Easy Sourdough Bread for Beginners (No Scale Needed!)

Simple Sourdough Bread (No Scale)

This simple sourdough bread recipe is straightforward and easy to make. With just a couple ingredients, you can make beautiful artisan sourdough bread at home without fussing with a kitchen scale. Beautifully crusty on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, this process is fool proof. Sourdough baking does not have to be complicated.

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Benefits of Homemade Sourdough

You control the ingredients! This sourdough recipe contains no junky preservatives or weird things in your bread. Just flour, salt, warm water, and starter. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Now, the mixture of flour you use can vary. I have used whole wheat and that gives a chewier heartier texture. Bread flour and all-purpose flour work great too. You can play around and use a mixture of half all-purpose and half whole wheat flour; whatever your heart’s desire! I tend to use an organic unbleached all-purpose most often.

Sourdough is one of the oldest forms of grain fermentation and is thought to originate from ancient Egypt. Back in the ancient days, you couldn’t just run to the grocery store and buy a packet or jar of commercial yeast. People kept an active starter to make their bread. Sourdough bread is made with a collection of wild yeast from its environment that, when properly fed with flour and water at room temperature, will in turn, ferment the grain. This fermentation causes lower amounts of gluten making it easier to digest. It also contains gut healthy properties such as pre and probiotics. Think of it this way…the active bacteria in the starter has partially digested the gluten for you, making it more tolerable for people who may be sensitive to gluten.

What is a Sourdough Starter?

First of all, what is a sourdough starter? You hear people talking about feeding it like it’s a member of their family. Some even name their starters. But what the heck is it? And why do you need it? The starter is basically flour and water that is left out to ferment from collecting the naturally occurring bacteria and wild yeast in its environment and fed periodically with more flour and water. To prevent the amount of starter from getting massive, you would typically discard half before feeding it with more flour and water the next day. To prevent waste, there are many sourdough discard recipes you can find such as cookies, banana bread, and biscotti. It’s also a great way to incorporate fermented grains into your diet.

How do I take care of my starter?

There are a lot of different preferences people have to storing and caring for their sourdough starter. I used to keep my starter in a big bowl on the counter and feed it every other day and discard half. This seemed like such a waste to me because I found I wasn’t using it every single day. As I began to learn how often I used my starter, I adopted a new way of storing and caring for it that works for me. As you use it and get comfortable with bread making, you will be able to see what makes sense for you. It really all depends on how often you are making things. I’m not an expert bread maker by any means, but I have been making my own bread for 3 years now and I’ve learned a couple things to simplify the process.

My starter routine:

I store about 1 cup of sourdough starter in my fridge, in a pint size mason jar with an airtight lid. Typically, the night before I want to make bread, I will pull out my starter from the fridge and dump it into a medium sized bowl. I add about 1 cup of flour (I use organic, unbleached all-purpose) and 1 cup water (filtered is best). I use a Danish whisk to mix my starter until there are no lumps and the consistency is like a pancake batter. After this, I will pour about 1 cup back into my mason jar and back into the fridge it goes. I cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let sit out on the counter overnight.

In the morning, my starter is usually very bubbly and happy. You should see lots of bubbles and more volume in the bowl. This is the perfect time to use it. If you let too much time elapse, the starter will go flat, and you will need to feed it again.

“Hibernation mode”

Storing your starter in the fridge puts it into a “hibernation” mode. I have stored my starter in the fridge for 3 months before and it was still good to use once I “woke” it up and fed it. You’ll likely have a lot of grayish liquid on top. It’s ok, don’t panic! That liquid has a name and it’s called “hooch”…weird right? Dark gray or brown hooch is perfectly normal and it just means your starter is hungry. I’ve heard many people say they saw that on top of their starter so they threw it away! Don’t! If that happens, just pour that part off and add your fresh flour and water. You’ll know if your starter is still alive if it starts to form lots of bubbles. If you the liquid or hooch on top is ever reddish or pink, you’ll want to throw it out.

Trouble shooting

Sometimes when I haven’t used my starter in a while, a grayish liquid will settle to the top of my mason jar. Don’t panic! This just means your starter is hungry. Pour the liquid off and use the starter as normal.

The warmer the environment, the quicker your fed starter will process. If my kitchen is super cold, I will turn my oven on “warm” for about a minute, then turn it off and put my covered, fed starter in the warm oven. (Just warm, NOT hot or you will kill all the good bacteria in your starter.) It will get bubbly much faster than if you were to leave it on the countertop. Just don’t forget it’s in there! I have gone to preheat the oven for dinner and almost cooked my starter!

