How to make sourdough bread from scratch!

Welcome to the Doughnet! This website will help you make delicious sourdough bread from scratch. I've adapted guidelines from King Arthur Baking Co. with tips I've learned along the way.

You can use to build and customize your own baking practice, based on what you like. You may tweak the flour type, baking temperature, proofing time, or cooking vessel. I hope you have fun experimenting and find what works for you!

Below the recipe, you'll find other fun Doughnet projects.

Let's get ready!

The best part about sourdough, besides its taste, is that you only need a few things:

Ingredients

• Flour - 600g
• Sourdough starter (pre-ferment) - 227g
• Water - 340g
• Salt - 2.5 teaspoons
• Baker's yeast - 1 teaspoon (optional)

Tools

• Large jar (to store starter)
• Mixing bowl
• Weighing scale
• Kitchen towel or cheesecloth
• Sharp knife or bread lame
• Oven
• Baking sheet, baking stone, or Dutch oven
• Stand mixer (optional)
• Parchment paper (optional)
• Proofing baskets, "bannetons" (optional)

Let's get started!

Now that we have all of our ingredients and tools, let's make some bread!
If you already have sourdough starter, you can skip ahead.

Making sourdough starter

Sourdough starter is the key ingredient that gives sourdough its sour flavor. It is a pre-ferment dough made up of wild yeast, lactobacillus bacteria, flour, and water.

Repeat the following steps every day for approximately three days:

1. Combine 80g each of whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and water in your jar
2. Cover with kitchen towel and keep in a warm place
3. Add all-purpose flour and water

Once you have developed a your starter, you can maintain it by feeding it equal parts starter, all-purpose flour, and water (e.g. 80g each) every week, if refrigerated, or every few days, if at room temp. You can discard the remaining starter after each feeding.

Let's bake some bread!

Now that we have a starter, we are ready to mix in a few more ingredients and bake bread.

1. Combine starter, all-purpose flour, water, salt, and baker's yeast in your mixing bowl
2. Cover your bowl and let rise for approximately 90 minutes. This step is sometimes called the "bulk fermentation".
3. Separate dough in to two separate loaves and let rise for approximately 60 minutes. This step is sometimes called, "proofing".
4. Pre-heat your oven to 500° F (with the Dutch oven or baking stone inside the oven)
5. Use your sharp knife or lame to score the dough (approx. 1/2 inch deep)
6. Place dough on baking sheet or stone and bake for 30 minutes.
   1. If you used a Dutch oven, remove lid and lower temp. to 500° F after 15 mins.
7. Carefully remove from oven and enjoy!

San Francisco, CA ❤️'s sourdough!

Can you find a sourdough loaf on the map?

Here is a loaf of sourdough in 3D!