Fall Sourdough Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the biggest mistake you can make with your sourdough starter? ›

You bake your sourdough too soon

Whether you've just adopted a sourdough starter of your own, or have made a sourdough starter from scratch, you'll need to wait a few days to a week until your starter is ready to bake. Yes, your starter might look bubbly, but that doesn't make it strong enough to use.

When your starter is reliably rising to double or triple its size and falling in the jar anywhere between 4-8 hours after you feed it (dependent on your ambient conditions and the flour you feed with) it is ready to bake with. When the starter is at the peak of its rise, it is called ripe, fed, or mature.

Past-Peak and Falling: If your starter/leaven is past-peak and is beginning to fall in height, it is beyond the optimal point to use it for baking, but it will still work. The only thing to consider is that once a starter peaks, it starts to become more acidic as it falls.

Do I have to discard my sourdough starter? It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.

Compared to whole wheat flour, rye flour is said to be the most nutrient- and amylase-dense option for a sourdough starter. Overall, it has a lower gluten protein content than wheat flour, which means it produces slack, sticky, and dense doughs.

Baking soda or bicarbonate of soda can be used in sourdough bread to create a less sour loaf. Added after bulk fermentation, but before shaping, it can help to create a lighter, more fluffy loaf of sourdough.

stir your starter in between feedings - try stirring it twice in between feedings and really give it a chance to get oxygen into the mix. This will help to activate your starter without too much effort.

Yes, you can bake with sourdough starter straight from the fridge | King Arthur Baking.

How many times should I feed my sourdough starter before baking? ›

If you bake a lot of sourdough treats, you may want to keep it on your counter, at room temperature. While this means feeding it twice a day, it also means your starter will be ready to bake with at the drop of a hat (er, oven mitt). However, many of us don't want the commitment of twice-a-day feedings.

You need a very small number of live yeast cells to reactivate a starter. To try this method, put a piece of bread into a jar with filtered water and let it rest for a few days. Watch for any bubble activity. When you see some bubble activity, mix 30g of that water with 30g of flour and wait for it to react and revive.

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

Sourdough starter goes flat when it's been left too long for that temperature and it runs out of food. The starter fills with air, was not used in time, runs out of energy, and deflates. Deflation destroys the airy structure of the sourdough starter.

As you can see (or smell!), a sourdough starter should have a sour, tangy, and yeasty aroma, with subtle undertones depending on the type of flour used. However, offensive or foul odours such as rancid, putrid, or mouldy smells are signs that something has gone wrong with the starter.

You Don't Let the Bread Proof Long Enough

But the easiest and most dangerous rookie mistake to make is not letting it proof long enough. Under-proofed dough will result in huge uneven tunnels in your finished bread, or a leaden damp texture.

PROBLEM - You may have baked a loaf of sourdough which appears to have large tunnels of air or just one big hole surrounded by a tighter or dense crumb. CAUSE - This is typically caused by under fermenting your dough, but can also happen through using too much flour when you shape your bread.

Can Bad Sourdough Starter Make You Sick? Absolutely! Using moldy sourdough starter is a recipe for disaster. If there's even a tiny bit of mold on your sourdough starter, you need to toss it.