Do I need special supplies to make sourdough?

Not really…

If you just want to try it and you don’t know if you’re even going to make it again, you don’t need to buy a bunch of special supplies for it. If you see that you are going to make it often enough, having a few bread making supplies definitely makes the process a little easier and more enjoyable, at least in my opinion.

Supplies:

I have linked all of the sourdough supplies I use below.

The following are the typical supplies you would need to make this simple sourdough bread:

2 lined banneton baskets or proofing basket: These are for storing your dough for bulk fermentation. They also help in shaping the dough into the shape you want your loaf to be. Personally, I have a round basket and an oblong loaf shaped basket. I like having the option to do different shapes. If you don’t have a banneton basket, you can use a large bowl lined with a tea towel or a towel lined loaf pan!

I have also seen some people use rice flour to coat their baskets instead of a floured tea towel. Find what works for you!

A lame: A lame is just a tool to score the top of the bread to make pretty designs but also helps the bread to vent. It’s basically a razor blade with a handle. If you don’t have a lame, you can use a razor blade (be careful!) or use a very sharp paring knife.

A Dutch oven: I have a 7 quart cast iron enameled Dutch oven (linked below). Baking the loaf in the Dutch oven with the lid on, allows steam to gather and creates a nice rise in your dough. If you don’t have a Dutch oven, you can still make beautiful bread using a loaf pan or baking stone.

Sourdough bread bow knife: This is definitely a luxury item in my opinion, but oh my goodness, it makes my life easier! With a bow knife you can get very thin even slices of bread which is really nice if you’re wanting to make sandwiches with it. If you don’t have one, a serrated bread knife will totally do the job! Hot tip: After your bread has cooled, store in a large Ziploc for a few hours to a day. Then take it out and slice. It will be softer and much easier to slice through!

Storing your bread

Remember, this simple sourdough bread recipe doesn’t have any preservatives or other junk in it, which is a great thing BUT your bread won’t last as long as a storebought loaf of bread. This took some getting used to for me. We could never get through a loaf of sourdough before getting moldy. This is what I do now: If I know we probably won’t use all of it in a week, I will slice the entire loaf and store in a Ziploc freezer bag and into the freezer it goes! Bread thaws on the countertop very quickly, so this way, I can pull out a couple pieces at a time to thaw or pop in the toaster. They toast up perfectly! And I’m guaranteed to have fresh bread each time. Otherwise, I would say it lasts about 4-5 days in your pantry.

Simple Sourdough Bread Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup starter
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/3 cup filtered water (I avoid using tap water because of the potential chlorine levels)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients.
2. With wet hands, mix until the dough is formed.
3. Cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and allow to sit in a warm spot in your kitchen for 20 min.
4. With a wet hand, pull the dough straight up as far as it will stretch, then fold over and repeat 3-4 times. Let the dough rest.
5. Repeat the stretching and folding every 30 minutes 4-6 times.
6. After completing the stretching and folding, allow the dough to rest for 2 hours. You should see the dough rise quite a bit at this point. You may even see some air bubbles!
7. Carefully remove the dough onto a flour dusted countertop and divide into two equal parts using a bench scraper or a large chef’s knife.
8. Form into a ball by carefully folding the dough over itself and pulling toward you, using your work surface for surface tension. This will help the dough retain its shape.
9. Place each ball of dough into a lightly floured, towel lined banneton basket.
10. Cover with plastic wrap or wrap a plastic bag over the banneton basket and store overnight in the refrigerator. This is called the bulk fermentation process.
11. When you are ready to bake, preheat your Dutch oven (with the lid on) in the oven at 500 degrees. You are going to want a hot oven!
12. Lightly flour a sheet of parchment paper and carefully remove your dough from the banneton basket.
13. Lightly flour the top and score with a bread lame or sharp razor blade.
14. Once the Dutch oven is preheated, carefully remove from the oven and remove the lid. Place the dough and parchment paper into the Dutch oven using the parchment paper to transfer. Place the lid back on.
15. Bake at 500 for 18 minutes.
16. Remove the lid and bake for an additional 18 minutes at 475. This additional time is going to create that beautiful crispy crust that we are wanting!
17. Carefully remove the bread from the Dutch oven by lifting it out by the parchment paper. The top of the loaf should be a nice golden brown.

Note:

You can let your dough chill in the fridge for up to 48 hours or until you’re ready to bake it.

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Danish Whisk

Sourdough bread making kit

Cast Iron Dutch Oven

Sourdough Bread Knife