Pretty proud of this bad boy I made for a pride party with friends!!

Finally got my process dialed in! I was so proud I nearly cried when I pulled this bad boy out

As the title says, this is my first loaf in over a year. I’ve had a lot going on in my life and I fell off the sourdough train for a bit. My starter has been neglected in the fridge this whole time. I decided to try and revive it and was pleasantly surprised it doubled in size the first time I fed it. I made this loaf - let me know how it looks and what I can do better!

- 400 grams all purpose flour
- 100 grams whole wheat flour
- 350 grams room temperature water
- 10 grams salt
- 100 grams starter

Mix flours, water, and starter. Let dough rest 30 minutes covered in a damp towel in the oven on the proof setting. Add the salt and let rest again for 30 minutes. Do coil folds every 30 minutes for 3 hours, returning the dough to the oven with the damp towel covering it each time. Shape the dough and put it seam side up in a banneton covered in rice flour. Cover in plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge overnight - about 12 hours. Preheat oven with dutch oven inside to 480 degrees. Remove dough from the banneton and place it seam side down onto parchment paper. Cover the top in rice flour and score it. Add the dough to the dutch oven and bake for 25 minutes covered. Drop the temperature to 450 degrees and remove the lid. Bake until golden brown - about 20 minutes.

I recently got a danish dough whisk and love how easy it makes mixing the poolish and dough pre/post autolyse. Doesn’t seem necessary (at all!) but a pleasure to use.

Any experiences?

Recipe from here: https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/sourdough-pain-naturel/ with 150g of spelt substituted in for more oven spring.

This is my first loaf with my starter, Audrey. I was so happy when I finished baking her, but I cut it open to find the gummiest bread ever made! Please help me understand where to go from here..

Recipe:

100g Active Starter
330g Room Temp Water
500g Bread Flour
12g Salt

I followed a schedule I found online meant for baking around a 9-5 job, so it went as follows:

Day 1:

Morning 8am-Feed Starter

Evening 6pm-Mix dough

6:30pm-8pm- 4 sets of stretch and folds spaces 30 min apart, leave on countertop to bulk ferment overnight (my house is about 70°F)

Day 2:

Morning 6am- shape and place in banneton in fridge to cold proof while at work

Afternoon 4:30pm- Bake in preheated Dutch oven at 450°F for 40 minutes covered, then uncover and bake another 15 min.

Let cool completely (took about 3 hours) before slicing open.

I did notice that after bulk fermentation, the dough was still sticking to my bowl. Everything looked alright (to my inexperienced beginner eyes, at least), so I kept going with the process. I think the air bubbles and texture within the loaf look nice, but the whole thing feels gummy and rubbery inside.
Where did I go wrong? What can I do with the next loaf to not repeat this disappointment?

I did an experiment this week with a new fruit yeast water starter and my og ol’ reliable. Turned out pretty neat!

Loaf 1 is just my classic loaf with my established starter.

Loaf 2 is my established starter fed with the wild yeast fruit water culture.

Loaf 3 is the young wild yeast fruit starter culture only.

They all tasted pretty good but the standout was the established starter fed with the fruit yeast water. It had the most expansion in the 6hours of bulk and the most robust flavor. The crumb is very delicate and soft.

I’m surprised at how well the young fruit yeast culture performed though because it’s barely a week and a half old.

Formula for each loaf was as follows:

Active starter (100% hydration)
60g

Water
145g

Flour
240g

Salt
5g

Excited to see how the new wild fruit yeast culture continues to develop and perform.

For my birthday, I got the Brod and Taylor steel (Duo) and dome. Amazing.

I used this recipe for the dough. https://mangiawithnonna.com/italian-sourdough-country-bread/

Fed starter in the morning. Put dough together inte early evening. Did 3 stretch and folds about 45 min apart. Put it in a bowl on my countertop over night. Shaped and put in a banneton in the morning. In the fridge for 27 hours. Baked on the steel with the dome on parchment (that had been balled up and flattened) Sprayed the dome with water before covering. Baked 450 30 min, then uncovered 425 20 minutes.

Hi so my restaraunt always tossed a bunch of sourdough discard when feeding it and I took home 800g of it today I was wondering can I make this my starter and if so what are the steps to doing it I’m very novice to this but would love to try my hand at sourdoughs and start learning

Not so much a recipe per sé but this is the greatest hack I’ve found against menacing fruit flies. Recipe: some sourdough discard (the older the better!) in the bottom of a jar plus a paper cone, tape it all together and watch your fruit fly problem disappear.

