Finding a basic, beginner sourdough recipe can be pretty confusing these days, with so many people claiming that they have all the secret techniques and advanced tips you need to make a high-quality loaf.
However, it seems like all these tips and tricks overcomplicate a very simple thing. Making really good sourdough bread is not hard, and you don’t need to do hours and hours of research to make something that’s just as good, if not better, than those artisan sourdough loaves from the grocery store or farmer’s market.
So, in this article, I’ll walk you through all the steps you need to know to make great sourdough bread — without overcomplicating things. I’ll teach you how to put together and care for a sourdough starter, how to mix and proof your dough, and how to bake your bread so it comes out perfect every time.
So, let’s get into it!
What’s Inside:
- How To Make a Basic Sourdough Bread Starter
- How Sourdough and Sourdough Starters Work
- Beginner Sourdough Starter Recipe: Step-By-Step
- 1. Mix Flour and Water in a Clean Glass Container
- 2. Feed and Discard Your Sourdough Starter
- 3. Keep Maintaining Your Starter Until It is 7 Days Old
- 4. Test Your Sourdough Starter
- 5. Keep Your Starter on the Counter or in the Fridge
- The Easiest Basic Sourdough Bread Recipe
- 1. Gather Your Tools and Ingredients
- 2. Mix ½ Cup Starter With Water
- 3. Add Flour and Salt and Let The Dough Autolyse
- 4. Fold Your Sourdough Dough
- 5. Allow The Dough to Rise Overnight
- 6. Fold Your Dough One Last Time
- 7. Proof The Dough
- 8. Score Your Sourdough Loaf
- 9. Place a Cover on Your Sourdough
- Baking Sourdough Without a Dutch Oven
- 10. Bake That Sourdough Bread!
- 11. Allow The Bread To Cool
- How To Store Homemade Bread
- FAQs
- That’s a Wrap!
How To Make a Basic Sourdough Bread Starter
Sourdough starters are the most important part of your sourdough bread. While it takes a bit of patience to get one started and ready to bake with, it’s very simple and only takes a couple of minutes a day for the first week.
How Sourdough and Sourdough Starters Work
A sourdough starter is a jar of flour mixed with water. After allowing the flour and water to sit for a while, the naturally occurring yeast within the flour will start to flourish and establish a yeast colony in the jar. As they grow, they will consume the sugars from the flour and make carbon dioxide bubbles in it.
Since yeast are technically bacteria, you can’t use bleached flour to make sourdough.
The yeast in your flour can also be different depending on the type of flour you use.
According to the American Society for Microbiology, there are at least 70 different types of yeast that you might find in your flour! These different yeasts all come from different locations and climates.
So, feel free to try different types of flour and experiment with the different tastes of the yeast within them!
Another great idea is to use locally milled flour for your sourdough starter. That way, you can create your sourdough using yeast that naturally occurs in your region and climate, which will ultimately help ensure your sourdough starter can stay healthy and pathogen-free on your countertop regardless of the temperature or humidity.
However, no matter what type of flour you use, all you need to do to create a starter is to mix the flour with water, then keep adding more flour to feed the yeast.
Beginner Sourdough Starter Recipe: Step-By-Step
Many people overcomplicate the instructions for making a sourdough starter. While baking is an exact science, creating your starter definitely is not.
Remember, all you need to do to help your yeast flourish is add flour and some water, then add more flour and water after the yeast eats all the sugars from the previous batch. Additionally, you will need to “change out the litter,” so to speak, discarding around ½ cup every day or week, depending on how you store your starter.
When making your starter, it will take around a week for your yeast colony to get large enough to use in your bread. During this first week, you need to do a bit more maintenance to help encourage the yeast to grow healthily.
1. Mix Flour and Water in a Clean Glass Container
To start your starter, find a clean glass jar or container. Then, add ½ cup of any unbleached flour and ¼ cup of lukewarm water to the glass container and stir. Cover the container loosely to allow the air to flow, then place it in a warm spot.
