Fall Sourdough Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the biggest mistake with sourdough starter? ›

Most commonly, the issue here has to do with temperature (which is very important). If your sourdough starter is kept at a low temp, even 70°F (21°C), it will slow fermentation activity and appear to be sluggish, taking longer to rise and progress through the typical signs of fermentation. The solution: keep it warm.

How do I know if my sourdough starter is ready to use? When your starter is reliably rising to double or triple its size and falling in the jar anywhere between 4-8 hours after you feed it (dependent on your ambient conditions and the flour you feed with) it is ready to bake with.

If it gets contaminated with mold… thats the only way really for it to go bad. Sourdough starters are very resilient, and if left alone, they can go dormant, and will smell strongly of vinegar, and even almost acetone.

It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.

Whole wheat flour is an excellent choice for creating a sourdough starter due to its nutrient-rich composition and potential for fostering a robust microbial community. However, it's important to note that the quality of whole wheat flour can vary between brands.

Honey: Honey adds a sweetness to this dough and helps balance any sour flavor that comes through from the fermentation process. If you are looking for whole wheat bread without the honey, try this recipe. Salt: Salt enhances the flavor and helps tempers the fermentation.

Baking soda or bicarbonate of soda can be used in sourdough bread to create a less sour loaf. Added after bulk fermentation, but before shaping, it can help to create a lighter, more fluffy loaf of sourdough.

If you are simply trying to maintain your population, you can let it rise and fall before refeeding. If you still want to feed twice a day, try reducing your feeding ratio to 1:1:1 and see if it peaks in 12 hours. Different feeding ratios should just be used control timing of the peak (and feeding).

Why did my sourdough fall? ›

If your sourdough starter is left too long it gets hungry and exhausted. You will know because it will have doubled and then the air pockets start to collapse and the mix deflates. This can happen at any temperature, but it will be slower to occur in cool environments and much faster in warmer.

The float test is a technique to see whether the starter has trapped enough gas to adequately lift your bread dough. To perform the float test, simply spoon some of your starter into a cup of water. If the blob sinks straight to the bottom, the starter has not developed enough to adequately trap carbon dioxide.

How Do I Know If I Killed My Sourdough Starter? Sourdough starters are incredibly resilient. Unless there is visible mold in your jar or the starter has been exposed to extremely high temperatures, chances are your sourdough starter is alive.

It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening. Feed the starter. Add 60 g flour and 60 g lukewarm water, stir well to combine, and let sit out for 24 hours.

Example of How To Increase Your Sourdough Starter

If you have 50g of starter in your jar, but you would like to have 200g of starter because you want to bake a few different things then you would need to add 100g of each flour and water to that starter to make 200g (because 200g divided by 2 is 100g).

The starter you coaxed to life, watched grow, then used to bake many delectable loaves — dead. And all because you stashed it in the back of the fridge and forgot to feed it for a few weeks (or maybe even months). In reality, it's very difficult to kill sourdough starter — especially through benign neglect.

The more starter you use, the faster your dough will ferment - resulting in a less sour loaf. Of course the amount of starter is actually a ratio in relation to the flour - so 50g of starter to 500g of flour will ferment at a much slower rate than 200g of starter to 500g of flour.

stir your starter in between feedings - try stirring it twice in between feedings and really give it a chance to get oxygen into the mix. This will help to activate your starter without too much effort.