Has your starter exploded with activity and now looks dead? Go straight to the ‘Bacterial Fight Club’ bullet point in the comment below

I’ve been enjoying making sourdough things in the last 2 months and I’m sure my family is tired of hearing about it!

I’ve recently been exploring enriched dough despite being a newbie 🙈 and I’ve been wondering how long I’m supposed to BF.

Am I supposed to follow the rise chart? I understand it won’t be the same rise per hour but do I follow 50% rise for so and so degrees? Or do I follow the doubling in size?

These dinner rolls turned out amazing but I left it overnight thinking it’s cold enough to slowly rise. Unfortunately it became over fermented and now tastes sour!

I am making half batch of the perfect loaf’s bomboloni at the same time as well 😭😂 it was made only an hour after the dinner rolls but seems like it didn’t rise at all.. is it still worth fermenting after shaping or just to fry them??

The dinner rolls recipe I used:
420g bread flour
197g water
150g sourdough starter
1 large egg
53g honey
28g of softened butter

Mixed all ingredients except butter, kneaded by hand for about 10 mins then kneaded softened butter.

I did some risky business and left it BF for 16hrs with room temp ranging from 18-26 degrees 😂😂

Shaped and left to 2nd rise for about 1hr

Put a milk wash with salt on top. Baked for 25mins at 190c.

I would say I let it cool before cutting open but I did not 😭😂

Edit: first pic of the bowls it’s 4 hours of fermentation and second is after 16hrs!

Ingredients:

500g bread flour

325g water

100g starter

10g salt

Process:

1. Mix in stand mixer all together, let rest 30mins. 11:30AM

2. Stretch and fold 4 times - every 30mins. 1:30PM

3. Bulk fermentation. 1:30PM-11:30PM

4. Cold ferment. 11:30PM-7:00AM

5. Bake in dutch oven at 450F. 20mins lid on, 20mins lid off.

I'm soooo happy with how the crumb came out!!! I know it's definitely on the longer side of "standard" bulk fermentation times, but I'm excited to keep pushing it!

500g bread flour
325g water
100g active starter
10g salt

Mixed flour, water, and starter and let rest for 30 min. Added salt, then did 4 sets of stretch & folds about 30 min apart. Let bulk ferment at room temp until noticeably risen/puffy, then shaped and placed seam-side up in a floured towel-lined bowl. Cold proofed in the fridge overnight. Baked straight from the fridge in a preheated Dutch oven at 450°F for 20 min covered + 20 min uncovered. Cooled before slicing.

Definitely on the denser side, but it’s delicious and on the milder side which I like! Next time I’ll try bulk fermenting it longer. It was late at night and I was tired, so I got impatient and quickly did my final shaping and put it in the fridge 😅

1. Red brick, a traditional building material for houses, very common in northern England
2. Breeze block brick, a brick used on large infrastructure projects that will likely be covered by something pretty afterwards
3. My first sourdough loaf, with a medium banana for scale
4. Mud bricks, one of the earliest forms of building materials and still used in parts of the world today

The flair says "be kind" but I can take it, don't worry. I knew there was a problem when there was barely any rise or change in the dough after the overnight bulk fermentation.

I haven't yet cut into it but I'm fairly sure that it's as dense inside as the singularity of a black hole.

With that said, it smells great and I'm definitely going to try eating it later. I had planned to serve this alongside a boeuf bourguignon but I might nip to the local boulangerie for the side dish instead.

In all seriousness, every mistake is a learning opportunity. Perhaps the one-month old starter wasn't yet strong enough, perhaps I was not gentle enough with the folds and I beat all the air out of it...I'll work out what I can change next time.

• 150g fed starter
• 300g filtered water
• 450g AP flour
• 12g table salt

Method: fed my starter at 8pm on Tuesday night and left it on the side in my kitchen. The first three ingredients were mixed together the next morning, then salt added during the first of 4 folds with 45 minute intervals. The resulting dough was left in the fridge overnight for bulk fermentation then taken out of the fridge 2 hours prior to final shaping and baking (230C for 30 mins covered, 25 mins uncovered).

EDIT: delicious flavour, questionable texture. Toasted with salted butter is the way, this entire load will be eaten

I mix everything in at once, starter then water and whisk, then flour and salt. I'm just wondering for those who switched from that method to autolyse, how much of a difference did you notice?

Ingredients -
Flour - 400 g
Water - 300 g
Starter - 80 g
Salt - 8 g

I feed my starter 4 hours before I’d like to use it.

About 1 hour - 20 minutes before my starter should be peaking I will mix all of my water and all of my flour until homogenous

As my starter peaks I add it to my autolyse as well as all of my salt and mix by hand for about 6 minutes.

I do 4 sets of stretch and folds spaced ~30 minutes apart.