2. Feed and Discard Your Sourdough Starter
Around 24 hours after creating your sourdough starter, you will do what is called a discard.
A sourdough discard consists of taking out ½ of your sourdough starter, then adding in more flour and water to provide more nutrients to the yeast in your container. Discards and feeding are very important if you want your yeast colony to become strong enough to ward off infections later.
To perform your first discard, spoon out around half of your sourdough starter. Then, add ½ cup fresh, lukewarm water and ¼ cup fresh unbleached flour. Stir until the starter has the consistency of pancake batter. Then, cover your container loosely and let it sit for another day.
3. Keep Maintaining Your Starter Until It is 7 Days Old
For the rest of the week, keep performing discards and keep feeding your starter. You don’t necessarily have to measure how much flour and water you put into the container once you get a good idea of the right consistency and the level you want to keep in your starter jar.
Eyeballing it is just fine.
4. Test Your Sourdough Starter
By the seven-day mark, you should see bubbles in your sourdough starter. It should also be stickier than before. If you smell it, it should smell similar to store-bought yeast or sourdough bread.
However, if your sourdough starter is not bubbly, yeasty-smelling, or sticky, keep performing discards and feedings until it perks up.
Additionally, at this point, you’ll want to check for infections. If you see any dark, fuzzy, orange, or pink discoloration in your starter, it may be infected. If this is the case, it’s always better to throw it out and start over.
Still, if you see liquid floating towards the top of your starter, which may be gray or yellowish, it’s likely fine. It’s either a separation of the water from the flour or something called hooch, an alcoholic product of your yeast’s digestion.
When you see either of these liquids floating to the surface of your sourdough starter, pour off the liquid and do another discard and feeding to help keep the yeast full and healthy.
5. Keep Your Starter on the Counter or in the Fridge
Once your sourdough starter is ready to bake with, you have a decision to make. You can either keep your starter on the counter at room temperature or put it in the fridge. There are pros and cons to each one.
If you want to bake with your starter more than once a week, I recommend keeping it on the counter.
Keeping your starter on the counter makes your yeast more active, which means you will need to keep doing a discard and feeding every day. The good news is you can use that discard for baking with. But the bad news is: if you don’t want to bake that day, you may have to throw that discard away.
Pro Tip: If you choose to place your starter in the fridge, you can add a little mound of flour on top of the starter to keep feeding the yeast for over a week. However, I wouldn’t rely on that little clump to last more than a few extra days.
If you choose to place your starter in the fridge, you can add a little mound of flour on top of the starter to keep feeding the yeast for over a week. However, I wouldn’t rely on that little clump to last more than a few extra days.
The Easiest Basic Sourdough Bread Recipe
Once you have a starter, it’s time to get baking.
From start to finish, it will take around 15 hours to make sourdough bread. Thats because you need to let the dough leaven overnight for 12-18 hours after mixing your starter with the water, flour, and salt.
While 18 hours sounds like a long time, it’s really not. You’ll spend most of that time waiting for the yeast to puff up your bread. Plus, I find that once you get into a good bread-making routine, it’s really easy to mix up your dough before your last loaf is gone.
So, now that you know how long it will take to make some basic sourdough bread, let’s get straight into the recipe.
1. Gather Your Tools and Ingredients
Tools and Equipment:
- One large bowl
- A spoon
- One clean tea towel
- A dutch oven (OR a baking sheet/pan and a stainless steel bowl or aluminum foil)
Basic Sourdough Ingredients:
- 3 cups unbleached flour. I get the best results with a 50:50 ratio of White Lily Bread Flour and King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour.
- ½ cup sourdough starter
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups lukewarm water
2. Mix ½ Cup Starter With Water
Once you have all your tools and ingredients together, measure out ½ cup of your sourdough starter and put it in your large mixing bowl. Then, add 1 ½ cups lukewarm water to the starter in your bowl and stir until it’s almost completely hom*ogenous.
