For Beginners – Tips To Ace Your Sourdough Game

About a year ago, I started making sourdough at home. In the beginning, it was the sourdough starter that interested me the most. The science behind this magical flour and water mixture was fascinating. Every day during the first month, the very first thing I did after getting home from work was to check on my starter, blueberry (yes, I named my starter blueberry), and give it another feed. A month later, I made my first sourdough bread and it didn’t come out as expected. (check up my very first sourdough bread and the mistakes I have made to find out more)

Not going to lie, bread made with wild yeast is much more complicated than that made with commercial yeast, especially when it comes to fermentation. With commercial yeast, as long as you follow the recipe, the result won’t be too different. Working with sourdough requires a high level of attention and patience as well. Until today, I am still learning to read my dough.

There are some tips I would like to share with anyone who is about to start their sourdough journey. These come from my experience and I hope they will assist you along the way.

1. Use white bread flour/ baker’s flour

There are countless flour products available on the market. If you can, use bread flour or baker’s flour. Choose flour with high protein content. In Australia, you can easily find baker’s flour with 12.5% protein. The reason behind this is that to get the gluten network established, we need more protein in flour, especially glutenin and gliadin, the main proteins that form gluten.

Using all-purpose flour to make sourdough is possible but I wouldn’t recommend it until you are familiar with sourdough making process. It is very likely that you will have to reduce the water from the recipe as all-purpose flour absorbs less water compared to bread flour. Also, the texture will be less chewy (weaker gluten network).

As for whole grain flour, it absorbs more water than bread flour because of the bran and germ. Bran and germ where most nutrients like vitamins, fiber, minerals and fat are stored deliver more enzymes than white bread flour, accelerating the fermentation process.

2. Start with lower-hydration dough

I know it’s attempting to make higher hydration dough because of the crumb shots and fluffy dough videos online. Handling wetter dough takes experience and practice. Start with 65% hydration and increase the water content little by little. If you are not sure how to calculate 65% hydration, read my previous post what is baker’s percentage? How can I apply to my daily baking?

I remember when I started to make higher-hydration dough after a couple of months of the journey, it was not fun at all. I couldn’t read my dough. The dough was left to ferment for longer than it should be. During the shaping stage, the dough was spreading so much that I thought it was not going to work. Totally nightmare. After that, I dropped the hydration level and practiced the same recipe for 2 weeks and then I started to gain a sense of feeling for the dough. Once I feel confident, I higher the dough hydration.

3. Keep a diary of your dough-making process

It is beneficial to keep a diary of your bread-making schedule. Especially when you use the same recipe, you can compare the differences between each stage. Keep a record of the room temp as well for your reference. During winter, it takes a longer time to ferment and in summer the proofing time shortens. Write down as much information as possible, one day when you look back on it, you know what steps you have taken.

Personally I write down the recipe with baker’s percentage on one side and the time and process on the other side. I also mark down the dough temperature when it is ready for bulk fermentation and keep track of the folds I have performed.

My diary looks like this :

24th September 2022 (15 degrees)

sourdough #20

			Day 1	no autolyse
500g	flour	100%	14:30	mix dough
360g	water	72%	15:00	bulk ferment (temp 25.3)
12.5g	salt	2.5%		coil fold: 3
125g	starter	25%	21:00	pre-shape (495g*2)
total 990g			21:30	final shape + bench rest
			21:40	cold proofing
			Day 2
			10:00	pre heat oven
			10:45	score and bake 250 degrees, 20 mins, with steam 230 degrees, 24 mins, without steam

4. Never stop practicing

I would say this is the most significant tip of all. Practice, practice and practice. I get it when you feel frustrated with the result and you feel like giving up. Please try again. There was a time when I used a new type of flour and all the bread came out flat. I felt disappointed with myself. I made less bread in a week than before but I did not stop making bread.

Please be patient with yourself. All the skills and experiences come with time.

I’d like to show you the pictures of my bread and hopefully, they will encourage you to keep going.

bread made at the very beginning

here are just a few non-good-looking bread photos to give you an idea

bread made more recently

At the end

I’m glad I began my sourdough journey a year ago. It has been an up-and-down ride. I can see myself continuing to make bread and the goal is to have my own microbakery in the seeable future!