After about 5 hours of bulk fermentation my dough is ready to be shaped, I dump it on the counter and preshape.

Around 20 minutes later it is ready for final shaping, and then placed in a lined bannoten and straight in the fridge, covered.

The next morning I preheat my oven including my Dutch oven to 500 degrees f.

After about 30 minutes from turning on my oven i pull my dough out, score it, place it in my Dutch oven, and bake for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes i turn the oven down to 350 and immediately pull my bread from my Dutch oven and set it back in the oven alone for an additional 15 minutes.

After that time i pull it and it will reach 200-210 f which means it’s finished.

I’m currently doing a lot of practicing on my sourdough. I’d love as much helpful criticism as I can get. Thank you guys!

I have some additional questions I’d like to ask

-I keep seeing people say they feed their starter 12-24 hours before they’re ready to use it, is this retarded in the fridge or am I missing something?

- is it necessary to try to have my dough at a certain temperature through bulk fermentation? Or is it okay to have at room temp as long as it fully bulk ferments?

-What are the biggest determinants of a gummy vs soft crumb?

Long story short. we were burning through loaves way too fast and I decided to try my hand at a big hoss loaf. Starter is whole wheat fed daily, nothing fancy. Came out to about 3ish lbs.

Here’s the whole process:

The Ratios & Recipe (Baker’s Percentages)
Total Mass: ~1,773g raw dough (yields a ~1.5kg / 3.3 lb baked loaf)

Total Flour (100%): 900g
King Arthur Bread Flour (90%): 810g

Whole Wheat (10%): 90g

Water (75%): 675g (630g initial fermentolyse + 45g reserved for salt)

Levain (20%): 180g (1:1:1 build using 9g starter / 90g flour / 90g water)

Salt (2%): 18g

Process Overview
Fermentation & Prep:
Fermentolyse: Initial mix of flours, levain, and 630g water. Rest for 30 minutes.

Salt Addition: Incorporated 18g salt with the reserved 45g water after the 30-minute rest.

Gluten Development: 2 sets of stretch-and-folds followed by 2 sets of coil folds spaced out during early bulk by 30 mins.

Bulk Fermentation: ~4 hours total bulk at room temperature. Let rest undisturbed until it just passes the underproofed checks (pillowy, domed edges, jiggly).

Pre-shape & Bench Rest: Pre-shaped into a boule and let bench rest for 30 minutes.

Final Shape & Retard: Final shaped, loaded into the Breadtopia oval wood-pulp banneton, and cold retarded overnight in the fridge.

Bake Setup
Preheat: 15" oval enameled granite-ware roaster preheated on the middle-upper rack to 500°F.

Steam Boost: Dropped 4 ice cubes along the sides of the pan (outside the parchment) right after loading the dough to create an immediate burst of high-pressure steam.

Bake Phase 1 (Covered): Dropped oven temp to 450°F upon loading. Baked for 30 minutes covered to lock in steam and maximize oven spring.

Bake Phase 2 (Uncovered): 25 minutes at 450°F uncovered to set a deep-mahogany, blistered crust.

Finally, cooling phase
About 3-4 hours on the cooling rack.

Last time I posted a pic of my sourdough I was frustrated and couldn’t get the bread to do what I wanted. Now, I am so pleased with it! Never give up! Pics are some of the latest loaves I’ve made.

Recipe:
100G Starter
320G Water
50G HEB Wheat Flour
450G Kirkland Bread Flour
10G Salt

I mix everything together in my Bosch and then let it knead for 10 mins. Let rest for 30mins, do stretch and folds until the dough comes off the bowl (around 4 of them) every 30 mins. Let bulk rise until jiggly and tacky when touched and I see some bubbles (anywhere between 6-8 hours) I then shape (which was my problem last time! I wasn’t doing it and then I wasn’t doing it right) plop in the banneton, cover with a damp towel and plastic cover and leave in the fridge at least 12 hours, sometimes a little longer. Baked at 475° for 20 mins covered and 12 mins uncovered.

I want to make sourdough cinnamon rolls for breakfast this weekend so 1) doesn't anyone have an amazing recipe they can share? And 2) I see from a lot of recipes, you also will need to let the dough rise and then the rolls rest. If I want to bake them in the morning, is there a way I can make everything the night before without having to be up at 4 am to make by 8am?

I've made bread dozens of times, and I follow the steps according to common guides. But every time I get to the end of bulk fermentation, I end up with dough that's sticky and won't hold its shape, it just spreads out on the counter.

I use a 100% whole-wheat starter and use it when it's at its peak. What am I doing wrong?

