This playbook documents how you should feed your starter. It assumes you have a starter already.

State

Note

Using a transparent container to store your starter makes it easier to know how active your starter is.

There is a gradient of which how hungry/active your starter is, and it can usually be gauged by the volume that your starter takes up.

Not fed in a while: Not bubbly, and may have a clear fluid on top (referred to as hooch). This fluid smells like alcohol and is a byproduct of fermentation. A build-up of this fluid usually indicates that your starter needs to be fed. Pour it out before the next feeding. This will be the smallest in volume it can be.

Reference Recipe: King Arthur no knead

Supplemental Videos Watched:

• Bake the Perfect Sourdough Bread: A Step-by-Step Guide (Natashas Kitchen)
• Make Beautiful Sourdough | NYTimes

This playbook documents the process needed to create a sourdough from your starter in as much detail as possible.

Prologue

• Make sure the sourdough starter is very active (it was fed recently)
  • If refrigerated, feed it a bit and leave it up to 2 hours in room temperature.

Recipe

• 600g bread flour into bowl
• 18g salt (3% of flour weight) into bowl
• 227g (1 cup) sourdough starter into bowl
• 397g of lukewarm water
• Mix well
• Bulk Fermentation:
  • Set dough in room temperature and wait for an hour
    • Modification: Set dough in oven for warmer environment. If there is a “proof” setting, this can be used.
    • Windowpane test: Dough should be stretchy enough allow you to create a windowpane
  • Stretch and fold, wait for an hour
    • You can use water to lubricate; Be gentle with the dough
  • Stretch and fold, wait for an hour
  • Stretch and fold;
  • (experimental addition) This may lead to bigger air pockets.
    • Bulk rise 3 hrs
    • 30 mins relax
• Transfer dough to floured mat, and shape by folding it in
  • Then also cup sides to get a round shape.
• Cold Fermentation
  • Once shaped, flour bread basket (with cloth or without, optional) with bread flour, or rice flour if available
  • Place dough seam side up into basket
  • Cover with a lid and place in fridge for 8 hours, but we can maximize for more.
• Once dough is ready
  • Place a tray at the bottom of the oven. This helps reduce intensity of heat on the bottom of the bread, leading to less browning.
  • Put dutch oven (lid off) into oven.
    • Lid can be put on during the preheat, but it is a bit easier to put the lid on afterwards (since you’ll have to take it off when you put the bread in).
  • Preheat oven to 450 F.
• Once oven is preheated
  • Take sourdough out of fridge.
  • Score sourdough. Make sure to do enough such that it has room to expand.
  • Take dutch oven out
    • Sprinkle generous amounts of flour on the bottom
    • Put dough in.
  • Put dutch oven back in, wait for 35 mins @ 450 F
  • Lid off 20 mins @ 450 F
    • The oven I currently use runs a bit cooler, so I do 25 mins lid off.
• Once bread is baked, leave on cooling tray to cool, for approximately 1 hour.

Other Helpful Notes

• If the bottom of your bread is a bit dark, you can place a tray under your dutch oven when baking to help deflect some heat from the bottom.
• To achieve a softer crust, place some water in the oven when you take the lid off.
  • The exact quantity was unknown, my sources say it was “a bit from the kettle”.

Metadata

Changelog

• 2024-12-26: Initial Version
• 2024-12-30: Separated bulk fermentation and cold fermentation. Also removed experiment to bring dough temp up after cold fermentation.
• 2025-01-09: Updated instructions to recommend lid off when preheating the dutch oven.
• 2025-04-09: Added a section for some more modifications.