10 Genius Ways to Bake Better Sourdough Bread

You have a starter.

What should you do next?

You’vemade or acquired a sourdough starterand are ready to bake homemade sourdough bread.

The path to a prime loaf?

Not quick and easy.

Learning to make sourdough is in many ways like learning how to ride a bike.

You’ll fall pretty hard a few times.

But once you learn, you’ll be set.

Wake Up Your Starter

Has your starter been slumbering in the fridge?

If so, it’ll be a little sleepy, leading to a reduced rise.

The solution is to wake up your starter, revving its yeasts back into gear.

Feed your starter the night before you plan to bake.

Leave it out overnight.

How long should you wait before you use it to make dough?

All starters work at different rates, so the time to double will vary.

Consider rye, spelt, hard winter wheat, or whatever special wheats your local mill carries.

This is a painless way to layer deep, robust notes into your sourdough.

Hydration is a baking term that refers to water-to-flour ratio.

Dough with higher hydration is wetter.

The best sourdoughs use wet, high-hydration doughs.

These can be hard to work with, but you’ll get used to the feeling.

Simply combine your flour and water before any of the other ingredients, fully incorporating the flour.

Let the integrated flour-and-water mass sit for up to an hour.

And then mix in the other ingredients and forge ahead.

This gives the bread plenty of time to rise and the starter to work its magic.

At room temperature, leave dough out for roughly four hours.

Over this time, it should grow significantly, gaining about 50 percent of its size or even doubling.

If it’s rising slower, give it extra time.

Divide it if you’re making more than one loaf.

Shape your dough into loaves, then cover them with cloth or plastic wrap.

Leave them out for 2 to 3 hours.

You’ll know they’re done proofing by the finger test.

Dust your surface with a thick coating of cornmeal and/or flour before putting on your proofed bread.

We recommend baking sourdough in a Dutch oven.

This lets you cover your bread for the first one-third of its baking time, allowing steam to build.

This steam helps the loaf reach an ideal color and texture of crust.