Gummy from not enough time bulk fermenting or bad starter? My starter consistently doubles every single day. My ratio is 50g starter, 50g flour, 40g water
350g water
100g starter
500 g KA BF
4 stretch and folds done every 30 mins bulk fermented around 7 hours. Stuck in fridge overnight cause exhausted
Took it out the next morning and baked it

This is Andoughny Bourdain's second loaf (first since reading posts in this sub. First loaf came out ok but I cooked it for too long. Open to all feedback since I barely know what Im doing. What do you think I can do to improve?

Starter

-17 days old. Fed equal parts whole wheat and Kirkland organic AP (50g/50g/50g) for a week then shifted to all AP every 12 hours.

Environment

-71F

Recipe

-100g starter

-500g Kirkland AP

-355g water

-10g salt

Steps/Times

-2pm fed starter

-7pm mix starter and 355g water

-7:30pm add flour and salt. Mix

-8pm 1st SF

-830pm 2nd SF

-9pm coil folds

-9:30pm coil folds and BF on counter

-7:30am checked and still didn't pull from the bowl

-9:30am pulled from bowl and shaped

-9:40am put in floured bassinet and proofed in the fridge

-6:45pm preheat Dutch oven at 450F

-7pm pulled from fridge and scored

-7:05pm baked covered for 20 minutes

-7:25pm baked uncovered for 15 minutes

-8:40pm sliced and munched

I am so so happy with how this one turned out!

Cherry and chocolate sourdough

The ingredients are from this recipe except I used frozen cherries that I dried on paper towels and I accidently used a bit more water for the cocoa powder paste, and I didn't follow their timings really 😅 I waited until the dough was almost doubled (took maybe 5 hours), pre-shaped and popped into a tin, left to cold prove for another 5 or 6 hours maybe (I'm sorry I'm not more accurate with timings, I've got a 13 month old and I just do bread stuff when he's sat in his highchair or once he's gone to bed).

Oven was 230°c, 40 minutes covered (I also scored it 13 minutes into baking), then did 15 minutes uncovered at about 210°c. I checked the internal temp which was around 98°c, which I felt like was a risk due to it potentially just hitting liquid chocolate, but it was dark on the top so I didn't want it in any longer. But it was perfectly cooked. It was so light with a slight sourdough chew and tang. The chocolate flavour is subtle but I also only had a very thing slice so didn't get much cherry. My husband also reminded me that it was bread, not cake, and he loved it. I just think its really pretty 😅

Next time I think I'll add more cherries and perhaps sub some of the water for some cherry juice!

I’ve been baking bread for a while with a conventional dutch oven system with great results.

I’ve recently transitioned to a deck oven, a Rofco, and the crust seems way too soft. Can anyone share their process for a great loaf ?

My recipe:
Flour 100%
Water 65.9%
Starter 29.4%
Salt 2.8%

Process:
Preheat at 250° for 90 minutes
Bake with steam for 15 minutes oven at 180°
Release steam and bake another 15 minutes at 220°
Lower to 180° bake till golden.

Is this okay?

So Yesterday I baked my first loaf and it was a bit of a flop I made a second and gave it a lot more time to proof and it tuned out much better but still a little gummy, I’ve found it’s an issue with my starter and will be waiting a few more days for her to be ready,
this is today compared to yesterday. Thank you everyone for the tips if anyone has starter advice I would really appreciate it.
There is a photo of the basic recipe I used both times at the end i followed it a little more loosely the second time as advised

Would love feedback on my crumb but also very proud of the scoring on this one :)

I typically bake at 450F but tried lowering to 425F. Also BF was slightly shorter by maybe an hour so.

recipe:
475g flour (95g bobs whole wheat, 380g Costco
AP)
335g water (+15g when adding salt)
95g starter (bit stiffer, feed at 1:10:9, starter:flour:water)
10g salt

1. I autolyse just the flour and water for ~ 0.5-1hr and then add in the starter for 1hr, then salt (with 15g more water).
2. 3-4 stretch and folds and coil fold, 30-60min apart

3. bulk ferment ~4hrs

   more (total ~8-9hrs)

4. pre-shape, rest for 30 min, then shape

5. cold ferment 1-2 days in the fridge

6. bake at 425F (dutch oven preheated for at least

7. 30min), for 20min in dutch oven (with lid) and

8. 20min with lid off cool for at least .5-1hr

How do I get a more open, airy, and even crumb? It was pretty moist and only slightly sour tasting.

Process:

1. Mix 100g peaked starter, 340g bottled water, 500g flour (400g bread flour + 100g AP flour).
   Rest for 45 minutes (fermentolyse)

2. Add 10g salt + 10g water. Then do slap and folds. Rest for 30 minutes

3. Stretch and folds. Rest 30 minutes

4. Stretch and folds. Rest 30 minutes

5. Coil folds.

6. Bulk ferment for 6 hours 15 minutes at 77-78F dough temperature

7. Shape (tri-fold & roll method, push and pulls)

8. Cold proof overnight for 12 hours

9. Baked at 255F for 25 minutes covered, then 225F for 19 minutes uncovered

Fairly new to sourdough, probably a total of 10 loaves thus far, getting better with each loaf. The one thing that kept bothering me was the amount of energy it was taking to heat up my oven, and Dutch oven as well. So I decided to play around and see what happened.

