How to Make Sourdough Bread at Home

Sourdough bread has a reputation for being the province of obsessives — people who name their starters, track ambient humidity, and speak in hushed tones about crumb structure. That reputation is only partly deserved. Yes, sourdough takes time. But most of that time is hands-off, and the actual skill required is far less than the mystique suggests. What sourdough demands above all else is attention and patience, not technique.

Start with the starter

A sourdough starter is nothing more than flour and water fermented by wild yeast and bacteria that exist naturally in your environment. To make one from scratch, combine 50g of whole wheat or rye flour with 50g of lukewarm water in a clean jar. Stir thoroughly, cover loosely — a cloth secured with a rubber band works perfectly — and leave at room temperature.

Every 24 hours, discard roughly half the mixture and feed it with another 50g flour and 50g water. Within 5 to 7 days, you should notice bubbles forming, the mixture rising and falling on a predictable schedule, and a pleasantly sour, yeasty smell replacing the flat raw-flour scent of day one. That is an active starter, ready to bake with.

A few things that accelerate the process: using whole grain flour for early feedings (the bran carries more wild yeast), keeping the jar somewhere warm — 24 to 27°C is ideal — and being consistent with your feeding schedule. Inconsistency is the most common reason starters fail to develop.

Once established, a starter kept at room temperature needs feeding every 12 to 24 hours. If you bake infrequently, store it in the fridge and feed it once a week. Before baking, take it out, feed it, and wait for it to peak — typically 4 to 8 hours at room temperature — before using it in your dough.

The float test

The simplest way to know if your starter is ready: drop a small spoonful into a glass of water. If it floats, it is active enough to leaven bread. If it sinks, give it more time. This test is not infallible, but it is reliable enough for everyday baking.

The basic sourdough loaf

For a single 900g loaf, you will need:

• 450g strong bread flour (or a mix of 400g white and 50g whole wheat)
• 320g water at around 30°C
• 90g active sourdough starter
• 9g fine sea salt

Autolyse

Mix the flour and 290g of the water together until no dry flour remains. Cover and rest for 30 to 60 minutes. This resting period, called autolyse, allows the flour to fully hydrate and begins gluten development without any kneading. The dough will be much easier to work with afterward.

Add starter and salt

Add the starter to the autolysed dough and work it in using your fingers, squeezing and folding until fully incorporated. Then dissolve the salt in the remaining 30g of water and add that too. This technique — adding salt slightly diluted — helps it distribute evenly without tearing the gluten structure you have already built.

Bulk fermentation

Cover the bowl and leave the dough to ferment at room temperature for 4 to 5 hours. During the first two hours, perform four sets of stretch-and-folds spaced 30 minutes apart. To do this, wet your hand, grab one side of the dough, stretch it upward as far as it will go without tearing, and fold it over the centre. Rotate the bowl and repeat on all four sides. That is one set.

After the folds, the dough should feel noticeably stronger and more elastic. By the end of bulk fermentation, it should have grown by 50 to 75 percent and feel airy, domed on top, and slightly jiggly when you shake the bowl. The exact time depends heavily on temperature — warmer kitchens ferment faster.

Shaping

Turn the dough out onto an unfloured surface. Gently pre-shape it into a rough round, then leave it uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes — this is called the bench rest. Then shape it properly: flip it, fold the sides in, roll it toward you to build surface tension, and place it seam-side up in a well-floured banneton or a bowl lined with a well-floured cloth. A mix of rice flour and bread flour works best for lining because rice flour does not absorb moisture the way wheat flour does.

Cold proof

Cover the shaped dough and refrigerate it for 8 to 16 hours. Cold proofing slows fermentation, develops flavour, and makes the dough much easier to score before baking. It also gives you flexibility — the dough will hold happily in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

Baking

An hour before baking, place a Dutch oven — cast iron is ideal — in your oven and preheat to 250°C (or as high as your oven goes). When the oven is ready, tip the cold dough directly from the banneton onto a sheet of baking paper. Score it quickly with a sharp knife or a bread lame at a 30- to 45-degree angle — one long cut is all you need for your first attempts. Lower it into the screaming-hot Dutch oven, put the lid on, and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove the lid and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes until the crust is deeply coloured — darker than you think it should be. Pale sourdough has less flavour and goes stale faster. The internal temperature should reach 96 to 98°C. Transfer to a wire rack and resist cutting into it for at least one hour. The crumb continues to set as it cools, and cutting too early gives you gummy bread.

Troubleshooting common problems

Dense crumb: Underfermented dough is the most common cause. Either the starter was not active enough, bulk fermentation was cut short, or the kitchen was too cold. Try extending bulk fermentation by an hour and make sure your starter passes the float test before using it.

Flat loaf: Over-fermented dough loses its structure. In warm weather, bulk fermentation can happen in 3 hours or less. Watch the dough, not the clock.

Gummy interior: Underbaked or cut too soon. Bake longer, go darker on the crust, and wait a full hour before slicing.

Crust not cracking: The Dutch oven traps steam for the first 20 minutes, which is what creates an extensible crust that can spring and crack. If you are not using a Dutch oven, place a pan of boiling water in the bottom of the oven during the first 20 minutes of baking.

Getting better over time

Your first sourdough loaf will probably not be perfect. Neither will your third. What you are building is intuition — for how active starter looks, how properly fermented dough feels, how dough behaves differently in winter versus summer. Bake the same recipe repeatedly before changing anything, and keep notes. Sourdough is a craft, and like all crafts, it rewards practice far more than it rewards reading about it.