

If you'd like to look at how I feed my starter daily, look at my sourdough starter maintenance routine. If you don't have a strong and mature sourdough starter, read my guide to creating a sourdough starter because having a starter is mandatory for making this Beginner's Sourdough Bread.

Creating a sourdough starter is easy: mix flour and water for a few days in succession, and eventually, thanks to the bacteria and wild yeasts on the grain, natural fermentation will begin.
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Before we look at how to make sourdough bread, you need to create a healthy sourdough starter that shows consistent signs of fermentation each day.
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(Some bakers prefer making sourdough with commercial yeast to gain the benefits of each: increased flavor, digestibility, and keeping quality from sourdough fermentation, plus the strong rise and predictable fermentation from commercial yeast.) Creating a Sourdough Starter There’s nothing inherently wrong with commercial yeast, but I prefer to make bread this way because of the wonderful flavor and texture, the health benefits like increased bioavailability of minerals and nutrients, increased keeping quality thanks to the acids generated during natural fermentation, and the fact that it requires so few ingredients (just three!) to make something so delicious. When this gas becomes trapped in the dough’s airtight gluten matrix, the dough begins to rise, resulting in a final loaf of bread with a light and airy texture.Īll recipes on The Perfect Loaf are naturally leavened in other words, you won’t find any commercial yeast or instant yeast here. The wild yeasts produce carbon dioxide gas and ethanol during fermentation. Generally speaking, bacteria are primarily responsible for producing organic acids (lactic acid and acetic acid) that contribute to sourdough bread's flavor, texture, and storage qualities. A sourdough starter culture is used to seed fermentation in new dough when making sourdough bread. Sourdough is a specific type of bread created through a natural fermentation process involving suitable bacteria and wild yeasts in the environment (i.e., the air and even a baker’s hands) and, most importantly, on the grain itself.

But, before we go on this beginner’s sourdough bread recipe, let’s first take a look at what sourdough bread is. This how-to guide starts with explaining baking terms and definitions so that we will have a common vocabulary once we get to the recipe.Īnd then, each step of the process has lots of information to ensure you understand what is happening and what to do. That’s why I’ve put together this beginner's sourdough bread tutorial and recipe-it will give you confidence as you take your first steps in baking sourdough bread from your home kitchen. Starting to make your first loaf of sourdough bread can be daunting. This recipe will give you confidence as you take your first steps in baking sourdough bread from your home kitchen.

It’s such a simple thing, and yet it brought me so much joy to see my family and friends tear into a freshly baked loaf that I wanted to bake every day of every week. It was–and still is–exciting to mix such elemental ingredients and to see them produce beautiful, life-giving sustenance: it is modern-day alchemy. There was something about the whole bread-making process that I found captivating. Be sure to see the end for a complete video walkthrough of me making this recipe! My Beginner's Sourdough Bread has a light, open crumb (interior) with a deeply-colored, crunchy crust.Īs the new obsession set in, I started making fresh sourdough bread for every meal. This Beginner's Sourdough Bread post has several videos where I walk you through each step of the sourdough bread-making process. And you know what? We ate the entire thing. “Yeah, pretty good bread.” Only later did she fess up that it was “actually just okay, to be honest.” But all-in-all the bread had a nice rise, a crunchy and well-colored crust, and it did taste great considering it was my first loaf of any kind of bread. I folded ever-so-gently while I held my bread until, hours later, I pulled my first sourdough from the oven. It wasn't until I read a sourdough book cover to cover and painted it with post-it notes, highlights, and dog-eared pages that I felt ready to put my newborn sourdough starter to work. I'd heard others talk about flat and dense loaves-dough that never rose. I was intimidated to make my first loaf of sourdough bread.
