough starter is different, but for my decade-old starter, the best way to revive it from the fridge is to take it out and let it warm for a few hours on the kitchen counter. Then, give it a feeding with its typical maintenance flour. Let this mixture ferment during the day or overnight, then give it another feeding. Repeat this process, feeding it twice a day for two days. After this time, the starter should be strong and ready for baking.

Related to this, I always think of the fridge as a stressful environment for my starter. To bake the best bread possible, always take it out and give it a few feedings until it shows strong signs of fermentation consistently each day. While I know some bakers who can make sourdough bread using their starter from the fridge, mine has never worked in this way.

One of my favorite ways to eat sourdough bread is by toasting, adding a layer of butter, and my favorite, raspberry jam. We eat our bread by making turkey sandwiches, grilled cheese, and French toast, and I even love making croutons out of stale bread.

The first thing you need to do is feed your starter. Some people will tell you to feed your starter with equal parts, but I hardly ever do that, especially if I have to make enough starter to bake 10-12 loaves. (feeding instructions are listed below)

Take your starter from the refrigerator and let it sit on the counter for 45 minutes to an hour. Make a levain, or feed your starter with equal parts. Place your fed starter by a window or in a warmer spot for 5-12 hours. Use the tape to measure its growth, and your starter should be active and ready to bake! You can also do this the night before if you plan to make the dough in the morning.

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After making your sourdough, feed your starter jar, and place it back in the refrigerator if you do not plan to bake for a few days. If you plan to bake it again the next day, you can leave it out on the counter.

Some do not proof their sourdough in the refrigerator. I had the BEST results after cool proofing. Whenever I left the bread out, it rose and rose, and I had to do another stretch and fold in the morning before baking.

Place the bread (still on top of parchment paper) into a dutch oven with a lid. Bake for 50 minutes. Remove the lid, and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remember that all ovens cook differently, so pay attention to the bread once you remove the lid. You do not want to go through all of that work and then burn your bread!

It will still work, but that first loaf of bread will most likely be super dense. One thing you could do is continue the recipe, and then slice the bread into squares, season, bake, and make amazing sourdough croutons!

Hi Taralynn,

I actually am making your sourdough bread recipe as we speak. I just wanted to know if you heated your Dutch oven first before baking your bread? Most recipes call for heating it first, but my crust always gets very brown. Nothing like yours. Thanks so much for your blog!

This looks amazing, especially the jalapeo and cheddar idea! Have you considered trying to make sour dough pretzels? We love snacking on those, to make them from scratch would be fun to try! ?

Love to read your sourdough journey! Before I was pregnant I was on a big sourdough kick. Unfortunately Breadford (my sourdough starter) died during pregnancy as I was too nauseated to even think of baking bread. I am just about ready to start back now that my little man is 2 months!

Where did you find the glass jars you are using for the starter? Love those!

I always wanted to do sourdough so I saw the recipe and tried it. It is not perfect but with all the tips it is so much easier. Definitely will keep working at it. Thanks for the recipe and especially the video. I will be trying some of the variations once I get the basic better

I just made your sourdough recipe and this is the best one I have found! I feel like I have been struggling with flat bread for a while and this one turned out amazing! Thank you for sharing your recipe. I will definitely be continuing to use this one.

I was really interested in sourdough bread making and I am really glad you made this post!

It was really helpful to have things defined and explained for a beginner like me to understand. I made your recipe and just had a slice this morning for breakfast and it was delicious! My son loved it too! I am going to try a cheddar jalapeno flavor next. Thank you for sharing your recipe!

Thanks for the recipe and clear instructions. I tried to make this loaf today but my dough seems to stay really wet.. This led to me not being able to shape it in the end.

I used the same measurements as the recipe. Do you know what could have happened?

My daughter and I chose this recipe for our maiden voyage with our new starter. It turned out perfectly! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and recipes with the world. PD, currently have our next batch rising now.

I have been baking bread for a very long time, and recently decided to dust off my old Bread Alone cookbook from the 1990s and tackle sourdough. Many hours and a lot of effort later, I had a not so great loaf of heavy bread. Not so with your recipe! You definitely have hit the nail on the head with this technique! I had 2 gorgeous and tasty loaves of sourdough with much less effort than the fancy pants cookbook version! Thank you!

I have been doing sourdough wrong all along. I used to dread spending hours a day focussing on the loaves, but this recipe is so much better for my timeline and my work schedule! I send it to all my friends who ask me about sourdough!

Just made my first ever sourdough loaf with this recipe and it came out near perfect! The bottom was a little dark. Beautiful crunchy crust with chewy soft inside. My husband wants it more sour so we may let it cold proof for 24 hours next time! We did about 15 hours this time.

Sourdough bread is bread that has been leavened naturally, meaning it has been leavened by a sourdough starter as opposed to by commercial yeast or a chemical leavening agent such as baking powder or baking soda.

If your starter doubles (or triples!) in volume within 4 to 8 hours after a feeding, it is ready to go. And ideally, you want to use your starter 4 to 8 hours after you feed it or when it has doubled. Every time I feed my starter, I place a rubber band around the vessel it is in to mark its height. This helps me see when it has doubled in volume and is, therefore, ready to be used.

If time permits, perform four total sets of stretches and folds every 30 minutes for the first 2 hours. You should notice the dough getting stronger and more elastic with every set of stretches and folds. This is the 4th set:

This video shows the dough nearly doubling (increasing by 100%) in volume, but the more I bake sourdough, the more I realize I have better success when I stop the bulk fermentation when the dough increases by 50%. It may take some trial and error to know what works best for you. You may find a 75% increase in volume is best or you may find that to be too long. Sourdough is all about experimenting and adapting based on your experiences.

The most common mistake I see people make when making sourdough bread is letting the bulk fermentation go too long. They mix the dough at night; then wake up to dough that has tripled in volume and is a sticky mess.

To prevent over fermenting your dough, use your refrigerator as needed. After you complete the 4 sets of stretches and folds, you can put your dough in the fridge at any time. If you are tired and need to go to bed, transfer the dough to the refrigerator; then pick up where you left off in the morning: remove the dough from the fridge and let it continue to rise until it increases in volume by roughly 50%.

Friday Evening or Saturday Morning: Score and Bake it. There is no need to let the dough come to room temperature before baking it. Simply remove it from the fridge, turn it out, score it, and bake it!

This is my process: remove starter from fridge, discard most of it, then feed what remains with equal parts by weight flour and water (75 grams or so each). Let it rise until it doubles, then repeat: discard most of it, then feed what remains with equal parts by weight flour and water (75 grams or so each). Let it rise again until it doubles. Then I use it.

I put mine in fridge over night and it looked perfect in the AM, but when I took it out of the bowl it flattened and was super sticky, yet the outside wasnt! What am I doing wrong? I followed this recipe precisely?

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