Making Sour Dough Bread - Step-by-step instructions for Oma's sour dough

 

Sour dough bread for the rest of us - or - Relax! It's gonna be OK.

Sour dough bread has always intimidated me.  The initial set-up, the feeding, the measuring, the timing, the commitment ... Maintaining a sour dough is like having a pet - and I'm not good with pets that don't remind me that they would like to be fed.  A sour dough was not likely to survive in my life.

But then, a few years ago, I set up a sour dough starter with the help of my adopted son. Truth be told, at the time I did it primarily to entertain said son, but sour dough has become a familiar and comfortable part of my life since then. 

In the beginning, for a few days - maybe even weeks, I obsessed over it, measured, fed, kept notes... but then, when I realized that this thing was doing just fine, I relaxed a bit.

Sour dough bread, it turns out, only sounds intimidating.  Once you get over the fear, it's really simple - and both the maintenance of the sour dough and the bread baking can be adjusted to work for the schedule of regular working folks.

The main thing to keep in mind when working with sour dough is - relax, it's going to be OK. That was my son's repeated response for every concern I had.  Every time I thought I really messed up, I heard - "Relax. It's going to be OK."

So, while you won't believe me until you've done it for a while, trust me on this one: Relax! It's going to be OK. 

Oma's "real life" recipe is based on Chad Robertson's Tartine bread.  Martha Stewart's gives a very detailed step-by-step explanation of Chad Robertson's recipe on her page "Tartine Country Bread".  My recipe is a rather pedestrian version of the same thing. If you are looking for more detail, check out her page.  Don't let her page intimidate you, though. Remember that, as in many things, there is Martha Stewart and then there are pedestrians like us - but sour dough is for everyone. 

Starter: 

Martha Stewart explains how to make a starter in detail.  However, if you know me personally or you are local, you can get some starter from me.  I will either give you some happily bubbling freshly fed starter, or some dried sour dough depending on whether you can pick it up or if I have to mail it.

To revive the sour dough, simply add water and flour to the dried crumbled sour dough flakes in a container and wait.  Watch the culture for bubbles.  It may take a few days for tiny bubbles to appear in your container.  It will take longer in the winter.  Once you see the bubbles, you are ready to start feeding the culture regularly. 

For each feeding mix 60 g of water with 30 g of the sour dough and stir 60 g of flour into the mix.  Scale the amount of sour dough up to 150 g water, 150 g flour and 75 g of sour dough, when you get ready to bake. For feedings, amounts are approximate. Most of the time, I don't weigh at all, if I feed.  For baking, they're less approximate.

Martha Steward has you feeding the larger amount all the time. If you do that, you will throw a lot of sour dough in the garbage - or you will be baking a *lot* of bread.  There is no need for that.  It's the ratio that matters.  As a matter of fact, most German recipe adaptations call for 30 g water/30g flour and 15g sour dough. The German version is the more frugal, less wasteful recipe, so that may actually be the appropriate recipe for our current situation.

Sour dough maintenance (Relax, it's going to be OK):  

If you're baking bread every few days, you need to keep your sour dough at room temperature and feed it every single day. (1 part sour dough mixed into 2 parts water with 2 parts flour added into a new container.  After a while you stop measuring this and do it by feel.) If you're baking infrequently, you can keep the sour dough in the fridge and feed it weekly.  

Most of us, who are not Martha Stewart, will forget feeding the sour dough in the back of the fridge occasionally and black strong-smelling liquid may collect on the top of the sour dough.  If that happens, grab a new container and make a paste with flour and water in it.  Pour off the black liquid (or stir it in), and add a spoon-full or two of the (old) sour dough to the (new) flour/water paste and wait. When bubbles appear, you're back in business again.  

If you think that you won't bake for a few months, you can also take some freshly risen sour dough and spread it on a baking sheet.  Allow it to dry and store the dried, crumbled sour dough in a bag or container in a cool and dry place.  It will keep forever that way.  This version is great for mailing to friends.  

It is very difficult to kill an established sour dough. 

Baking with Sour Dough:

The original recipe calls for making a starter, then making a leaven and finally baking bread.  That's way too involved for my life.  When I bake, it usually involves me waking up the sour dough, making a starter and using the starter to bake bread.  

I usually keep my sour dough in the fridge, because I only bake every few weeks.  If I decide to bake bread, I start by waking up the sour dough 2 days before I plan on baking. 