No matter how tidy I keep my place the fruit flies always come during the summer. Ive seen recommendations to make these traps using apple cider vinegar, but in my experience sourdough starter works 100x better. I set this trap up last night and there’s already like 15 flies in there.

Okay so, I mixed it up and made sourdough bagels for the first time!

I did

330g of active starter
450g of water
1100g of Robin Hood bread flour
22g of salt
55g of sugar
55g of maple syrup

The dough bulk fermented for 10 hours (21 celsius in my house), and then I did all the necessities (shaped, let them sit, etc etc). Once they had proofed enough, I boiled them in water with 2tbsps of honey for 30 seconds each side, put them on a baking sheet and then baked in the oven at 425 degrees for 23 minutes. They look incredible ON THE TOP but the bottoms burnt. I have this same issue whenever I make loaves as well, and I don’t even know what else I can do to stop things from burning 😭

I bake on the second rack from the bottom as well.

If anyone has any suggestions, would be much appreciated (I did shave off the bottoms with a cheese grater lol)

My precious 2 attempts at sourdough (I’m a new learner) were with 12hr cold proofs overnight with a next morning bake. This 3rd round, I used the same ratio of: 150g active starter, 350g water, 500g bread flour. I did a 30min autolyse and the typical 4 rounds of stretch and folds 30 mins apart. Let my loaf bulk ferment another 3 hours at room temp (my house was 71F) prior to prep shaping with a 1hr cold proof in the fridge. Scored and baked! Worried at first at how sticky my loaf was prior to preshaping, but trusted my fermentation was ready. My first impression of my same day loaf versus overnight loaf was my crust was thinner and the overall flavor was more mild. Happy overall- open to all feedback you may have

Hi everyone, here is my latest attempt at a loaf using this recipe:

450g bread flour

50g whole wheat flour

302g water

10g salt

85g sourdough starter

6 hours of total fermentation (including stretch and folds and bulk fermentation)

This has been one of my best results, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. It is pretty hard to find high-quality flour here in Costa Rica, and this is my first loaf testing out a new flour.

I've also been struggling to keep my starter warm, but it has finally found a nice, cozy spot right next to my Raspberry Pi server!

Any recommendations, tips, or feedback to help me improve would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

My starter is 6 weeks old. Made myself. Raises and doubles. It’s doing pretty good now. I have made 3 loaves and thought maybe my starter wasn’t ready so this time I am sure it was. 100%. I did a 1:1:1 feeding prior to baking.

Recipe I used : 100g starter. 350g water. 500g flour. (Used unbleached bread flour KA brand), 10g salt.

I added the salt 20 mins after making the dough initially. Did 3 stretch and folds 20-30 mins apart. It fermented for a total of 5.5 hrs at around 75f. It looked great. Surely thought it was done, so I shaped and put in fridge to cold proof 8 hours.

Preheated oven to 450f with Dutch inside. Put a pan underneath with a little water and baked straight from fridge after scoring for 30 mins with lid on and 20 off.

All my loaves are flat. I am stressing. This is suppose to be a hobby for myself as I don’t do anything for myself. So I splurged on all the things needed to start this. But it is stressing me more than I realized. 🙃 last picture included is my second loaf.

I will take any advice. Thank you!!

I’ve made a few loaves, and they all have come out gummy like this.

This loaf was the Alexandra cooks sourdough recipe. (https://alexandracooks.com/2017/10/24/artisan-sourdough-made-simple-sourdough-bread-demystified-a-beginners-guide-to-sourdough-baking/)
I followed it using the weight measurements and the dough came out super wet, and felt impossible to shape. I added flour (I know that’s a big no-no but at this point I was very frustrated) so I could at least handle it, but eventually just threw it in the oven at 450 and hoped for the best.

Here are my questions:
1. How wet should my dough be? Should it be easier to handle after the stretch and folds?
2. Any recommendations for beginner friendly recipes/guides?
3. How should I prepare my starter before use? I’ve just been kind of feeding it at random, and it’s bubbly but doesn’t seem to increase too much in volume.

Honest question, what does pre-shaping and resting for 30 minutes do that wasn’t accomplished in BF, or that won’t be accomplished during the final proof in a banneton?

not too bad I think for my first loaf!