You can treat this as a ‘discard’ for your sourdough starter.
3. Add Flour and Salt and Let The Dough Autolyse
After your starter and water are well incorporated, add 3 cups of flour and 1 ½ teaspoons of salt to your mixing bowl. Don’t forget the salt!
Using a spoon, mix your ingredients together until the dough is not clumpy anymore.
After mixing all your ingredients, cover the mixing bowl with a tea towel and let the dough sit for around 20 minutes. This resting period, called autolyse, will activate the yeast and allow any leftover clumps of flour to become nice and damp.
4. Fold Your Sourdough Dough
After the 20 minutes are up, fold your dough to create a ball.
When making sourdough, you want the bread to contain as many air pockets and bubbles as possible. This is what will keep your bread from having a dense sponge-like consistency, and folding will only help.
So, instead of actually kneading the dough, grab the outer edges of your dough mound and pull them into the center a few times, creating a round little pocket of air. Slowly work your way around your dough until you’ve folded all the edges in.
5. Allow The Dough to Rise Overnight
After this folding, it’s time to wait! Cover the mixing bowl with your tea towel (extra bonus if you dampen the towel with warm water), and let it sit for between 3 and 18 hours.
The longer you leave your dough to rise, the better your bread will be. The rising process will open up your bread crumb, creating those signature sourdough bubbles in the middle of the loaf. Without enough time to rise, your bread will have the consistency of a dense sponge cake.
I usually allow my bread to rise for 18 or 19 hours.
I start it at some point at night, usually after I clean up the kitchen for dinner, then come back to the loaf in the morning when I’m brewing coffee. This system works great for me, and it’s pretty easy to incorporate sourdough bread-making into any routine.
6. Fold Your Dough One Last Time
After allowing the bread to rise for as many hours as possible, you’ll want to fold it again, pulling the bread’s outer edges into the center to create a round pocket of air. During this process, try not to stretch the dough too much.
If you overstretch it, the bread will become denser and less airy.
7. Proof The Dough
The last step before baking is proofing. If you have a proofing basket, it’s time to pull it out now, but if you do not, that is just fine. You can use the mixing bowl you’ve been using this whole time as your proofing basket.
If you are proofing your sourdough in the bowl, grab your bag of flour. What you’ll want to do is gently tease up the edges of the dough ball and sprinkle a layer of flour underneath it. Try not to pop any bubbles (if you can help it) as you work your way all around the loaf, placing enough flour underneath that the dough no longer sticks to the bowl.
Then, cover up that dough (with the seam side up) for another two to three hours. The proofing process will enlarge some of the smaller bubbles within your loaf and give the yeast one last chance to create more bubbles.
If you are interested in continuing your breadmaking journey, you might want to consider a proofing basket, a special fabric-lined basket with a cloth insert to increase airflow and prevent you from popping bubbles.
8. Score Your Sourdough Loaf
Once you’ve allowed your bread to proof, preheat your oven to 450 F.
Then, grab a Dutch oven, a baking container with a lid, or a baking tray. Sprinkle an even layer of cornmeal (or cornstarch) on whatever you have to bake your bread on to keep the dough from sticking or burning.
Next, gently pull your loaf from its proofing basket or bowl and plop it seam-side-down in your Dutch oven/baking sheet.
Take a knife or razor blade, then cut a shallow line (or wild pattern — it’s up to you) down the middle of the loaf. This cutting process, called scoring, will create something similar to a pleat in your loaf. This section will expand more than the rest of the bread, allowing the dough to keep rising as it bakes.
9. Place a Cover on Your Sourdough
If you have a Dutch oven, slide the lid on before placing it in the oven. Covering the loaf will help it retain moisture as it bakes, which is critical if you don’t want your bread to have the consistency of a crouton.
Baking Sourdough Without a Dutch Oven
You can bake sourdough without a Dutch oven by covering your dough with either a large stainless steel bowl or aluminum foil. As long as you can keep the loaf covered, it will retain moisture.