2 days before baking: 

In a clean container, make a paste from water and flour, and add some of the sour dough from the fridge. You can do this in the 2/1/2 ration; I do it by feel.  Let  the mix sit in a closed container over night.  It should be happily bubbling in the morning. If it does not, feed it again the next morning. You'll be baking before you know it. 

1 day before baking:

This is the only day where timing actually matters, because the starter has to be happy and active at

the time the bread gets started.  I usually start in the morning: I put 150 g of water in a tall 1 L container, then mix in 75 g of the happy sour sough from the day before. Add 150 g of flour, stir well and wait.

I usually use a flour mixture for this step - 1/2 wheat and 1/2 whole wheat.  Play with flour varieties for your own bread.  Different varieties of flour will change the amount of water you need, but you will develop a feel for the "right" consistency after a while. 

After you set this up, you wait.  You want the leaven to double in size.  This will take 4-8 hours depending on the temperature in your house and the happiness of your sour dough.  Unlike active dry yeast, sour dough yeast is very forgiving.  If your dough doubles in size after 6 hours, it will still be happy after 7 hours, so don't obsess over the timing too much.  But do obsess a little bit here.  If it falls back down after doubling, you may need to start over.  I will call this thing leaven from now on.  Leaven is sour dough that is at the peak of its activity. 

I try to time the doubling of the leaven such that I have at least 2 hours left in my day to make the bread, shape it and get it into the fridge over night.

Preparing the Loaf 
To make the dough, put 700 g of water into a medium size bowl and add 200 g of the leaven.  It's fun when the leaven passes the "float test" as you add it to the water. It will do so if you catch pure flour leaven it at its peak and gently scoop it in the water.  If it sinks, you've either not waited long enough - or too long. Or you stirred it, or you have inclusions..or a million other things happened.  Don't worry about the float test. its nice to watch itm but not necessary. 
Either way, if the leaven sinks, you may have to watch the bread over the clock a little more.  Your bread may take a little longer or be a little flatter.  It will still taste just fine, because - just like cheesecake - even ugly bread tastes good.  So, relax!  It will be OK.  However, if the leaven floats, pat yourself on the back, marvel at the trapped CO2 bubbles and smile. You've done good.

Stir the leaven into the water.  I actually use a whisk to mix the leaven in very well.

Add 1000 g of flour to the bowl with the leaven/water mix.  

I use 900 g of bread flour and 100 g of whole wheat, but you can use any flour mix you want. You may have to adjust the amount of water a bit based on the type of flour your're using.  Flour with a higher gluten content tends to need a little more water, so does rye flour.  Again, you'll develop a feel for it - and it will be OK even if the first loaf is a little flat. 

Mix the flour into the water/leaven mix using your hands or a spoon until the flour is incorporated into the dough.  Cover the bowl with a towel and set it at a warm place for 30 min.

In the meantime, measure 50 g of water and 25 g of salt into a small container.

After 30 minutes, check your dough.  Pour the water/salt mix over the dough.  Then wet your hands with water and fold the dough by loosening it from the side of the bowl and folding it towards the middle. If the dough has become somewhat smooth on the bottom, you know that things are going really well.  If the bottom of the dough looks like the top, there is still hope anyway. Turn the bowl 1/4 turn and repeat until you have made 4 folds. 

Cover with the towel and set a timer for 30 minutes - or for 2 hours, depending on what your life looks for the next 2 hours.  Ideally, you will fold the dough every 30 minutes (4 quarter turns with wet hands) over the next 2 hours.  If your life does not allow for that, it's fine.  Relax!  It will be OK.

After 2 hours - or so - gently scoop the dough on a floured surface and cut it in half.  (It's probably fine, if it's 3 hours, but probably not so fine, if you forget about it for 4 or 6 hours.  You will still have bread, just flatter bread...)  The dough is enough for 1 big loaf or 2 regular loaves.

I cut the dough in half, shape it into a round by pulling it across a wooden board and then set it upside down into a bread basket that is lined with a floured flour-sack towel.  If you're not that fancy, a colander lined with a flour-sack towel or some linen will work.  A container with holes works better than a container without holes.  If you don't know how to shape bread by pulling it over a wooden board, don't worry about it.  Just gather than lump of dough, put a little flour on top and drop it - upside down - onto the floured towel in your container.  If you have lots of huge bubbles in your dough, poke them with a stick, or don't.  Relax!  It will be OK.  Cover the container with a towel, give it 30 minutes to recover from being handled and let it retire in the fridge for the night.

