Hello! I was wondering if you could tell me exactly how much in grams or ounces of starter and water I need to use for this recipe!!! I am not used to using cup measurements! Is the starter 100% hydration for this recipe?
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How is the dough covered when doing the two day refrigerator proofing?
I need tips on cold proofing this recipe. Would 2 days be enough? Any tips are much appreciated. Thanks!
First time baker, we were looking forward to have some home made bread but unfortunately this was not a success story…
Pretty much followed the recipe to the dot… I proofed it for 10 hours, our home temp is 75, then folded it, let it rest for 15 min, proofed again for likely an hour ( u can tell we were impatient)
The top crust was great, the bottom burnt ( I coated the Dutch oven with olive oil), the interior was moist 
Please help ! Not sure how to trouble shoot!
L
If it’s just the burnt bottom crust you’re wanting to trouble shoot, one thing that a lot of people have had success with is place a cookie sheet on the rack immediately below your Dutch oven. This apparently deflects enough heat from the underside of the Dutch oven to prevent the bottom from cooking much faster than the rest. This seems to be a problem with cast iron more than ceramic although I haven’t had enough feedback on this to draw any certain conclusions. If this cookie sheet thing works for you, please let us know.
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Hi Eric
Thanks so much for your reply… I would also like some feed back about why the bread is so condensed… it looks like it did not rise? it was moist and condensed/tight… unlike the bread u showed which looked fluffy and full of air…
Thank you for this great website and resource for first time bakers!
That would be a lot harder for me to trouble shoot only because there are so many variables. Especially with sourdough baking. I applaud you for starting off with sourdough baking as a first time baker. Bravery is helpful for stuff like this ;-). Using regular commercial yeast is not as cool, but might be a better first step. If you like the results, move on to sourdough. Just a thought.
The video was key! Stretch and fold. Actually managed to produce a loaf that rose decently, thanks!
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Cool.
I live at 5000 ft. Do I need to adjust the temp I’m cooking the bread at? And, do I need to adjust the recipe of the No Knead Sourdough for the altitude?
This has become my go-to recipe for a crusty sourdough bread that requires minimal effort in the kitchen. I scaled it up by 50% for a bigger loaf that seems to better fit my Breadtopia Clay Baker. I also lowered the hydration a bit to about 70% which makes the dough a tad easier for me to work with. If I feel guilty for not kneading I sometimes throw in a few stretch and folds, but honestly this recipe proves there’s truly no need to knead! The loaf in the photos is meeting up with soup for dinner tonight.
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Hello there,
Thanks for the recipe. I have made two loafs with this recipe: my very first loafs ever! The first one turned out be a bit flat, the second much nicer (I used a different proofing bowl).
Preparing my third bake now, but there’s one thing that I keep on encountering. After the initial rise, the dough has risen massively and is huge. But, when I take it out of the bowl to spread it and fold it, I seem to lose a lot of gas in the process, however careful I am with the dough. After that the dough doesn’t really rise anymore in the second proofing. In the oven, thankfully, it does rise somewhat again.
In the end it’s really tasty, but I would love it to be a bit less dense. How can I can retain more bubbles with the folding? My starter is a quite strong rye-only starter, so maybe I need less initial rise? So that the bread retains some rising potency for the second rise?
Thanks!
Jesse
I have not made this exact recipe, but I have dealt with dense sourdough and my starter (white and water, not rye) is very active with fast first rise.
What has done the trick for me is slowing things down with refrigeration. After an initial rise and then preshape/fold and don’t worry about knocking the gas out here, refrigerate for 8 plus hours. Then do your final shape and refrigerate again - 4-8 plus hours. There will be some rise and bubbles during both refrigeration times just not near as much as at room temp. Preheat oven and stone/dutch oven. Flour and score the cold loaf and into the oven cold.
I put my shaped dough on parchment and then into an oval shaped foil pan covered with a flour sack towl to allow it to rise up and not out in the refrigerator. I bake in a dutch oven. This method gives me a lot of oven spring and a light loaf.
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I made this bread and it taste wonderful, I only have a problem with the crust. Is there anything I can do to get a thin crust that is chewy?
Hi David,
How long did you cook your loaf for (covered and uncovered)? I’d like to make a loaf this size for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, and I’m trying to figure out how long it will take to bake.
I just took my first loaf of this bread out of the oven. It was almost perfect. The inside is gorgeous, the outside is a little burny. The bottom burned a fair amount, and
the top and one side are a bit darker than I’d like. Any thoughts on what I can change? (I think the bottom is the biggest issue, top/side may mainly be due to my slightly lopsided bread loaf)
Did you take the internal temp when you took the loaf out of the oven? I.E. if internal temp was 210, the inside might look and taste wonderful, but it might still be “perfect” at 200-205 … so less time in the oven.
What did you bake in or on?
And have you checked your oven temp with an oven thermometer?
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A few things:
Did you reduce the heat to 450f after removing the cover of your baking vessel per the instructions? If not, do! 
If so, try dropping down to 425f.
You could also try stopping the bake 5 (or so) minutes earlier.
For the bottom over-baking issue you can try putting a cookie sheet on an oven rack beneath your baking vessel which will deflect away some of the heat from the bottom and make overall temp more even.
All of these will of course interact with each other, so you might want to try just one at a time.