10. Bake That Sourdough Bread!
Finally, we’ve made it to the baking stage!
Pop your covered loaf into the oven and set a timer for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, remove the lid/foil/bowl from your sourdough loaf. Removing the lid now will allow the bread crust to become nice, golden brown, and crispy. After removing the cover, allow the bread to bake for another 30 minutes.
You’ll know your bread is done by its crust. It should be almost burnt with a rich brownish color and a nice hard texture.
Pro Tip: I highly recommend using a candy thermometer or meat thermometer when baking your sourdough. To do so, stick the thermometer into your bread’s crust about 30 minutes into baking (so, that means 10 minutes after taking off the Dutch oven’s cover). The ideal internal temperature is about 200 degrees. For a chewier crust, take the bread out of the oven when the internal temp is about 190 F. For a crispy crust, go for 205 F.
I personally use a rather outdated Pampered Chef Probe Thermometer that is almost identical to this one:
I really like this thermometer style since you can stick the probe into your loaf and close the oven to keep reading the temp consistently as your sourdough bakes. Additionally, you can set a specific target temperature for your bread on the thermometer. Then, it’ll beep like a timer once you hit that perfect temp.
That’s a lifesaver for me, as I am prone to burning things out of forgetfulness.
11. Allow The Bread To Cool
Cooling is crucial if you want to keep your bread from losing its moisture. So, before cutting into the loaf, allow it to cool for at least one hour or just wait until the loaf is no longer warm to the touch.
How To Store Homemade Bread
After your bread is done, you have several storage options available.
If you want your homemade sourdough bread to last the longest, keep it in plastic in the refrigerator. Plastic will keep the moisture in your loaf while also creating a barrier that blocks out mold and bad bacteria. Still, create a small puncture in the plastic to allow excess water to escape.
If you keep your sourdough bread in plastic on the counter, it should last just over a week. In the fridge, it will last at least two weeks.
FAQs
Is Sourdough Bread Healthier for You?
Sourdough bread can be healthier for you than other breads, but that isn’t always the case. Homemade bread is usually better than commercial breads because it contains no preservatives and is fresher. However, the health benefits depend on the flour you use.
Like other yeast-based breads, sourdough is really good for you in general. It contains more peptides, antioxidants, gut-healthy yeasts, and protein than other breads. However, sourdough can be even better for you when using a blend that includes whole wheat flour or other alternative flour.
How Is Sourdough Different From Regular Bread?
Sourdough is different from regular bread because it uses naturally occurring instead of pre-packaged yeast. Sourdough has a more complex, sour flavor than the strain of yeast that other breads use.
What Is Sourdough Made Of?
Sourdough is made of naturally occurring yeast found on grains, water, flour, and salt. Sourdough is one of the simplest yet most rewarding breads to make, especially thanks to how much money you can save by using natural yeast instead of pre-packaged yeast.
Why Is It Called Sourdough?
Sourdough is called sourdough because it has a more complex, acidic flavor than other breads. That’s because sourdough, unlike other breads, calls for naturally occurring yeast that already lives within unbleached flour.
Can Sourdough Starter Go Bad?
Sourdough starter can go bad. Starters generally only go bad if the yeast colony is underfed. Signs of a bad sourdough starter are yellow streaks, pink or orange growth, or fuzzy, dark mold and mildew that usually appears near the top of the starter.
That’s a Wrap!
If you want to download a high-res copy of this sourdough recipe card, you can click on this link to download it (I pinky promise it’s not spam):
Basic-Sourdough-Bread-Recipe-Card-1Download
I hope this basic sourdough bread recipe and starter guide has given you all the info you need to get in the kitchen! Baking your own bread is a thrifty and practical hobby with tons of perks!
I look forward to hearing about how your bread comes out! If you make some bread with this recipe, feel free to tag me on Instagram or tell me how it went in the comments below. I’d love to get some inspiration from you.
Thank you so much for reading! Happy baking to you all!