You don't have to put the bread in the fridge over night.  You can allow the bread to rise one more time in the basket and bake it the same day.  However, I found that the dough is much easier to handle after a night in the fridge.

When I work with it the same day, I usually struggle turning the dough over onto a non-stick sheet.  I fight with the dough sticking to the towel.  I mess up the slash in the middle, because my knife is not quite sharp enough for the soft room-temperature dough.  I have trouble with maneuvering it into the baking vessel etc. 

The night in the fridge solves every one of those problems, so I always allow for the night in the fridge except in cases of bread emergency.  (I have my sister-in-law to thank for the fridge idea, by the way!  She modified my original instructions to make sense with her life and she shared her experiences with me. I then adjusted my recipe based on her advice.  Live and learn in action! She also pokes her )

Baking Day

Sometime the next day, preheat the oven to 500 F.  I own a Dutch oven and I bake in that.  Any heat-proof container that you can fashion a lid for will do, though.  The only requirement is that it is tall enough to hold your bread.  Preheat the container in the oven.

After the oven is preheated, remove the container your bread was rising in from the fridge.  Remove the towel from the top and turn your loaf over onto a non-stick sheet.  Gently and carefully remove the towel that the dough has been resting on.  If the dough sticks to the towel, spray the towel with a little water and it will easily separate from the dough. If you don't have a spray bottle, just put a wet towel on top for a minute (Relax, it will be OK.)  Slash the dough with a cross in the middle to allow for expansion, or don't.  It's no big deal, if you forget.  Take the preheated Dutch Oven (or baking vessel) out of the oven and remove the lid.  Insert the bread into the Dutch oven using the non-stick baking sheet as a means to move the bread.  Close the lid.  Put the Dutch oven back into the oven.  Turn the oven down to 450 F and set the timer to 30 min.

After 30 min, remove the lid and set the timer for another 20 min.  This is the first time you get to look at your loaf of bread.  Chances are you will be pleasantly surprised at the size of the loaf sitting in your container and you will be very proud of the fruits of your labor.  Be proud!  You just baked bread.  Resist the urge to mess with the loaf, though.  Give it another 20-30 minutes of baking time with the lid off.  (That's 50-60 minute total baking time, 30 min with the lid, 20-30 min without the lid.)

Take the Dutch oven out of the oven after 20-30 minutes.  Drop the bread onto a cooling rack or other surface.  Careful, it will be hot.  Knock on the bottom of the bread.  If it sounds hollow, it's done. If the bottom of your bread is too brown for your taste, put a cookie sheet on the rack below the Dutch oven next time.  

Congratulations, you just baked your first loaf of sour dough bread!

Cheat sheet I use in my kitchen:

Feeding before the big day:

Making the bread and baking:

  

The short version (TLDR)

Oma's Sour Dough Care And Feeding Instructions

Regular feedings: 
1 part sour dough (e.g. 15 g)
2 part water (e.g 30 g)
2 part flour (e.g 30 g)

Feeding on the big day:
75 g sour dough
150 g  water
150 g flour (mix of flour and whole wheat, if desired)
Let rise until (almost) doubled while still convex on top

Making the dough: 
700 g water
200 g very active sour dough/leaven
mix
900 g white flour
100 h wheat flour
mix gently until combined
rest covered 30 min

prepare 25 g salt in 50 g water
add to dough

cover dough and let rest 30 min
fold dough over to the middle
cover and rest - repeat for a total of 2 hours

Divide dough in half, shape and put into floured bread form
Leave in the fridge O/N

Baking the bread
Heat Dutch oven to 500 F in oven
Turn heat down to 450 F
Bake bread 30 min with lid on
Then remove lid and bake another 20-30 min
It's done, if it sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom

and so I don't lose the page:

Das Rezept fuer meine Deutschen Freunde (The German version of the recipe)
https://www.besondersgut.ch/helles-weizensauerteigbrot/

Link to the video I made:
https://youtu.be/2GY_u_y6SbU

[originally published on my personal blog here on 4/5/2020, updated and moved to this blog on 10/14/23]