First Sourdough Success!

After trying to make starter from scratch - which was a huge fail - I bought dried starter from Breadtopia along with some high protein bread flour. The result was phenomenal! While it certainly isn’t the prettiest bread, I am very happy with it. The flavor is outstanding! It got a little more “toasty” on the top and bottom than I would like, but not too bad. I used the beginner recipe on the Little Spoon Farm blog. If anyone has any beginner tips and tricks, I’d love to hear them.


3 Likes

That is your first sourdough, that is amazing, really great success. Very nice looking crumb and oven spring.

The one early message that I got when asking for suggestions to help improve my baking was to consider reducing the hydration. You don’t need high hydration to bake excellent sourdough bread. The recipes I was trying to bake were often around 78% hydration, and then my error added on top when the recipe said to hold back water to add in with the salt, I kept forgetting to subtract that from the water at mix. So I ended up with some frustration because my dough was very sticky. Once I got that advice and picked up on my error and aimed lower like 72-74% suddenly my dough was much easier to handle and shape. I suddenly got good oven spring and good ears. Now with some practice I’m starting to be a bit more consistent.

When I bake a new recipe, I generally reduce the hydration by 5% (if it was 80% then I’d decrease to 75%) and I have better success with new recipe when I start with the lower hydration.

You are well on your way with that bake.