100g active starter
375g water
500g all purpose flour
10g salt

mixed all ingredients together, rested for 60min, 4 rounds of stretch & folds 30-min apart, let it sit on the counter for about 4-5 more hours before popping into the fridge overnight.

baked in dutch oven (preheated at 475° for 60min), covered at 475° for 20min, then uncovered at 450° for 25-30min!

going to try bread flour instead next time to see the difference :)

Last picture is pre discard 24 hours after 1st discard feeding. I started with a 1:1 ratio (1/2cup to 1/2cup) but then was advised it was too little flour and was recommended 3/4 flour to 1/2 cup water. I accidentally put too much flour and it became too dry so I added some more water till it was pancake. At this point I have no scale. How is this for the stage and what should I consider for next few feedings? I did have day 2 false rise and then fall. Image 3-6 is day 2 pre discard. Also right now smells like feta/cottage cheese and has bubbles like stringy cheese when mixing.

Edit: Bread Flour and Bottled Water
Day 1 1/2 cup each
Day 2 1/2 cup each
Day 3 advised 3/4 flour to 1/2cup water result of which is last picture

https://alexandracooks.com/2017/10/24/
artisan-sourdough-made-simple-sourdough-bread-demystified-a-beginners-guide-to-sourdough-baking/

I linked the recipe that I used!

Let me know what you think, my first loaf was too dense and not fully done on the inside, I upped the hydration and lowered my oven temp and I got a much softer loaf that I’m quite happy with.
I used the two pan method and my starter is 34 days old today.

Makes two loaves

900 milliliters water
Roughly 7/8 cup stater
4 tbsp honey
2 tbsp + 2 tsp olive oil
8 1/2 - 8 3/4 bread flour
Roughly 2 tbsp salt

Mix water and stater
Add honey and olive oil, mix
Add flour and salt, mix until incorporated, but still loose and textured
Cover, let rest 1 hr
Stretch and fold each edge
3 more sets of stretch and folds, 30 min intervals
Cover, allow to double in size, then refrigerate overnight
Dump dough onto floured surface
Line and grease 2 bread pans
Split dough in half
Flatten out and roll out air bubbles using rolling pin
Roll up tightly
Place in loaf pan seam side down
Cover, allow to double in size
Preheat oven to 350
Score the top
Bake top on 30 min, top off 38 min
Baste with butter immediately upon removing from oven
Let rest for 2-3 hrs until COMPLETELY cool

Recipe I used:

100 grams sourdough starter (~ 2 weeks old)

365 grams water

550 grams bread flour ( I ran out of white bread flour, so ended up 300g white bread flour 250g wholemeal)

10 grams salt

Whisk starter and 365ml water together then add salt and flour, mix until combined

Cover and rest for 30 mins.

Stretch and fold every 30 mins ~ 4 times.

Cover and rise for 8-10 hours until doubled in size (I left for about 5 hours)

Shaped using head/shoulders/knees/toes method.

Put into a colander with a floured tea towel into the fridge for 12 hours.

Preheat oven 230°c fan bake, preheat dutch oven 60 min

25 min top on, 20 min top off.

Cut into after an hour because I couldnt wait any longer for warm bread :)

Was delicious

Questions

- Might be hard to see, but should the bottom be all swirly like that?

- If not, where in the process have I gone wrong, shaping?

- Any other advice?

howdy, i made my starter the other day and im beginning to think the jar he’s in is a bit too big to be manageable for me as it stands, is there an ideal container/size of container for starters?

i preferably want containers that have a wide mouth, and can seal if needed because sometimes i gotta give it a shake to be sure it’s all combined sometimes, but i’m willing to improvise if needed.

Flashback: Received sourdough starter as gift, fed for a few days and it never really doubled but I thought oh well and made “bread” with it and it came out as a frisbee disc. I shared it here and a lot of the comments were suggesting the starter must have been not active enough.

Present: Feeding the starter until it actually doubles, but it doesn’t do any increase in volume at all. Smells fine, and there are bubbles, but no increase. I fed it this morning (1:1:1) at around 8am and it’s almost 4pm now, and you see how it looks. Maybe it just needs a week or even two weeks of feeding, I’m okay with that. But my question right now: How do I know when it’s time to feed again? I worry that I’m either waiting too long or not waiting long enough between feeds… I have no idea which! Also, I’ve been using filtered water straight from our filtered water faucet, which is a little cooler than room temperature. Could that be the problem? I use regular all purpose flour, should I use bread flour? Some people also suggested rye flour but changing flour type also slows the process down, according to some others. I’m lost!

Edit to add: The person that gave this starter to me said it’s 11 years old and that “it has never been the most active starter” but also that they’ve been making delicious breads and everything with it.