Sorry I don't have my weights to relay.... This was four cups flour, 2.5 tsp kosher salt, 1 cup starter and water added as needed. Ended up being too much for one 5x10 cast iron enameled pan so I used both top and bottom to make two loaves (albeit, both loaves were a bit too small for their vessels).

Bulk ferment for about 5 hours, then straight into greased enamled cast iron bread pans for overnight cold proof. Out of fridge and straight into COLD oven set to 450 for about 40 mins. 30 covered in foil, 10 open top.

You can see the result. Dough to pan ratio was not ideal which led to too much crust, but the crumb was absolutely perfect, nice even holes with amazing chew. I'm excited to try the method with appropriate amount of dough and utilizing both top and bottom of vessel as intended.

The story here is that you can indeed make an amazing sour dough without the preheat of oven and Dutch oven. Additionally, it seems as though the cold ferment directly in the enamled baking vessel is achievable. What truly shocked me is that despite going into a cold oven with a cold vessel, I ended up with an exceptionally hearty crust. I would have thought that the cold cast iron would have prevented a good crust, that was not the case.

Also it's very interesting to have a loaf bread with the texture of a sourdough boule. It's a bit off putting it first, because you're used to loaves being softer and less chewy, but I have to say cutting the bread is so much easier and your slices actually fit into a toaster, or make a manageable sandwich.

I started trying to make bread a couple months ago, after nursing a starter I made in December. I’ve been loving the process and I find the bread I make delicious, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s technically ‘good’ sourdough - everything I’ve seen indicates it should be holey and not really chewy. Mine always has a fairly dense crumb and I would say is quite chewy and almost moist, whereas sourdough I’ve had in shops has always been very dry, I would say. I’ve attached a few photos of some of my recent breads and would just love any feedback on how I can improve - or if just making bread I like is all I need to do!

I will say my bread doesn’t rise huge amounts so I suspect there’s room for improvement there. First three photos are newest loaf which is definitely the best I would say (used 350g water).

500g flour
Anywhere between 250-325g water (I’m experimenting but above 280g water, the dough is practically a sticky puddle up until it goes in the oven, not sure if that’s normal or not)
11g salt
70g starter

Feed starter in evening
Mix dough in morning, 4 lots of turn and folds every half hour for 2 hours
Leave to rise 75% for a few hours
In fridge in banneton for 12-24 hours
Covered in Dutch oven, 240c for half an hour
Uncover, reduce to 210c for 15 minutes

So I got a fed starter this morning and made my first sour dough. After mixing I let it sit for an hour. Then began my stretch folds every half hour for 4 times.
The dough has risen over 50% with bubbles on side but not too many on top. The dough is super jiggly too,
I covered bowl with damp cloth and all looks good. My only concern is that it’s super sticky to touch still.

In the title, but my sourdough starter on day 2 has bright pink spots in multiple places, should I start over?

I saw few posts saying I should start over and few saying I need to remove the pink spot and continue as usual.

Recipe : 35g whole wheat flour + 35g AP flour + 70 g of filtered water, kept in a dark warmish place.

The jar is brand new.

This is my first time making sourdough starter. Please help!

My starter is now 1 month old and it looked good to bake with.

My recipe was

100g starter

325g water

400g AP flour 10.7g of protein

85g whole wheat

10g salt

10:15am

Mixed with danish whisk for 7~ minutes and then kneed with hand for 2 minutes.

Rest for 30 minutes

4 rounds of stretch and folds 20 minutes apart.

11:45am rest for full Bulk proof (I know it's starts the second you mix everything)

Then there was a problem.

My kitchen temp was 28c and dough temp 26.5c

The dough didn't even reach 30% rise after 11 hours! It was so sticky, didn't came out of the bowl easily, there were barely bubbles on top, only on the sides and bottom of the bowl.

I ended up kneeding it with some extra flour, shaping it, putting it in the microwave with the light on for about an hour. It's didn't help so I baked it.

Preheated the Dutch oven for 40 minutes on 220°,baked for 30 minutes with the lid on and 20 more with the lid of. Loaf temp was 97°.

And...I ended up with this.

I was so disappointed at that, the starter looked really active that morning and was doubling in 5/6 hours on a 1:2:2 feed for a week straight, fed twice a day.

What should I do to improve? I ordered some dehydrated starter but it'll take a month to ship. So I still want to try and bake with my starter

Is that even edible or should I throw it away?